US Economy Contracts In First Quarter Of 2025

U.S. real gross domestic product (GDP) decreased at a rate of 0.3% in the first quarter of 2025, according to statistics released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) on Wednesday.

The first quarter decrease follows the U.S. economy growing by 2.4% in the fourth quarter of 2024, after increasing 3.1% in the third quarter, according to the BEA. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s GDPNow, a running estimate of real GDP growth based on available economic data, projected a -2.7% GDP growth rate in the first quarter of 2025.

The report comes after the U.S. added 228,000 jobs in March, significantly beating the 140,000 economists had projected. Meanwhile, inflation cooled slightly in March, with the consumer price index increasing 2.4% and beating economists’ expectations, according to a report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released on April 10.