(NYTIMES) — Repeating an all-too-familiar pattern, the American economy slowed to a crawl in the first quarter of 2015, weighed down by a weaker trade performance, falling business investment and still-cautious consumers.
At 0.2 percent, the annualized growth rate last quarter was better than the winter wipeout in the first quarter of 2014, when the economy contracted at a 2.1 percent rate. But the figures released on Wednesday by the Commerce Department confirm other signals in recent weeks that the economy, which was hit again by harsh weather in large portions of the nation, began 2015 by treading at water at best.
“The U.S. economy stumbled badly in the first quarter,” said Scott Anderson, senior vice president and chief economist at Bank of the West in San Francisco. “Modest growth in the fourth quarter of 2014 turned into virtually no growth in the first quarter of 2015.”
