U.S. economy still ‘very, very strong,’ despite expected drop in GDP growth-official

WASHINGTON Reuters – U.S. data due out Thursday is expected to show slower economic growth in the first quarter, mainly due to a less robust jump in business inventories, but the overall economy remains strong, a senior Biden administration official said on Wednesday.

The Commerce Departments advance reading of firstquarter gross domestic product, due out at 8:30 a.m. ET 1230 GMT, should not be interpreted as a sign that the economy is headed in a bad direction, the official said.

“Businesses continue to add to their inventory, it‘s just that they didn’t do as fast as they did in the previous quarter,” the official said. “If you get under the hood of the GDP number tomorrow I think youre likely to see that economic conditions are still very, very strong.”

Economists polled by Reuters expect growth to have slowed to an annualized rate of 1.1 in the first three months of 2022 from a 6.9 rate in the fourth quarter of 2021.