The U.S. economy slowed in the first quarter of 2016 as real gross domestic product expanded at an annual rate of 0.5 percent, according to the advance estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Real GDP is adjusted for inflation and represents "the value of the production of goods and services in the economy," according to the bureau. The advance estimate of 0.5 percent growth was a decline from the 1.4 percent growth seen in the fourth quarter of 2015.
The first quarter real GDP of 0.5 percent, which includes performance from January, February and March of 2016, was slightly higher than the 0.2 percent growth seen in the first quarter of 2015.
"Today’s GDP report showing the weakest period of economic growth in two years is the latest sign the Obama economy isn’t working," said Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus. "Despite all of the evidence Obama’s liberal policies are leaving middle-class families behind and holding back growth, Hillary Clinton thinks this president doesn’t get enough credit and wants to double down on his failed agenda."
"Reining in out-of-control Washington regulation, tax reform that lowers rates and simplifies the code, repealing and replacing Obamacare, and reducing the debt are essential to delivering the turnaround our economy desperately needs, but Democrats are fighting each and every one of these reforms," he said.
According to the report, "the deceleration in real GDP in the first quarter reflected a larger decrease in nonresidential fixed investment, a deceleration in PCE, a downturn in federal government spending, an upturn in imports, and larger decreases in private inventory investment and in exports that were partly offset by an upturn in state and local government spending and an acceleration in residential fixed investment."
The bureau will release its second estimate for the first quarter of 2016 on May 27.