MADRID, 26 May. (EUROPA PRESS) –

The gross domestic product (GDP) of the United States experienced a decrease of 0.4% in the first quarter of 2022 compared to the previous three months, according to the second estimate of the data published this Thursday by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. of the Government (BEA, for its acronym in English), which confirms the initial reading, released in April.

The macroeconomic data for the first quarter represents a correction compared to the fourth quarter of 2021, when the US economy registered a quarter-on-quarter expansion of 1.7%.

The Office has attributed the decrease observed between January and March to the rebound in Covid-19 cases due to the omicron variant and the decrease in payments by the Government as part of its pandemic aid packages. Other factors such as supply chain problems or high inflation have also affected.

With these data, the country’s GDP registered in the first quarter was 2.8% higher than that registered in the fourth quarter of 2019, just before the pandemic hit the United States. In this way, the body has maintained the forecast published the previous month. In the fourth quarter, GDP was 3.1% above pre-pandemic levels.

In pure annualized terms, the Bureau’s preferred way of presenting the data, US GDP contracted 1.5% in the first quarter of the year, compared with an annualized increase of 6.9% in the fourth quarter. This represents a decrease of one tenth compared to the initial estimate, which expected a fall of 1.4%.