Unexpected negative growth in the United States in the first quarter of 2022. US gross domestic product fell in the first three months of the year by 1.4%, far worse than the roughly 1% rise expected by the consensus, and after the growth trend of + 6.9% at an annualized rate recorded in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Consumer spending, however, strengthened, rising by 2.7%, compared to the estimated + 2.5%, and the core PCE – a parameter that measures core inflation carefully monitored by the Fed – advanced by 5.2%, less than the + 5.4% expected.
The effect of the jump in infections of the Omicron variant in the first months of the year and the sharp rise in inflation, with the headline figure jumped by 8%, over +7.3, weighed on the trend of the American economy. % expected, at the strongest pace since the early 1980s.
The turnaround in US growth was also caused by the beginning of the war in Ukraine, with the invasion of the country by Vladimir Putin’s Russia launched on 24 February.
The contraction was caused in particular by the components of trade and inventories, which subtracted 2.3 pp and 0.84 percentage points respectively from US GDP.