GDP Decreases 4.8% in Q1 2020

Real gross domestic product (GDP) decreased 4.8 percent in the first quarter of 2020, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported today.

In the previous quarter, Q4 2019, real GDP had increased 2.1 percent. In the full year 2019, real GDP increased 2.3 percent, and in 2018, it increased 2.9 percent.

The Bureau says the -4.8% decline in first quarter GDP “was, in part, due to the response to the spread of COVID-19, as governments issued “stay-at-home” orders in March… [which] led to rapid changes in demand”. Although, they also clarified the “full economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic cannot [yet] be quantified”.