First Quarter Economy Delivers Weakest Performance in 3 Years

‘Expanding at an Annual Rate of Only 0.7 Percent’

President Donald Trump may be tweeting and telling everyone he can what a great job he’s doing, but the just-released first-quarter results from the Commerce Dept. paint a vastly different picture. 

“The economy barely grew, expanding at an annual rate of only 0.7 percent,” in the first quarter, according to The New York Times, which notes “just two months ago, economists predicted that first-quarter growth would be roughly 2 percent.”

The paper of record calls it “a sharp decline from the 2.1 percent annual rate recorded in the final quarter of last year,” and “the weakest quarterly showing in three years.”

“The first-quarter performance upset expectations for a Trump bump at the start of 2017.”

On Twitter, many were quick to blame – or mock – President Trump:

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Image by Kaiyan via Flickr and a CC license