Bloomberg Forecast Points to US GDP Rise of 1.4 percent

The U.S. economy probably expanded in the second quarter at the slowest pace in a year as a softening labor market caused Americans to cut back on spending, economists said before a report today.

Gross domestic product, the value of all goods and services produced, rose at a 1.4 percent annual rate after a 1.9 percent gain in the prior quarter, according to the median forecast of 81 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. Consumer purchases, which account for about 70 percent of the world’s largest economy, may have grown at the weakest pace in a year.

Households are restraining spending just as Europe’s debt crisis and looming U.S. tax-policy changes curb corporate investment, hurting sales at companies from United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS) to Procter & Gamble Co. (PG) Cooling growth makes it harder to reduce unemployment, helping explain why Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke told Congress last week that policy makers stand ready with more stimulus if needed.

via Yahoo Finance

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