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U.S. Economy: GDP Shrinks at Fastest Pace Since 1982 (Update1)
By Timothy R. Homan

Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. economy shrank the most in the fourth quarter since 1982 as consumer spending recorded the worst slide in the postwar era, a trajectory that’s likely to continue in coming months.

The 3.8 percent annual pace of contraction was less than forecast, with a buildup of unsold goods cushioning the blow. Excluding inventories, the decline was 5.1 percent, the Commerce Department said today in Washington. A survey of purchasing managers also indicated today that business in January was the weakest in almost 27 years.

“The economy carried a lot of negative momentum into the first quarter,” former Federal Reserve Governor Laurence Meyer said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. Without President Barack Obama’s planned stimulus, the deepening recession will cause the jobless rate to soar to 9.5 percent or higher, he said.

Job cuts announced this month by companies from Starbucks Corp. and Pep Boys - Manny, Moe & Jack to Eastman Kodak Co. mean there’ll be little respite in the first half of this year, economists said. The Obama administration used today’s figures to reinforce its call for Congress to pass a stimulus package in excess of $800 billion to arrest the economy’s decline.

“This is a continuing disaster for America’s working families,” Obama said at the White House today. “They need us to pass the American Recovery and Investment Plan,” designed to save more than 3 million jobs, he said. House lawmakers passed the stimulus Jan. 28, moving action to the Senate next week.

Stocks, Treasuries

Stocks fell, after futures rallied initially as some investors were encouraged by the smaller GDP drop than forecast. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Stock Index decreased 2.3 percent to close at 825.88. Treasuries advanced, sending benchmark 10-year note yields to 2.84 percent at 4:29 p.m. from 2.86 percent late yesterday.

Today’s report underscored the hit to households from the biggest wealth destruction on record. Consumer spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of the economy, dropped 3.5 percent following a 3.8 percent fall the previous three months. It’s the first time decreases exceeded 3 percent back-to-back since records began in 1947.

Consumer Sentiment

The Institute for Supply Management-Chicago said today its business barometer decreased to 33.3 from 35.1 the prior month. The index has remained below 50, the dividing line for contraction, for four months. Meanwhile, consumer confidence rose less than forecast this month, a Reuters/University of Michigan index showed. The gauge climbed to 61.2 from 60.1 in December.

A separate report today showed that employment costs in the U.S. rose at the slowest pace in almost a decade in the fourth quarter as companies limited wage gains and benefits. The Labor Department’s employment-cost index rose 0.5 percent.

GDP was forecast to contract at a 5.5 percent annual pace last quarter, according to the median estimate of 79 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.

“Without the stimulus plan, the economy would be flat to declining in the second half of the year,” said Meyer, who is now vice chairman of Macroeconomic Advisers LLC in Washington. With the recovery package, the unemployment rate may peak at 8 percent instead of 9.5 percent or higher, he added.

Economy Shrinks

The world’s largest economy shrank at a 0.5 percent annual rate from July through September. The back-to-back contraction is the first since 1991.

Economists at Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. in New York lowered their forecasts for growth in the first three months of 2009 following the report. They both now estimate the economy’s worst drop will occur this quarter.

For all of 2008, the economy expanded 1.3 percent as a boost from exports and government tax rebates in the first half of the year helped offset the deepening spending slump.

The GDP price gauge dropped at a 0.1 percent annual pace in the fourth quarter, the most since 1954, reflecting the slump in commodity prices. The Federal Reserve’s preferred measure, linked to consumer spending and excluding food and fuel, rose at a 0.6 percent pace, the least since 1962.

Unadjusted for inflation, GDP shrank at a 4.1 percent pace, the most since the first three months of 1958. The drop in so-called nominal growth explains why corporate profits slumped as the year ended.

‘Severe’ Recession

“This is a severe, steep, broadly based recession” with “no quick fix,” Stephen Roach, chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia Ltd., said in a Bloomberg Television interview from Davos, Switzerland today.

Americans may pull back further as employers slash payrolls. Companies cut 524,000 workers in December, bringing total job cuts for last year to almost 2.6 million. The unemployment rate last month was 7.2 percent, up from 4.9 percent a year before.

More cutbacks are on the way. Kodak, Target Corp. and Texas Instruments Inc. are among U.S. companies that announced thousands of layoffs this week.

Target, the second-biggest U.S. discount retailer, said this week it will slash 600 existing jobs and 400 open positions, mainly in its hometown of Minneapolis. It also said it will close a distribution center in Little Rock, Arkansas, later this year that employs 500 workers.

“We are clearly operating in an unprecedented economic environment that requires us to make some extremely difficult decisions,” Chief Executive Officer Gregg Steinhafel said in a Jan. 27 statement.

Less Investment

The economic slump intensified last quarter as companies also retrenched. Business investment dropped at a 19 percent pace, the most since 1975. Purchases of equipment and software dropped at a 28 percent pace, the most in a half century.

The slump in home construction also accelerated, contracting at a 24 percent pace last quarter after a 16 percent drop in the previous three months.

PPG Industries Inc., the world’s second-biggest paint maker, said this week that it may cut as many as 4,500 employees, or 10 percent of its workforce, because of weak global demand from automakers and homebuilders.

“We are probably looking at the sharpest downturn that anyone working at our company has seen,” Chief Executive Officer Charles E. Bunch said in an interview Jan. 27. “The regions outside of North America, which had been really helping PPG in the first three quarters of last year, have sort of caught the disease that started here in the U.S. with the credit crisis.”

Global Slowdown

The slowdown in global demand indicates American exports are unlikely to contribute to growth in early 2009. World growth will be 0.5 percent this year, the weakest postwar pace, the International Monetary Fund said Jan. 28.

Inventories grew at a $6.2 billion pace in the fourth quarter, the first gain in more than a year. Its contribution to growth was the biggest since the fourth quarter of 2005.

The Fed this week said it’s prepared to purchase Treasury securities to shore up lending and warned inflation may recede too rapidly. Fed policy makers voted to leave the benchmark interest rate as low as zero.

The GDP report is the first for the quarter and will be revised in February and March as more information becomes available.

To contact the reporter on this story: Timothy R. Homan in Washington at thoman1@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: January 30, 2009 16:30 EST