Mass. economy advanced in 1st quarter despite weather
The state’s real gross domestic product grew at an estimated annual rate of 0.9 percent in the first quarter, according to the Current Economic Index released Wednesday in the journal MassBenchmarks.
MassBenchmarks is published by the UMass Donahue Institute in collaboration with the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
The state’s growth surpassed that of the U.S., whose gross domestic product (GDP) grew at an annual rate of 0.2 percent, according to the advance estimate of the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, MassBenchmarks reported.
“Record snowfall and weak global economic conditions dampened growth in the first quarter, but the state economy has proven to be resilient in spite of these dual headwinds,” a statement Wednesday from MassBenchmarks said.
In the first quarter, the statement said, Massachusetts payroll employment expanded at a 1.6 percent annual rate, down from 2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2014. Nationally, payroll employment grew at a 2.2 percent annual rate in the first quarter.
The state's unemployment rate declined by half a percentage point in the first quarter, from 5.3 percent in December to 4.8 percent in March. Meanwhile, the U.S. rate fell from 5.6 percent to 5.5 percent.
MassBenchmarks also revised downward its estimates for the fourth quarter of 2014, saying the state economy expanded at a 2.9 percent annualized rate while the nation grew at a more modest 2.2 percent. The adjustment from its earlier estimate of 4.7 percent is “due to a decline of 0.8 percentage points in estimated productivity growth and a decline of 1.0 percentage points that is largely the result of downward revisions to state job growth in November and December,” Wednesday’s statement said.
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