Consumers prop up slowest recovery in memory

Here we come to save the day. A shoppers carries purchases on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, Calif.,

By John W. Schoen, Senior Producer

As government and businesses cut back on spending in the first three months of the year, the American consumer came through.

The pace of a feeble economic recovery slowed to a 2.2 percent annual rate, according to the Commerce Department's initial attempt Friday to add up the total output of goods and services produced by the U.S. economy. That's down from a 3 percent rate as 2011 ended.

The report was a disappointment for economists and forecasters who had been expecting a slightly better showing. But few saw any troubling new signals in the data, which confirmed that the current recovery is the slowest in memory.

"There's nothing catastrophic happening, this is just slow growth and this underscores that the economy is on sound footing but nothing more," said Steven Baffico, chief executive at Four Wood Capital Partners in New York.

Some slowing had been expected, in part because of a large impact on the data from a big swing in inventories. In the last three months of 2011, inventories added $54 billion to growth; that number fell to $17 billion in the first quarter.