The U.S. economy continued to grow early this year, but at a sharply slower rate as strong consumer spending was offset by higher prices and pockets of weakness in other sectors.

Gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, increased at a 1.6 percent annual rate in the first three months of 2024, down from 3.4 percent at the end of 2023, the Commerce Department said Thursday.

Taken on its own, the downshift in growth is not necessarily worrisome, particularly given that the Federal Reserve has been trying to cool off the economy. And the weaker first quarter numbers were driven in part by big shifts in business inventories and international trade, which often swing wildly from one quarter to the next. Measures of underlying growth were stronger.

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