It was the worst showing since a 0.8 percent growth rate in the second quarter of 1995. On Wall Street, stocks seesawed throughout the day as doubts about earnings and the economy lingered. The Dow Jones industrial average closed up 14 points at 9,799. 1.4 percent rates previously thought. CBS News Correspondent Jim Axelrod reports some of the nation's leading economists are mixed on just where the economy stands now.
Some analysts believe output actually shrank in the first quarter.
Paul Kasriel, chief economist at the Northern Trust Co., who is in that camp, estimates GDP declined by 0.3 percent in the current January-March quarter. Other economists, however, believe the economy in the first quarter is either growing at a slow pace of around a 0.8 percent rate or about the same pace posted in the fourth quarter. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said in early February that he thought the nation's economy might be stalled. He said last Sunday that the economy probably remained in positive territory in the just ending first quarter, with a growth rate of between 0.25 percent and 0.75 percent. But as inventory stacks up and orders slow down, Delphi, the world's leading auto parts supplier, is forced to cut 11,500 jobs.