American economy's fall is the deepest since 1982

The uS economy deteriorated far more than priviously thought in the fourth quarter, according to new revisions of government data, casting fresh doubt about the cances of a recover this year.


With falloffs in consumer spending and exports, gross domestic product declined ad a 6.2 % annual rat in the forth quarter of 2008 , according to a Commerce Department report . The agency's first estimate for GDP, reported in January, was for a 3.8 % decline

Besids the revised GDP, economic indicators for the first two months of the year point to a deepening recession-and the prospect of a dismal first quarter, too Every week in February , more than 600,000 people filed new claims for unemployment insurance, and the unemployment rate rose to 7.6 % in January, from 7.2 % in December.