Real personal consumption expenditures for all food (including supermarkets and restaurants) decreased 14.8%

Real gross domestic product -- the output of goods and services produced by labor and property

located in the United States -- decreased at an annual rate of 6.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008,

(that is, from the third quarter to the fourth quarter), according to preliminary estimates released by the

Bureau of Economic Analysis.  In the third quarter, real GDP decreased 0.5 percent.

               The GDP estimates released today are based on more complete source data than were available for

the advance estimates issued last month.  In the advance estimates, the decrease in real GDP was 3.8

percent (see "Revisions" on page 3).

               The decrease in real GDP in the fourth quarter primarily reflected negative contributions from

exports, personal consumption expenditures, equipment and software, and residential fixed investment

that were partly offset by a positive contribution from federal government spending.  Imports, which are

a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, decreased.

               Most of the major components contributed to the much larger decrease in real GDP in the fourth

quarter than in the third.  The largest contributors were a downturn in exports and a much larger

decrease in equipment and software.  The most notable offset was a much larger decrease in imports.

               Final sales of computers subtracted 0.01 percentage point from the fourth-quarter change in real

GDP, the same contribution as in the third quarter.  Motor vehicle output subtracted 2.04 percentage

points from the fourth-quarter change in real GDP after adding 0.16 percentage point to the third-quarter

change.