(Reuters)
New economic reports indicate the U.S. economy actually shrank by 1 percent in the first three months of 2014, instead of growing by .1 percent as originally believed.
It marks the first time the U.S. economy has contracted in three years, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Those are bad numbers for President Obama and the Democrats – especially in an election year – which is why they’ll want to pay close attention to the new way officials in the United Kingdom are “growing” their economy.
According to CNN Money, “The British government is now including prostitution and narcotics sales in its official Gross Domestic Product (GDP) statistic. That’s the oft-cited measure of how much a country’s economy grows or contracts.”
Government officials estimate the shadowy activities add $16.7 billion a year to the overall economy, and say they’re including illegal drugs and prostitution in GDP figures because other European Union nations do, too.
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