In the first quarter, the U.S. economy expanded at the same 1.8% clip that was initially forecast, the Commerce Department said in its second estimate of quarterly gross domestic product released Thursday.

Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had been expecting GDP growth to be revised up to 2.2% for the January-March quarter.

The economy had expanded at a 3.1% rate in the fourth quarter.

In a separate report, the Labor Department said weekly jobless claims rose 10,000 to 424,000 in the latest week.

Stock futures  erased the bulk of their gains after the reports. Treasury prices turned up and the dollar fell further.

The big surprise in Thursday’s report was a downward revision to consumer spending.

Real consumer spending was estimated to have increased at a 2.2% annualized clip, compared with the initial estimate of a 2.7% rate.

The weaker spending was offset by upward revisions to business investment and inventories.

But overall, the data left the first quarter looking weaker, as higher oil prices and severe weather sapped the strength seen in the fourth quarter. A third and final revision will be released next month.

Final sales, which exclude inventory behavior, were revised down to a 0.6% gain in the first quarter from the initial estimate of a 0.8% increase. This follows a 6.7% gain in the fourth quarter.

The report also included revised labor-compensation data that were much weaker than first estimated.

Real disposable personal incomes increased at a revised 0.8% annual rate in the first quarter, compared with the initial 2.9% estimate. Income in the fourth quarter was also revised lower.

The primary question for economists is how strong the bounce-back will be in the second quarter.

At the moment, economists surveyed by MarketWatch are forecasting a growth rate of about 3.4% for the second quarter.

But many analysts have been cutting their growth estimates for the April-June quarter due to weaker-than-expected data. An influential tracking estimate conducted by Macroeconomic Advisors now projects second-quarter growth below 3%.

The economy has grown 2.3% in the past four quarters, slightly below the 2.75% rate that most economists say is the long-run potential. It’s the weakest year-over-year growth since the fourth quarter of 2009.

Not adjusted for inflation, the economy grew 3.8% to $15.01 trillion.

The weakness in the first quarter has given Federal Reserve officials fresh reasons to delay any move to the exit from its ultra-accommodative monetary policy.

The Fed will complete its latest round of bond purchases at the end of June and appears ready to hold policy steady until it is more certain that the economy is strong enough to bring down the nation’s high unemployment rate.

A few Fed officials are agitating for the Fed to tighten before the end of the year but most Fed watchers have penciled in the first rate hikes in 2012.

In its first estimate, the government said first-quarter corporate profits before tax increased $113.8 billion, or 6.3%, to $1.91 trillion. For the year, corporate profits before tax climbed 7.8%.

Aftertax profits fell 0.9% in the first quarter, after a 3.3% gain in the final three months of 2010.

There was some slight good news on inflation. The core personal consumption price index increased at a 1.4% annual rate, down from the initial estimate of 1.5%.

MarketWatch