First-quarter growth for the US was revised down from an annualised rate of 2.2 per cent to 1.9 per cent on a day of gloomy data for the world's largest economy. The downward revision to gross domestic product came alongside a weak jobs report from payrolls processing company ADP and a rise in new claims for unemployment insurance. Economists await two crucial reports on Friday - official payrolls data for May and the purchasing managers" index for manufacturing - but it is getting harder to blame weakness on temporary factors, such as unseasonal weather earlier in the year, rather than an underlying loss of momentum. How well the US economy stands up to renewed uncertainty in Europe will influence global growth prospects as well as president Barack Obama's chances of reelection this autumn. There was one sign of hope: gross domestic income, an alternative measure of national output that can be more accurate than GDP, rose 2.7 per cent in the first quarter compared with 2.6 per cent in the last quarter of 2011. That is still not strong, but is more consistent with the drop in unemployment in the early months of this year, and does suggest greater momentum in the economy. The US Federal Reserve looks to GDI as a way to test the reliability of early GDP estimates and judge whether they will later be revised. The downward revision to GDP reflected a smaller build-up of inventories, higher imports than previously thought, and lower spending by state and local governments. New claims for unemployment insurance, the highest-frequency data on the labour market, rose 10,000 to 383,000 for the week to May 26. Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg had expected the number of claims to stand at the 370,000 mark. The prior week's level of 370,000 was revised up to 373,000. The four-week moving average, which smooths out seasonal quirks, rose 3,750 to 374,500, but this is still below 384,250 reported at the end of April. Some analysts were a little more positive. "The labour market has come of the boil a little since spring arrived, but the slowdown is much more modest than the one we saw last year, " said Paul Ashworth, chief US economist at Capital Economics. Meanwhile, the ADP employment report suggested that the private sector created only 133,000 jobs in May, compared with an April estimate of 113,000, which was downwardly revised from the original report of 119,000. The ADP figure closely tracks the official payrolls figure over time although it tends to be more volatile. "If the official payroll number is in line with ADP - and statistically speaking, ADP is by far the best indicator of payrolls on a month-to-month basis - then May will be the third straight soft month," said Ian Shepherdson, chief US economist at High Frequency Economics. He reiterated the impact of high petrol costs between December and April on employment growth, but said "with prices now barrelling back down, we look for better numbers in the summer."