U.S. economic growth could be close to flat in the first quarter, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta suggested in its latest model. The Atlanta Fed Bank’s GDPNow estimate on Jan. 28 suggested that real gross domestic product growth could be a minuscule 0.1 percent in the January-to-March period. While it’s not an official forecast for the Atlanta Fed, the institution notes that “it is best viewed as a running estimate of real GDP growth based on available economic data for the current measured quarter.” Last week, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that fourth-quarter real GDP growth came in at 6.9 percent, 0.4 percentage points above the final GDPNow model. As a result, this could accurately represent what to expect in the national economy in the coming months. President Joe Biden recently championed the latest GDP reading, celebrating the best growth since 1984. “The GDP numbers for my first …