Minnesota’s economy shrank slightly in early 2024 amid agricultural sector declines that slammed much of the Midwest.

While real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increased in 39 states and the District of Columbia between the fourth quarter of 2023 and the first quarter of 2024, Midwestern states experienced just small gains or drops, according to U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) data released Friday.

The country’s biggest GDP decline was 4.2% in South Dakota; Minnesota saw a 0.8% loss. The BEA also reported declines in North Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa and Illinois.

“It wasn’t a great GDP report for the country overall, but for the Midwest, it was a really bad outcome,” said Scott Anderson, chief U.S. economist and managing director at BMO Capital Markets.

The U.S. economy as a whole grew 1.4% in the first quarter thanks to retail trade; construction; finance and insurance; and health care and social assistance, according to the BEA. While agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting increased in 34 states — and led growth in six — it offset growth in nine states, all in the Midwest.

Prices for key regional crops — including corn, soybeans and wheat — were down in the first quarter, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Crop losses due to heavy rains and flooding this spring and summer could worsen the situation in coming quarters.

“These weather disasters certainly don’t help,” Anderson said. “Sometimes they can if it cuts supply enough that prices stabilize, but I’m not seeing any evidence of that. … The more we have to cope with climate change and these once-in-500-year floods, this is something we’re all going to have to learn how to navigate.”

National first quarter growth, the slowest since spring 2022, accompanied a deceleration in consumer spending even as personal income rose in all 50 states.

Americans have pulled back on spending as elevated interest rates continue to take a toll. That’s what rate hikes intend to do: The Federal Reserve has raised its benchmark rate to a 23-year high of 5.25% to 5.5% in an effort to pump the brakes on the economy and bring inflation down to its 2% target.

Consumer Price Index data released June 12 showed U.S. inflation rose 3.3% year-over-year in May, prompting speculation that the Fed might lower rates this year.

This year “is shaping up to be a very different business environment and economic environment than what we saw last year,” Anderson said. “I do think we’re going to see more pressure on consumption continuing. Some of that is being made up for now with strong government spending and continued resilience in business investment, but we’re not sure that can last into the second half of the year.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The Minnesota Orchestra’s president and CEO is leaving for the same job in Texas.

Michelle Miller Burns, who has led Minnesota’s largest performing arts organization since 2018, will take charge of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, where she had held several leadership roles before coming to Minnesota. She starts with Dallas in September.

Popular with board members and musicians, Burns kept the orchestra playing — outdoors, on TV and radio and via livestream — during a pandemic that silenced most performing arts organizations across the country. She oversaw the orchestra during difficult financial times, posting several record-breaking deficits before finally pulling its budget into the black over the most recent fiscal year.

And she led the orchestra’s search for a new music director, bringing Danish conductor Thomas Søndergård to Minneapolis.

“My husband Gary and I have always considered Dallas a second home, so this new role was a deeply enticing opportunity,” Burns said in a statement Friday. “Even as this transition is announced, though, my heart is full of gratitude for the outstanding musicians and music-making of the Minnesota Orchestra and for the many board members, colleagues and friends who have made my six years in the Twin Cities so joyful and meaningful.”

Burns, who was born in Iowa and grew up in the Chicago area, will succeed Kim Noltemy, Dallas’ president and CEO since 2018, who is headed to the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

During her time in Dallas, Burns’ roles included interim president and CEO, chief operating officer and vice president of development.

The Minnesota Orchestra board will soon start a search for her successor, according to a news release.

A Burnsville man defrauded a California electronics business out of more than $1.2 million by posing as someone who could broker big deals with high-profile companies, according to federal charges.

Thomas Thanh Pham, 52, was charged this week in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis with three counts of wire fraud in connection with a scheme that targeted the San Jose business starting in 2019 and lasted into the following year.

Pham appeared in court Thursday and remains free on a personal recognizance bond ahead of another hearing on Tuesday. Court records do not list an attorney for Pham, and he declined Friday to speak with the Star Tribune about the allegations.

According to court documents:

Pham, as CEO of Enterprise Products, purported to provide consulting and financial services to commercial clients involved in engineering and manufacturing.

Pham presented himself as a broker with supposed business relationships with large well-known companies and claimed he could arrange service agreements between an electronic manufacturing services company based in San Jose — not identified in public court records — and business affiliates in the electronics and technology sectors.

In June 2019, Pham proposed that Enterprise Products could facilitate multimillion-dollar contracts with large companies such as RetailNext, Siemens and Texas Instruments.

Pham supplied his client with bogus documents, including fabricated contracts, correspondence and business proposals. Pham required that his client pay a “deposit bond” of $1.278 million on a pledge that the company would gain millions of dollars in repair service business including $38 million in a deal with RetailNext, a global provider of analytics to brick-and-mortar retailers.

“Pham also arranged for an associate of his to pretend to be a RetailNext executive in negotiation meetings with [his client’s] CEO and Pham,” the federal indictment read.

In support of the scheme, Pham arranged the delivery to his client of about 20 samples of electronic devices that supposedly required repairs. However, Pham covered up that the samples had been stolen.

Pham had nothing more than excuses whenever his client inquired about its money or demanded a refund.