The US real gross domestic product increased at an annual rate of 4.1 percent in the second quarter of 2018, according to the “advance” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The last time the GDP was above 4 percent was the third quarter of 2014.
In the first quarter, real GDP increased 2.2 percent (revised). The Bureau emphasized that the second-quarter advance estimate released today is based on source data that are incomplete or subject to further revision by the source agency (see “Source Data for the Advance Estimate” on page 2). The “second” estimate for the second quarter, based on more complete data, will be released on August 29, 2018.
The increase in real GDP in the second quarter reflected positive contributions from personal consumption expenditures (PCE), exports, nonresidential fixed investment, federal government spending, and state and local government spending that were partly offset by negative contributions from private inventory investment and residential fixed investment. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, increased.
Summary of historical updates
The picture of the economy presented in the updated estimates is very similar to the picture presented in the previously published estimates.
* For 1929–2012, the average annual growth rate of real GDP was 3.2 percent, unrevised from the previously published estimates. For the more recent period, 2007–2017, the growth rate was 1.5 percent, 0.1 percentage point higher than in the previously published estimates.
* For 2012–2017, the average annual growth rate of real GDP was 2.2 percent, the same as in the previously published estimates. The percent change in real GDP was unrevised for 2012; revised up 0.1 percentage point for 2013; revised down 0.1 percentage point for 2014; unrevised for 2015; revised up 0.1 percentage point for 2016; and revised down 0.1 percentage point for 2017.
* For 2012–2017, the average rate of change in the prices paid by U.S. residents, as measured by the gross domestic purchasers’ price index, was 1.2 percent, 0.1 percentage point lower than in the previously published estimates.
* For the period of contraction from the fourth quarter of 2007 to the second quarter of 2009, real GDP decreased at an average annual rate of 2.7 percent; in the previously published estimates, it decreased 2.8 percent.
* For the period of expansion from the second quarter of 2009 to the first quarter of 2018, real GDP increased at an average annual rate of 2.2 percent, the same as previously published.
More of BEA’s findings HERE.