Real gross domestic product – the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the U.S. – increased at an annual rate of 4.1 percent from the second quarter to the third, according to the third estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the second quarter, real GDP increased 2.5 percent.
The GDP estimate released today is based on more complete source data than were available for the second estimate issued Dec. 5. In the second estimate, the increase in real GDP was 3.6 percent. With this third estimate for the third quarter, increases in personal consumption expenditures (PCE) and in nonresidential fixed investment were larger than previously estimated.
The increase in real GDP in the third quarter primarily reflected positive contributions from private inventory investment, PCE, nonresidential fixed investment, exports, residential fixed investment, and state and local government spending that were partly offset by a negative contribution from federal government spending. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, increased.
The acceleration in real GDP growth in the third quarter primarily reflected an acceleration in private inventory investment, a deceleration in imports and accelerations in state and local government spending and in PCE that were partly offset by a deceleration in exports.
