US GDP Grows 1.7 Percent in Q2, Beating Expectations, Major Revision to Earlier Quarters

The Bureau of Economic Analysis today released its much anticipated advance estimate of second quarter GDP growth, along with rebenchmarked data for earlier quarters. Q2 growth was reported as 1.7 percent, hardly scintillating, but better than some analysts had expected. However, growth for Q1 was revised down from 1.8 percent to just 1.1 percent, and Q4 2012 was revised down from a feeble 0.4 percent to a near standstill at 0.1 percent. All the numbers are quarterly data stated at annual rates.
The best way to see what has been going on since the first of the year is to look at the old, the rebenchmarked, and the newly revised data on a sector-by-sector basis, as in the following table:



The first thing we see in this table is that the contribution of consumption to real GDP growth slowed from  1.54 percentage points in Q1 2013 to 1.22 percentage points in Q2. Q1 consumption, in turn, was revised downward from a contribution of 1.83 percentage points. Consumption of durable goods picked up slightly in Q2. The slowdown was about evenly divided between services and nondurable goods.>>>Read more

Follow this link to view or download a classroom-ready slideshow with charts of the latest GDP data