US gross domestic product - the broadest measure of a nation's overall economic health - grew at an annual rate of 4
US gross domestic product - the broadest measure of a nation's overall economic health - grew at an annual rate of 4.2 per cent in the second quarter of 2018, the fastest pace since the third quarter of 2014, according to the second estimate from the Department of Commerce. The second-quarter growth rate was revised upward from the department's 'advance' estimate, in which it projected a 4.1 per cent growth rate.
US GDP grew at a 2.2 per cent rate in the first quarter after increasing 2.3 per cent in 2017, 1.5 per cent in 2016 and 2.9 per cent increase in 2015.
Commerce's Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) said the upward revision reflected higher-than-expected nonresidential fixed investment and private inventory investment, as well as lower imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP.
Those factors were offset in part by a downward revision in consumer spending, but BEA noted that the 'general picture of economic growth remains the same.'
Real exports of goods and services jumped 9.1 per cent in the second quarter, down from 9.3 per cent in BEA's first estimate, but still up significantly from a 3.6 per cent increase in the first quarter. Imports, meanwhile, slipped 0.4 per cent, compared with a previously projected 0.5 per cent increase and a 3 per cent uptick the previous quarter.
Economists with the Federal Reserve had forecast US GDP to increase at a 2.8 per cent rate for all of 2018 before slowing to a 2.4 per cent rate in 2019 and 2 per cent in 2020, but the latest figures put the economy on pace to reach the Trump administration's stated goal of 3 per cent annual growth.
