Mar 2006: Latest US GDP Growth

Here are the latest facts about the growth of the US economy, followed by my assessment of those facts.

[UPDATE: Click here for a brief, explicit summary of the math.]

I still say that the two-quarter trend is probably a more accurate estimate of our current growth.  I explained why eleven months ago, and I haven’t seen any new evidence to the contrary since then; in fact, the subsequent quarterly results have only strengthened the hypothesis that a two-quarter trend yields a better estimate of true GDP growth.   

Bottom line:  I’m sticking with the “alternate” method; it says that our real growth rate is 2.9%, and our nominal growth rate is 6.4%.  That’s a lot better than the official numbers of 1.7% and 5.2%, respectively. 

Yet another reason to be optimistic.