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GDP
About This Indicator
What Is GDP?
The market value of all final goods and services produced in the United States, from haircuts to fighter jets, at the prices of the day, so it grows with output and inflation. Before 1947 the quarters are estimated from yearly figures.
Why Does It Matter?
Every dollar spent on a final product ends up as someone's pay, profit, or rent, so GDP is roughly the nation's income: the base taxes are drawn from, and what every share-of-GDP chart here divides by. When it climbs fast, old debts shrink against the incomes that repay them.
Can Politics Influence It?
Taxes, spending, and regulation move output at the margin. Over longer spans its inflation answers mostly to the Federal Reserve, though oil shocks can move it faster.
Key Idea
Nominal GDP grew about 10% a year in the 1970s and under 6% a year in the 1990s, yet real output grew a little over 3% a year in both decades: the difference was inflation. A steep stretch of this line can mean rising prices as easily as rising output.
Not Scored
Source: BEA. NIPA Table 1.1.5 (A191RC).
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