Welcome to VoteFacts. Today we are going to take a walk through some facts relating to economic growth, a hot media topic lately. For our sake and yours, we're going to keep it simple, and we're peering into this New York Post article to give us our jump start. From that article, they say:
"Growth of 2 percent for the first quarter was already scary, down from around 4 percent at the end of last year."
We're not weighing in on whether or not anything is "scary", but we are bringing forward some facts relating to economic (GDP) growth. Here we go...
First, economic growth for the first quarter of 2012. Here is what the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) reported:
• Real gross domestic product -- the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States -- increased at an annual rate of 1.5 percent in the second quarter of 2012. In the first quarter, real GDP increased 2.0 percent. BEA Report
Economic growth for the first quarter of 2012 was 2.0 percent, and for the second quarter of 2012 it was 1.5 percent. So let's move on to the BEA report on growth at the end of last year:
• Real gross domestic product (GDP) increased 3.0 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011. BEA Report
• In the third quarter of 2011, real GDP increased 1.8 percent. BEA Report
And, finally, to put those numbers into a little bit of perspective, here is a statement on GDP growth from the Congressional Research Service (CRS)
• Growth at less than a 2% annual rate may not be fast enough to close the output gap and keep the unemployment rate from rising. Through 2010, much of the economy's upward momentum was sustained by the transitory factors of inventory increases and fiscal stimulus. CRS, Page 3
We guess that some people might interpret 3% as being near 4%, but we also think that some others may not. So we want to know what you think - Cast your vote now.
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VoteFacts Original Post Date: August 2, 2012
