A blog post from BEA Director Vipin Arora
A couple of years ago, I wrote about our success in harmonizing BEA’s national, industry, and regional statistics. This was a monumental achievement. It ensured that for any given update, the national, industry, and regional statistics cover the same periods, use the same vintages of underlying source data, and are based on comparable methods and classification frameworks.
One thing that did not change with that harmonization, however, was the separate timing of our data releases. Currently, quarterly estimates of national and industry gross domestic product and their major components are released together in a single news release covering the third estimate of U.S. GDP. Quarterly state GDP statistics are included in a separate news release that comes out after those national numbers each quarter.
That will soon be changing.
On April 9, for the first time, state, industry, and national economic data will be delivered to customers in a single news release with the third estimate of U.S. GDP—providing BEA’s most comprehensive picture of changes in the economy. (That news release will also include quarterly state personal income data. U.S. personal income data will be issued at the same time in a separate monthly news release.)
By accelerating state GDP (and state personal income) into the same news release with our national and industry numbers, we’re responding to our customers’ needs. We are making it easier than ever for you to access, use, and analyze some of BEA’s most important economic information at the same time.