BEA will release this year’s annual update of gross domestic product and related statistics beginning Sept. 30, part of our regular effort to better measure the U.S. economy. For the first time, updated state and county statistics will also start to flow to the public on the same day as the national and industry numbers.
At the Bureau of Economic Analysis, we update and refine our statistics each fall by bringing in more complete source data that were not previously available and incorporating methodological improvements.
BEA typically updates the past five years of statistics, providing data users with a consistent time series. This year the update period for most of the statistics will run from the first quarter of 2021 through the first quarter of 2026. Some state and county statistics will be updated back to 2009 or 2013.
As previewed in a June 24 Survey of Current Business article, this year’s methodological updates will improve inflation-adjusted consumer spending statistics and the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index. The improvements involve three components of the PCE price index:
- Portfolio management and investment advice services: This change will better reflect the timing and quantity of services consumed. The quantity of portfolio management services will be derived using a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Current Employment Statistics-based quantity extrapolator from the portfolio management and investment advice industry. This improved methodology will replace deflating nominal consumer spending on these services with the BLS producer price index (PPI) for portfolio management and investment advice services.
- Legal services: This change will replace source data that has become volatile and can’t be corroborated. A BEA composite price index derived using detailed PPIs for selected legal services consumed by households will replace the consumer price index (CPI) for legal services beginning in 2024. The CPI for legal services, mostly unpublished since 2023, was last published for the month of September 2024. After that month, BEA used unpublished CPI values provided by BLS. The unpublished CPI values, however, do not meet BLS publication quality guidelines and have recently exhibited erratic changes that cannot be corroborated and are not consistent with other source data.
- Computer software and accessories: This change will better reflect the composition of products included in this category. A BEA-composite price index derived using the CPI for computer software and accessories; the PPI for game software publishing; and the PPI for hosting, active server pages, or ASP, and other IT infrastructure provisioning services will replace the CPI for computer software and accessories.
On source data, BEA will incorporate data not available for earlier estimates. Those data include:
- Census Bureau Annual Integrated Economic Survey data
- Census Bureau Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances
- Internal Revenue Service Statistics of Income data
- Federal government budget data
- Department of Agriculture farm income statistics
- National Science Foundation annual surveys
- BEA’s International Transactions Accounts’ annual update results
For national numbers, the annual update will include GDP, GDP by industry, gross domestic income, and related components.
For state and local numbers, the update will cover state and county GDP and personal income, state personal consumption expenditures, and related components.
The reference year for BEA index numbers and chained-dollar estimates will not change and remains 2017.
