Announcements

In June, BEA will speed up and expand our statistics on U.S. international trade in services, including adding detail on some of the most dynamic services, such as research and development, intellectual property, and financial services.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) announced today that Deputy Director Mary Bohman is  the acting Director of the Bureau, overseeing the production of official economic statistics that provide a comprehensive, up-to-date picture of the U.S. economy.
 

BEA will release prototype statistics on Sept. 20 showing the role that outdoor recreation – pursuits like bicycling, RVing, and fishing – plays in each state’s economy. This will mark the first time state data are included in BEA’s outdoor recreation statistics.   

An updated set of national outdoor recreation statistics will be released at the same time. Both the national and state data will cover 2012 through 2017.

The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis is expanding our annual updates that bring the economic picture of previous years into sharper focus. Starting with the July 26 update, we’ll begin revisiting at least five years of national statistics, instead of three, each summer.

In these summer updates, we use newly available data to refine earlier estimates of the nation’s gross domestic product and related statistics. GDP is closely watched as the most comprehensive measure of U.S. economic activity and trends.

By the end of April, key national economic indicators will be on their original 2019 schedule, as the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ timetable of releases continues to recover from disruptions earlier in the year.

The advance, or first, estimate of gross domestic product for the first quarter will be released April 26 at 8:30 a.m., in accordance with BEA’s original calendar. The second and third estimates of first quarter GDP also are back on their original schedule.

The rest of BEA’s national statistics will catch up when data on personal income and consumer spending are released in late April.

Mary Bohman, an agricultural economist with an impressive record of accomplishments in the public sector, was named Deputy Director of the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis has completed its comprehensive update of state and local area personal income statistics, some reaching back as far as 1929.

Comprehensive, or benchmark, updates are performed approximately every five years. They provide the opportunity to incorporate newly available and revised source data and to introduce improvements in statistical methods. BEA’s full time series are updated to provide consistent comparisons over time.

Statistics on consumer spending in January, also known as personal consumption expenditures, have been rescheduled for release March 29 because of the effects of the temporary lapse in federal funding.

The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis typically releases each month’s personal income and spending data together in the Personal Income and Outlays report. However, because of delays in the availability of some source data, the schedule for income and outlay statistics will be temporarily misaligned.