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EMBARGOED UNTIL RELEASE AT 8:30 A.M. EDT, Thursday, April 28, 2022

BEA 22–17

Gross Domestic Product, First Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)

Real gross domestic product (GDP) decreased at an annual rate of 1.4 percent in the first quarter of 2022 (table 1), according to the "advance" estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the fourth quarter, real GDP increased 6.9 percent.

The GDP estimate released today is based on source data that are incomplete or subject to further revision by the source agency (refer to "Source Data for the Advance Estimate" on page 3). The "second" estimate for the first quarter, based on more complete data, will be released on May 26, 2022

Real GDP: Percent change from preceding quarter

The decrease in real GDP reflected decreases in private inventory investment, exports, federal government spending, and state and local government spending, while imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, increased. Personal consumption expenditures (PCE), nonresidential fixed investment, and residential fixed investment increased (table 2).

COVID-19 Impact on the First-Quarter 2022 GDP Estimate

In the first quarter, an increase in COVID-19 cases related to the Omicron variant resulted in continued restrictions and disruptions in the operations of establishments in some parts of the country. Government assistance payments in the form of forgivable loans to businesses, grants to state and local governments, and social benefits to households all decreased as provisions of several federal programs expired or tapered off. The full economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic cannot be quantified in the GDP estimate for the first quarter because the impacts are generally embedded in source data and cannot be separately identified. For more information, refer to the Technical Note and Federal Recovery Programs and BEA Statistics.

The decrease in private inventory investment was led by decreases in wholesale trade (mainly motor vehicles) and retail trade (notably, "other" retailers and motor vehicle dealers). Within exports, widespread decreases in nondurable goods were partly offset by an increase in "other" business services (mainly financial services). The decrease in federal government spending primarily reflected a decrease in defense spending on intermediate goods and services. The increase in imports was led by increases in durable goods (notably, nonfood and nonautomotive consumer goods).

The increase in PCE reflected an increase in services (led by health care) that was partly offset by a decrease in goods. Within goods, a decrease in nondurable goods (led by gasoline and other energy goods) was partly offset by an increase in durable goods (led by motor vehicles and parts). The increase in nonresidential fixed investment reflected increases in equipment and intellectual property products.

Current‑dollar GDP increased 6.5 percent at an annual rate, or $379.9 billion, in the first quarter to a level of $24.38 trillion. In the fourth quarter, GDP increased 14.5 percent, or $800.5 billion (table 1 and table 3).

The price index for gross domestic purchases increased 7.8 percent in the first quarter, compared with an increase of 7.0 percent in the fourth quarter (table 4). The PCE price index increased 7.0 percent, compared with an increase of 6.4 percent. Excluding food and energy prices, the PCE price index increased 5.2 percent, compared with an increase of 5.0 percent.

Personal Income

Current-dollar personal income increased $268.0 billion in the first quarter, compared with an increase of $123.9 billion in the fourth quarter. The increase primarily reflected an increase in compensation that was partly offset by a decrease in government social benefits (table 8). In the first quarter, government assistance payments in the form of social benefits to households decreased as provisions of several federal programs expired or continued to taper off.

Disposable personal income increased $216.6 billion, or 4.8 percent, in the first quarter, compared with an increase of $20.1 billion, or 0.4 percent, in the fourth quarter. Real disposable personal income decreased 2.0 percent, compared with a decrease of 5.6 percent.

Personal saving was $1.21 trillion in the first quarter, compared with $1.39 trillion in the fourth quarter. The personal saving rate—personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income—was 6.6 percent in the first quarter, compared with 7.7 percent in the fourth quarter.

Source Data for the Advance Estimate
Information on the source data and key assumptions used in the advance estimate is provided in a Technical Note that is posted with the news release on BEA's website. A detailed "Key Source Data and Assumptions" file is also posted for each release. For information on updates to GDP, refer to the "Additional Information" section that follows.

Annual Update of the National Economic Accounts

BEA will release results from the 2022 annual update of the National Economic Accounts, which includes the National Income and Product Accounts as well as the Industry Economic Accounts, on September 29, 2022. This update will present revised statistics for GDP, GDP by Industry, and gross domestic income that cover the first quarter of 2017 through the first quarter of 2022. Refer to BEA's recent blog post, "National, Industry, and State Annual Updates Will Be United in 2022," for additional detail. More information on the 2022 annual update will be included on BEA's website as well as in a forthcoming Survey of Current Business article, "GDP and the Economy."

Next release, May 26, 2022, at 8:30 A.M. EDT
Gross Domestic Product (Second Estimate), Corporate Profits (Preliminary Estimate), First Quarter 2022

Full Release & Tables (PDF)

Technical Note (PDF)

Tables Only (Excel)

Release Highlights (PDF)

Historical Comparisons (PDF)

Key source data and assumptions (Excel)

Effects of Selected Federal Pandemic Response Programs on Federal Government Receipts and Expenditures (PDF)

Effects of Selected Federal Pandemic Response Programs on Federal Government Receipts and Expenditures (Excel)

Effects of Selected Federal Pandemic Response Programs on Personal Income (PDF)

Effects of Selected Federal Pandemic Response Programs on Personal Income (Excel)

Revision Information

GDP

Karl Rohrer

(301) 278-9083

gdpniwd@bea.gov

Media

Connie O'Connell

301-278-9003

Connie.OConnell@bea.gov

Resources

Additional resources available at www.bea.gov:

Information on COVID-19 and recovery impacts is available on our website.
Stay informed about BEA developments by reading the BEA blog, signing up for BEA's email subscription service, or following BEA on Twitter @BEA_News.
Historical time series for these estimates can be accessed in BEA's interactive data application.
Access BEA data by registering for BEA's data application programming interface (API).
For more on BEA's statistics, refer to our monthly online journal, the Survey of Current Business.
BEA's news release schedule
NIPA Handbook: Concepts and Methods of the U.S. National Income and Product Accounts

Definitions

Gross domestic product (GDP), or value added, is the value of the goods and services produced by the nation's economy less the value of the goods and services used up in production. GDP is also equal to the sum of personal consumption expenditures, gross private domestic investment, net exports of goods and services, and government consumption expenditures and gross investment.

Gross domestic income (GDI) is the sum of incomes earned and costs incurred in the production of GDP. In national economic accounting, GDP and GDI are conceptually equal. In practice, GDP and GDI differ because they are constructed using largely independent source data.

Gross output is the value of the goods and services produced by the nation's economy. It is principally measured using industry sales or receipts, including sales to final users (GDP) and sales to other industries (intermediate inputs).

Current-dollar estimates are valued in the prices of the period when the transactions occurred—that is, at "market value." Also referred to as "nominal estimates" or as "current-price estimates."

Real values are inflation-adjusted estimates—that is, estimates that exclude the effects of price changes.

The gross domestic purchases price index measures the prices of final goods and services purchased by U.S. residents.

The personal consumption expenditure price index measures the prices paid for the goods and services purchased by, or on the behalf of, "persons."

Personal income is the income received by, or on behalf of, all persons from all sources: from participation as laborers in production, from owning a home or business, from the ownership of financial assets, and from government and business in the form of transfers. It includes income from domestic sources as well as the rest of world. It does not include realized or unrealized capital gains or losses.

Disposable personal income is the income available to persons for spending or saving. It is equal to personal income less personal current taxes.

Personal outlays is the sum of personal consumption expenditures, personal interest payments, and personal current transfer payments.

Personal saving is personal income less personal outlays and personal current taxes.

The personal saving rate is personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income.

Profits from current production, referred to as corporate profits with inventory valuation adjustment (IVA) and capital consumption (CCAdj) adjustment in the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPAs), is a measure of the net income of corporations before deducting income taxes that is consistent with the value of goods and services measured in GDP. The IVA and CCAdj are adjustments that convert inventory withdrawals and depreciation of fixed assets reported on a tax-return, historical-cost basis to the current-cost economic measures used in the national income and product accounts. Profits for domestic industries reflect profits for all corporations located within the geographic borders of the United States. The rest-of-the-world (ROW) component of profits is measured as the difference between profits received from ROW and profits paid to ROW.

For more definitions, refer to the Glossary: National Income and Product Accounts.

Statistical conventions

Annual-vs-quarterly rates. Quarterly seasonally adjusted values are expressed at annual rates, unless otherwise specified. This convention is used for BEA's featured, seasonally adjusted measures to facilitate comparisons with related and historical data. For details, refer to the FAQ "Why does BEA publish estimates at annual rates?" Quarterly not seasonally adjusted values are expressed only at quarterly rates.

Percent changes. Percent changes in quarterly seasonally adjusted series are displayed at annual rates, unless otherwise specified. For details, refer to the FAQ "How is average annual growth calculated?" and "Why does BEA publish percent changes in quarterly series at annual rates?" Percent changes in quarterly not seasonally adjusted values are calculated from the same quarter one year ago. All published percent changes are calculated from unrounded data.

Calendar years and quarters. Unless noted otherwise, annual and quarterly data are presented on a calendar basis.

Quantities and prices. Quantities, or "real" volume measures, and prices are expressed as index numbers with a specified reference year equal to 100 (currently 2012). Quantity and price indexes are calculated using a Fisher-chained weighted formula that incorporates weights from two adjacent periods (quarters for quarterly data and annuals for annual data). For details on the calculation of quantity and price indexes, refer to Chapter 4: Estimating Methods in the NIPA Handbook.

Chained-dollar values are calculated by multiplying the quantity index by the current dollar value in the reference year (2012) and then dividing by 100. Percent changes calculated from real quantity indexes and chained-dollar levels are conceptually the same; any differences are due to rounding. Chained-dollar values are not additive because the relative weights for a given period differ from those of the reference year. In tables that display chained-dollar values, a "residual" line shows the difference between the sum of detailed chained-dollar series and its corresponding aggregate.

Updates to GDP

BEA releases three vintages of the current quarterly estimate for GDP: "Advance" estimates are released near the end of the first month following the end of the quarter and are based on source data that are incomplete or subject to further revision by the source agency; "second" and "third" estimates are released near the end of the second and third months, respectively, and are based on more detailed and more comprehensive data as they become available.

The table below shows the average revisions to the quarterly percent changes in real GDP between different estimate vintages, without regard to sign.

Vintage	Average Revision Without Regard to Sign (percentage points, annual rates)
Advance to second	0.5
Advance to third	0.6
Second to third	0.3
Note - Based on estimates from 1996 through 2020. For more information on GDP updates, refer to Revision Information on the BEA Website.

Annual and comprehensive updates are typically released in late July. Annual updates generally cover at least the 5 most recent calendar years (and their associated quarters) and incorporate newly available major annual source data as well as some changes in methods and definitions to improve the accounts. Comprehensive (or benchmark) updates are carried out at about 5-year intervals and incorporate major periodic source data, as well as major conceptual improvements.

Unlike GDP, advance current quarterly estimates of GDI and corporate profits are not released because data on domestic profits and on net interest of domestic industries are not available. For fourth quarter estimates, these data are not available until the third estimate.

GDP by industry and gross output estimates are released with the third estimate of GDP.