During the third quarter the United States economy is estimated to have expanded by 2.0%. This advanced estimate comes from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

The contribution to the 2.0% increase consisted of the following.

• Personal consumption and expenditures (consumer spending): 1.4%
  • Positive contribution for 11 straight quarters
  • Range bound, adding between 1.1% and 1.7% for the past five quarters

• Gross private domestic investment (business spending and residential investment): 0.1%
  • Positive for six straight quarters
  • Only added 0.1% in each of the past two quarters after contributing a great deal more during the year prior

• Net exports of goods and services (exports from the U.S. minus imports into the U.S.): -0.2%
  • Has not meaningfully contributed or contracted from the size of the U.S. economy for seven quarters
  • During the tail end of the last recession, net exports played a much larger role in influencing the size of the economy

• Government consumption expenditures and gross investment (local, state and federal spending): 0.7%
  • Positive for the first time since Q2-2010.
  • This contribution mainly came from consumption expenditures by national defense (0.64% of 0.70%)

Data Source: U.S. Department of Commerce: Bureau of Economic Analysis

Drilling down into the sub-components of Q3-2012 GDP illustrates just where the 2.0% increase in the size of the U.S. economy came from.

Data Source: U.S. Department of Commerce: Bureau of Economic Analysis