Need economic data?

We’ve got your 

number
This guide highlights just a few of the numbers we’ve got 

for you at BEA. The latest statistics, with subcategories 

and historical trends, are available online.

Need help understanding the numbers? BEA’s website 

has a glossary, articles and blog posts, and information 

about methodologies and source data.

Find your number at bea.gov, or reach out to us at 

CustomerService@bea.gov or 301-278-9004. 

Publication Date: January 2020
1

Who we are

The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis is your source of 

accurate and objective data about the nation’s economy. 

What we do 

BEA produces some of the world’s most closely watched 

statistics, including U.S. gross domestic product, better 

known as GDP. We do state and local numbers, too, plus 

foreign trade and investment stats and industry data. 

Why we do it

Governments of all levels, businesses big and small, and 

Americans everywhere rely on our numbers. BEA’s work 

underpins decisions about interest rates and trade policy, 

taxes and spending, hiring and investing, and more. 

All from a source that’s nonpartisan, nonpolitical, and

neutral on policy.

About our numbers 

• Independently produced

• Publicly released on a set schedule

• Free to all at bea.gov
2

Want to 

size up the economy? 

We’ve gotGDP

numbers

The total value of the goods and services produced in the United 

States is the gross domestic product. The GDP’s growth rate 

each quarter tells Americans how their economy is doing. It’s an 

economic barometer watched by the rest of the world, too. BEA 

also estimates the size and growth of GDP for states, local areas, 

U.S. territories, and industries. 

What can you do with GDP numbers?

Answer questions like:

• How fast is the U.S. economy growing?

• How does my state’s economy stack up against others?

• Which industries are taking off? Which are slowing?

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What else? 

GDP numbers help the White House and Congress plan taxes and 

spending and other economic policy. They help the Federal Reserve 

set monetary policy. State and local governments rely on their 

GDP numbers, too. Businesspeople use these stats when making 

decisions about jobs, expansion, investments, and more. Researchers 

use them to study the national, state, and local economies.

New 

We’re measuring Puerto Rico’s economy

BEA and the Puerto Rican government are partnering to modernize 

the territory’s economic statistics, laying the groundwork for 

estimating Puerto Rico’s GDP in accordance with international 

standards. This will help policymakers working on hurricane 

recovery, businesses considering investments on the island, and 

Puerto Rican residents and companies. BEA already produces 

GDP and related statistics for the territories of American Samoa, 

Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and 

the U.S. Virgin Islands.
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New

We’ve gotGDP

for 3,000+ counties, too 

For the first time, BEA is measuring the gross domestic product of 

every county in all 50 states. That means estimating the size and 

growth of 3,113 economies across the United States, including the 

parishes of Louisiana and the boroughs of Alaska. 

We published prototype county GDP statistics in December 2018, 

with plans to release official county GDP estimates each year going 

forward. 

Whether your county is rural, urban, or suburban, these data offer 

insight into the local economy and how it fits into the national 

economic landscape. They expand on BEA’s other regional data, 

which include GDP for states and metro areas and personal income 

for states, metro areas, and counties. 

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What can you do with county GDP numbers?

Answer questions like: 

• Is a county’s economy growing or declining?

• In which industries does the county specialize?

• How does the county’s economic growth compare with other 

counties, the state, or the nation?

What else? 

BEA developed these county statistics in response to demand from 

policymakers, businesses, economic developers, and researchers. 

They can be used to analyze how economic output is distributed 

across the nation. They can help identify the local areas most in 

need of economic development and help study which development 

strategies work best. Counties can use them to attract investors. 

Businesses can use them to make decisions about new locations 

and investment.
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Wondering how 

Americans spend their money?

We’ve gotconsumer 

spending numbers

The goods and services bought by people living in the United 

States make up the nation’s consumer spending, or personal 

consumption expenditures. Consumer spending is a big force 

in economic growth, so you can look to these statistics for early 

signals of the economy’s strength and outlook. 

These monthly numbers show spending trends in categories 

such as health care, transportation, and groceries. (We also offer 

underlying details, like spending on milk, based on less robust 

source data.) We produce consumer spending numbers for each 

state annually.

What can you do with consumer spending 

numbers?

Answer questions like: 

• How much are people spending and what are they buying?

• How strong was consumer spending compared with the 

month before?

• How did a sharp increase in food or energy prices affect 

spending? 

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What else? 

Businesspeople use these numbers to help predict consumer 

behavior, so they can make better-informed decisions and spot new 

opportunities. Policymakers and researchers study these numbers 

to learn about consumers and industries, evaluate the economy’s 

health, or forecast economic growth. Consumer spending is a key 

component of BEA’s estimates of gross domestic product. 

We’ve got price indexes, too

Prices for goods and services change over time; some drop even 

as others are going up. Price indexes look beyond the ups and 

downs of individual price tags to see the big picture of inflation 

(or deflation). BEA produces several closely watched indexes. 

The personal consumption expenditures price index measures 

prices paid by consumers and reflects changes in what they’re 

buying. The gross domestic purchases price index measures 

prices paid throughout the U.S. economy, including for imports. 

The GDP price index measures goods and services produced in 

the United States, including those exported abroad.
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Speaking of spending

How far 

does a dollar go

where you live? 

You might guess that a dollar stretches further in Mississippi than 

in New York. But do you know how much further? Or the difference 

between spending a dollar in Dallas and a dollar in Dubuque?

We’ve got numbers for that.

You can compare buying power across the 50 states and the 

District of Columbia, or across the nation’s metro areas, with BEA’s 

regional price parities. This index measures state and metropolitan 

area price levels relative to the national average, which is set at 100. 

For simplicity, you could think of that as $100. 

For example, goods and services that cost $100 on average across 

the country would cost $86 on average in Mississippi, and $116 in 

New York, the price parities for 2017 show. New York’s price level 

was 16 percent higher than the national average and 35 percent 

higher than in Mississippi. 

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What about Dallas and Dubuque, Iowa? In Dallas, the price level is 

right at the national average. In Dubuque, you could buy the same 

amount of goods or services for $90, or 10 percent less.

Comparing price levels can help a worker evaluate the salary 

offered for a job in another city or help a couple choose where to 

retire. Companies consider price differences when locating a new 

office or setting pay levels. Local boosters use these numbers to 

promote their areas.

BEA uses its price parities to produce statistics showing how 

people’s incomes in a state or metro area compare with incomes in 

other places when price level differences are considered.

Using RPPs to compare prices in two places 

Here’s how, using Colorado and Ohio as examples:

• Colorado’s RPP is 103.2 and Ohio’s is 88.9 (2017 data).

• Divide Colorado’s RPP by Ohio’s. Multiply the answer by 100: 

(103.2 / 88.9) x 100 = 116.1

• Price levels in Colorado are 116 percent of the level in Ohio. In 

other words, Colorado prices are 16 percent more expensive. 
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Wondering how much money 

Americans make and save?

We’ve got 

personal income

and saving numbers

The money that people get from paychecks, business ownership, 

rental property, interest and dividends, and Social Security and 

other government benefits is U.S. personal income. 

What’s left after taxes is disposable personal income — income 

available for American consumers to spend or save. 

After people pay taxes and spend money from their incomes, 

what’s left is personal saving. The nation’s personal saving rate is 

the percentage of disposable income that’s saved. 

If you’re interested in Americans’ financial health or you’re looking 

for clues to future consumer spending, BEA’s monthly personal 

income statistics can help. We also measure personal income in 

states, counties, and metro areas. 

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What can you do with 

personal income and saving numbers? 

Answer questions like: 

• Are workers bringing home more pay these days?

• How much are Americans saving vs. spending?

• How does my county’s income per person compare with the 

rest of the state?

What else?

Personal income numbers help the United States allocate hundreds 

of billions in federal money to states and local areas each year. 

Policymakers use estimates of wages and salaries when projecting 

federal budgets and Social Security trust fund balances. Our 

measures of noncash income, such as employer contributions to 

workers’ health coverage, provide a more complete picture of 

labor costs. Researchers use personal income statistics to study 

the interplay between incomes, spending, taxes, and saving. 

How is income distributed among the people?

We’re researching ways to measure how American households 

share in the economy’s growth. We plan to develop statistics 

on the distribution of income that will be updated regularly. 

This new project builds on more than a decade of research at 

BEA. 
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Want to see how 

businesses are doing?

We’ve got corporate

profit numbers

The financial health of corporate America is measured by corporate 

profits — a closely watched economic indicator. These quarterly

statistics show U.S. corporations’ combined earnings from current 

production, with breakdowns for categories like durable goods 

manufacturing and retail trade. 

What can you do with corporate profit numbers? 

Answer questions like: 

• How fast are U.S. corporate profits rising (or falling)?

• How does growth in corporate profits compare with wage 

growth?

• What’s the profit trend for an industry?

These numbers also help the government predict how much tax 

corporations will owe and monitor the effects of policy changes. 

Analysts use them to forecast spending on factories and equipment.

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And

industry

numbers, too

You can look under the hood of the U.S. economy by delving into 

BEA’s more-detailed industry data. 

GDP by industry shows how much specific industries, such as 

farming, oil and gas extraction, or insurance, contribute to the 

nation’s economic growth. 

We have data on industries’ gross output (principally a measure 

of sales), as well as their number of employees and compensation.

Our supply-use tables capture the flow of goods and services from 

one industry to another, as well as sales to consumers.

Find industry data fast — use Industry Facts at bea.gov/tools. 
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What about the U.S.

role in the world economy?

We’ve got trade

numbers ... Our international trade statistics are best known for capturing the 

trade gap — the difference between U.S. exports and imports. BEA 

also estimates the United States’ trade deficits or surpluses with 

individual nations and shows what’s being traded with whom.

In addition to trade in goods, the monthly statistics include trade 

in services, such as insurance, travel, and financial services. The 

services statistics are based largely on data collected by BEA’s 

confidential surveys of businesses. We produce more-detailed 

statistics on international services annually, as well as statistics 

on services provided through the local affiliates of multinational 

companies.

Balance of payments numbers (also called the international 

transactions accounts) give a broader view of the economic 

activity between the United States and other nations, including 

trade, financial investments, and foreign aid. Among these 

quarterly statistics, the current account balance is especially 

popular as an economic indicator.

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The U.S. international investment position is a statistical balance 

sheet showing the difference between U.S. residents’ foreign 

financial assets and liabilities at the end of each quarter.

What can you do with international trade and 

investment numbers? 

Answer questions like: 

• With which countries does the U.S. have large trade deficits? 

What about surpluses?

• Which types of exports are increasing and which are decreasing?

• Is the U.S. current account deficit narrowing or widening?

What else?

Trade numbers help policymakers and the public understand 

how exports and imports affect U.S. businesses, jobs, and growth. 

Negotiators use these data when making trade agreements. Businesses 

use them to learn about export markets. The balance of payments and 

international investment position accounts give Americans a more 

complete view of their economy in the context of the world economy 

and the effects of changing global conditions. 
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...And 

direct 

investment 

numbers

Foreign ownership of 10 percent or more of a U.S. business is 

foreign direct investment in the United States. A U.S. company or 

other investor controlling at least 10 percent of a foreign business 

is U.S. direct investment abroad.

We have statistics on direct investments and the income they 

return to their U.S. or foreign investors. The numbers are broken 

down by country and by industry annually. 

To learn more about the operations of such companies, see BEA’s 

statistics on the activities of multinational enterprises. These 

are annual statistics on U.S. companies with affiliates abroad, and 

on foreign-owned companies in the United States. The numbers, 

available by country and industry, include sales, jobs, research 

and development spending, and contributions to gross domestic 

product. For the activities of foreign-owned companies some data, 

such as employment, are available by state.

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We also report annually on new foreign direct investment to open 

businesses in the United States or buy or expand existing ones. We 

have these statistics by state, industry, and the investor’s country.

What can you do with direct investment numbers?

Answer questions like:

• How many U.S. workers are employed by foreign-owned 

businesses?

• Which industries attract the most foreign investment? 

Which states?

• Which countries are receiving the most U.S. direct investment?

What else?

These statistics are used to understand the scale of foreign ownership 

in the United States and how it affects the economy. They’re also 

followed to see trends in offshoring by U.S. companies. Policymakers 

watch them to see how multinationals respond to tax changes and 

other laws. Researchers use them to study the factors that influence 

foreign investment decisions and to study how multinationals affect 

jobs, wages, and tax revenues at home and abroad. 

Find data by country fast — use Country Facts at bea.gov/tools.
18

New

Digginginto

thedigital

economy Online shopping, the sharing economy, cloud computing, and other 

digital developments are captured within BEA’s measurements of 

the overall U.S. economy. But you can’t single out their impacts 

or measure the growth of the digital economy using only our 

traditional statistics. 

So we’re doing research and digging into the data to better 

understand these fast-changing digital goods and services. 

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BEA’s research shows the digital economy has been growing faster 

than the U.S. economy overall for years. In 2017, it accounted for 

6.9 percent of gross domestic product, or $1.35 trillion. That ranks 

above wholesale trade, which accounted for 6.0 percent of the 

economy. 

This project is continuing to develop tools to better capture 

the digital economy’s contributions to GDP and to build a more 

complete picture of global supply chains. The goals include 

improving measurement of high-tech goods and services, including 

valuing digital-enabling infrastructure, e-commerce transactions, 

and digital media. And we continue to advance our research into 

the sharing economy, free digital content, and cloud computing. 
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Spotlighting

Arts and

culture

There’s no business like show business — but art museums, fashion 

design, and historic sites play special roles in the economy, too. 

BEA showcases these and other arts and cultural activities by 

estimating their economic impact nationwide and in every state

and the District of Columbia. 

Our statistics on arts and cultural production measure the 

contributions of music groups and theaters; natural parks and all 

sorts of museums; interior design, photography, and more. We also 

look at the economic activity that supports them in industries such 

as broadcasting, publishing, and manufacturing.
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Our state data feature the leading arts and cultural industries from 

Alabama to Wyoming and show how arts and culture contribute to 

each state’s economy, employment, and employee compensation. 

You’ll see the jobs aren’t only in California and New York. Western 

states, for example, get a boost from parklands and American 

Indian cultural activities.

For these statistics, BEA developed a definition of arts and cultural 

production that’s similar to those used in other countries. It pulls 

together in one place a detailed look at economic activity that’s 

hard to spot within our broader statistics, such as GDP.

Painting a clearer picture of the arts and culture economy helps 

players far beyond Hollywood and Broadway share in the spotlight.
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Exploring 

outdoor

numbers

Does “economic activity” sound like work? It doesn’t have to be! 

Fishing, hiking, RVing, and snowboarding are part of the economy, 

too. 

BEA’s outdoor recreation statistics measure how outdoor leisure 

affects the economies of every state and the nation. The data 

include outdoor recreation’s contributions to GDP, employment, 

and employee compensation. 

You can explore our outdoor numbers by activity — such as canoeing, 

hunting, or horseback riding — or by the contributions of industry 

sectors, like manufacturing, retail trade, and transportation. 

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You’ll see how state economies benefit from local natural resources 

as well as faraway activities. For example, boaters may spend 

money on insurance, fishing lures, and fuel produced far from their 

local waters.

These statistics pull together in one place data that would otherwise 

be obscured within BEA’s core accounts, such as GDP. Creating a 

clearer picture of the outdoor recreation economy adds to public 

understanding and better informs decisions by policymakers, 

businesspeople, and the managers of public lands and waters. 

BEA first produced national outdoor recreation statistics in 2018. 

Prototype state-by-state data were added in 2019, with official 

state and national statistics to follow each year afterward. 
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Taking a different look at 

health care 

 spending

BEA’s economists have started looking at health care more like a 

patient does. We still measure health care in the GDP way, by the 

amount spent on goods and services such as medicine or doctor’s 

visits. But we’ve also started measuring health care by the type of 

disease being treated, such as cancer or heart trouble. 

The goal is to develop health care statistics that capture changes 

in the effectiveness of care, as well as the cost. 

In other words, as the price of treating a disease rises, are patients 

getting higher quality treatments, or just paying more?

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And looking at 

workthat gets 

 overlooked

What’s the worth of work like cooking, cleaning, or watching the 

kids that you do for yourself or your family? These unpaid chores 

don’t count toward the nation’s GDP. But we all know they have 

value.

Our household production statistics estimate that if this unpaid 

labor were included in the calculations, gross domestic product 

would have been $4.5 trillion larger in 2017, raising the level of 

nominal GDP by 23 percent.

These statistics also track trends since 1965 and the household 

chores done by women and men. They are part of BEA’s efforts 

to extend economic measurement beyond the market economy. 
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Need to find it fast? 

We’ve got

shortcuts and data tools

Shortcuts to your number on bea.gov: 

U.S. Economy at a Glance 

A news roundup of GDP, personal income, the current account 

balance, and other key numbers.

Country Facts 

A country-by-country view of trade and investment with the United 

States.

BEAR Facts

That’s short for BEA Regional Facts — key economic statistics about 

each state, metro area, and county. 

Industry Facts 

Fast access to each industry sector’s quarterly data.

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Tools for exploring or retrieving data: 

Interactive Data Tables

Nearly all BEA’s data, organized by topic and reaching back 

decades. 

API 

Our application programming interface for retrieving and 

analyzing large subsets of data. 

bea.R

An open source library that helps programmers search, 

analyze, and visualize the data in our API.
28

Not sure which 

numbers you need?

Here’s a 

quick guide

Gross Domestic Product — A comprehensive measure of the U.S. 

economy and its growth

GDP by State, County, Metro Area, and U.S. Territory — Regional 

counterparts to national GDP 

GDP by Industry — Measures industries’ performance and their 

contributions to GDP

Consumer Spending — The primary measure of spending by U.S. 

residents, known as personal consumption expenditures

Consumer Spending by State — Spending by residents of the 50 

states and the District of Columbia

Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index — Measures 

inflation in the prices paid by people living in the United States

PCE Price Index, Excluding Food and Energy — This “core” index 

excludes two volatile categories to reveal underlying inflation

Personal Income — Wages, Social Security, interest, rents, and other 

income received by U.S. residents

Disposable Personal Income — The income that’s left after people 

pay their taxes

Personal Saving Rate — The percentage of people’s disposable income 

that they save instead of spending

Personal Income by State, County, and Metro Area — Income data 

based on where people live (not their workplace location)

Real Personal Income by State and Metro Area — Adjusted for 

state and metro area price level differences and national inflation

Corporate Profits — A key measure of the financial health of corporate 

America
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Gross Output by Industry — A measure of an industry’s sales or receipts

International Transactions (Balance of Payments) — U.S. transactions in 

goods, services, income, and investment with other countries

Trade in Goods and Services — U.S. trade in goods and services with other 

countries

International Services (Expanded Detail) — Additional detail on services, 

plus services supplied by affiliates of multinational enterprises

International Investment Position — A balance sheet of U.S. financial assets 

and liabilities with residents of other countries

Direct Investment by Country and Industry — International investment 

resulting in control or significant influence over a business

New Foreign Direct Investment in the United States — Foreign 

investment to acquire, establish, or expand a U.S. business enterprise

Activities of U.S. Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) — Financial and 

operating data on U.S. parent companies and their affiliates abroad

Activities of U.S. Affiliates of Foreign MNEs — Financial and operating 

data on U.S. affiliates of foreign parent companies

Special Topics

Arts and Culture Household Production

Digital Economy Outdoor Recreation

Health Care Travel and Tourism 

And we’ve got lots more at bea.gov.
(301) 278-9004 

CustomerService@bea.gov