Latest Figures on U.S. Economic Growth Are in: Here’s What You Need to Know

Improvement over first quarter.

Real gross domestic product (GDP), the total output of goods and services in the U.S., increased at an annual rate of 2.5 percent in the second quarter of 2013, the Bureau of Economic Analysis announced Thursday.

This is the second GDP revision for Q2 (April-June) and a definite improvement over Q1’s revised increase of 1.1 percent.

Growth in the second quarter primarily reflected “positive contributions from personal consumption expenditures (PCE), exports, private inventory investment, nonresidential fixed investment and residential fixed investment that were partly offset by a negative contribution from federal government spending,” the report reads.

Government spending fell in Q2 by only 1.6 percent, compared to Q1′s decrease of 8.4 percent. Meanwhile, state and local government spending fell by 0.5 percent, compared to Q1’ decrease of 1.3 percent.

Imports, a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, increased.

“The acceleration in real GDP in the second quarter primarily reflected upturns in exports and in nonresidential fixed investment,” the report states, “and a smaller decrease in federal government spending that were partly offset by an acceleration in imports and decelerations in private inventory investment and in PCE.”

Real personal consumption expenditures held steady at 1.8 percent in the second quarter, compared with an increase of 2.3 percent in the first, the report adds.

Durable goods in Q2’s second revision fell to 6.1 from 6.5 percent, compared with Q1’s earlier estimates of an increase of 5.8 percent. Non-durable goods were also revised lower to 1.8 from 2.0 percent, compared with Q1’s increase of 2.7 percent. Services, on the other hand, actually increased in the second revision to 1.1 from 0.9 percent (compared to Q1’s increase of 1.5 percent).

Here’s Q2’s second GDP revision broken down by its components [courtesy Zero Hedge]:

Zero Hedge.

“Real final sales of domestic product -- GDP less change in private inventories -- increased 1.9 percent in the second quarter, compared with an increase of 0.2 percent in the first,” the report adds.

Markets haven’t paid much attention to Thursday’s GDP and unemployment aid applications reports. They’re too focused on the conflict in Syria: