Data through: Q2 2026 · updated Aug 26 · Updates: Quarterly · Next: Nov 25
QThe three bars show the last 3 quarters for this indicator, oldest left to newest right. Bar height reflects each reading relative to the other two — the tallest is the highest of the three, the shortest the lowest.
Historical context: Currently in the 41st percentile of all historical readings.
What this means right now: Real income growth of 1–3% — moderate: 76 quarters since 1950 have read here. When GDP reads differently, the gap itself is the story; later revisions have tended to close it.
GDI (Annualized) · Quarterly · 1947–2026
NBER recessions
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Monthly values
GDI (Annualized) — the last 8 quarters
Every quarter's reading, with the band the heatmap gives it. The chart above shows the same series in full.
Quarter
Value
Band
Q2 2026
2.6%
Healthy reading
Q1 2026
2.5%
Healthy reading
Q4 2025
2.2%
Healthy reading
Q3 2025
3.5%
Very strong reading
Q2 2025
3.6%
Very strong reading
Q1 2025
1.5%
Healthy reading
Quarter-end readings of the same series as the chart. Values are the current record, not point-in-time: a month that has since been revised shows its revised value.
What is the GDI?
Gross Domestic Income (GDI) measures the same economy as GDP, but from the income side: wages, profits, rents, and taxes, rather than spending. In principle the two are identical; in practice they diverge, because they are built from different source data that revise on different schedules. The figure shown is real GDI growth at a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR): BEA's own inflation-adjusted GDI, deflated by the same price index as GDP. That way the two pages measure the same thing and use the same colours. Before inflation, income grew 8.9% in the latest quarter.
The GDP–GDI gap is information, not noise: when the two disagree, later revisions tend to close the gap, and economists watch the average of the two as a cleaner read of the economy. The Revisions Ledger tracks how nominal GDI's first prints settle over about three and a half years, and how its revisions compare with GDP's; see the Revisions Ledger methodology for the gap story.
GDI publishes roughly one month behind GDP: it arrives with the second GDP estimate, so this tile reads one estimate cycle behind its neighbor — that lag is BEA's release anatomy, not staleness.
How We Color-Code the GDI
Our heatmap colors this indicator against historically significant thresholds:
Below −1.0%
Significant contraction — real income falling more than 1% at an annual rate. 31 quarters since 1950, 24 of them inside a recession
−1.0% – 0.0%
Mild contraction — between −1% and 0%. 13 quarters since 1950, 8 of them inside a recession
0.0% – 1.0%
Stalling — between 0% and 1%. 23 quarters since 1950
1.0% – 3.0%
Moderate growth — between 1% and 3%, 76 quarters since 1950
3.0% or above
Strong growth — 3% or more, 163 of 306 quarters since 1950. The median quarter is 3.3%
Historical Extremes — What Happened Next?
When this indicator reaches extreme levels, history shows consistent patterns:
Q2 2020COVID Collapse
−30.5%
The deepest quarterly income contraction in the modern record as the economy shut down; matched by the spending side (GDP) in the same quarter.
Q3 2020COVID Reopening Rebound
+29.0%
The mirror-image rebound as incomes snapped back with reopening — the largest annualized gain in the series.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between GDP and GDI?
They measure the same economy from opposite sides of the ledger: GDP adds up spending, GDI adds up income (wages, profits, rents, taxes). In theory they are equal; in practice they diverge because the source data differ, and the gap tends to close through revisions.
Why does GDI update later than GDP?
BEA publishes GDI with the second GDP estimate, about a month after the advance GDP print. For the fourth quarter it waits for the third estimate, about two months after. So this reading trails the GDP tile; that is the release schedule, not staleness.
Which is more reliable, GDP or GDI?
Research suggests neither alone — the average of the two (sometimes called GDO) tracks the business cycle at least as well as either. When they first disagree by a point or more, later revisions have usually pulled them closer. That happened in about 4 of every 5 such quarters from 2013 to 2023 (19 of the 23). Revisions can also open a gap where the first prints agreed, which is why the gap is worth watching.
Why does this page show real growth rather than nominal?
So it can be read beside GDP. The colours are GDP's: 3% or more is strong, below 0 is a contraction. Until October 2026 this page showed nominal growth, which includes inflation, on those same colours, so the top colour covered 254 of the 306 quarters since 1950 and said little: the median nominal quarter is 6.7%. Real growth is BEA's own inflation-adjusted GDI, deflated by the price index GDP uses.
How much does GDI revise?
Substantially. The Revisions Ledger tracks nominal GDI, whose first prints keep moving for about three and a half years as income-tax source data arrive. Over the 41 quarters the ledger has settled (2013 to 2023), the average change in nominal growth from first print to settled is 1.7 points, up or down. About half of that movement comes after the first year. The largest change was 5.3 points, for the quarter beginning 2023-01-01: 1.7% at first, 7.0% settled. The archive is short (2013 on), which is why several of the ledger's conditioned rows read “insufficient history”.