Data: Why Do Old GDP Numbers Change?

Weekly update on data

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U.S. Department of Commerce
Data (8/10/16)
Weekly updates on what we're doing to maximize the positive impacts of Commerce data on society.
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08/09/2016
(by William Wisniewski, Center for Disclosure Avoidance Research) At the U.S. Census Bureau, the Disclosure Review Board is best known as the team that establishes and reviews official Census Bureau disclosure avoidance policies for the public release of data products that do not reveal any information about the survey respondents. Yet, the boards’ members also serve other important and lesser known roles. For example, they work with researchers in the Center for Disclosure Avoidance Research to determine the effectiveness of current disclosure avoidance techniques in protecting data products.
08/09/2016 
(by Robert Bernstein, Economy-Wide Statistics Division) The number of American Indian and Alaska Native-owned businesses in the U.S. climbed by 36,228, or 15.3 percent, between 2007 and 2012, reaching 272,919. In Oklahoma, which ranked second among states with 27,450 American Indian and Alaska Native-owned businesses in 2012, the number of these businesses increased by 6,238 over the period, or 29.4 percent.
08/09/2016 
(by Andrew Keller and Scott Konicki) When a household does not respond to the census, the U.S. Census Bureau must send a field worker to that address to complete a nonresponse follow-up interview. For the 2010 Census, 72 percent of American households mailed back a completed census form. The remaining 28 percent that did not respond by mail were counted via a census taker that visited their address.
08/08/2016

Estimates of gross domestic product for American Samoa show that real GDP–GDP adjusted to remove price changes–increased 1.1 percent in 2015 after increasing 1.3 percent in 2014. For comparison, real GDP for the United States (excluding the territories) increased 2.6 percent in 2015 after increasing 2.4 percent in 2014.

08/08/2016
(Guest blog by the Department of Interior) Assistant Secretary for Insular Areas Esther Kia’aina announced today that the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) has released gross domestic product (GDP) data for 2015 for American Samoa.
08/05/2016 
BEA is getting ready for its big summer update of GDP and other national economic statistics, coming in late July. This annual ritual of refining figures from the last three years can be confusing. People wonder: Were the old numbers wrong? Are these new figures final? No, and not really. The numbers change because calculating GDP – the most comprehensive measure of U.S. economic activity – is always a work in progress.
08/05/2016 
The U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, through the Department of Commerce, announced today that the goods and services deficit was $44.5 billion in June, up $3.6 billion from $41.0 billion in May, revised. 
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