The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) recently reported that real GDP grew 2.9 percent in 2018, up from 2.2 percent in 2017. This official government measure falls just below the range projected by PWBM in December of 2017 for the year 2018. At the end of December 2017, including the effects of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, PWBM estimated that real GDP would grow between 3.1 and 3.6 percent in 2018.
At that time we also projected economic growth would taper off to around 2.2 percent in 2019 and 1.9 percent in 2020. PWBM’s projections are in line with other groups who also project growth to slow. The CBO projects 2.3 percent growth for 2019, slowing to 1.7 percent in 2020. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve’s forecast projects 2.3 percent growth in 2019 with Goldman Sachs suggesting that the economy will grow 2.1 percent this year.