Economic Perspective: A Modest Start to 2016 for North Carolina

DEE SHORE:

“Today’s program looks at a modest start to 2016 for North Carolina. Mike, one of the most followed economic indicators is gross-domestic product, or GDP. Recently, GDP growth numbers for states in early 2016 were released. How did North Carolina do?”

MIKE WALDEN:

“Well, these numbers are released with a lag so we only have the numbers for states for the first three months of the year. And the good news is North Carolina’s economy grew in the first quarter of 2016. In fact, on an annual rate we were up 1.4 percent. In fact, that puts us above the national average of just under one percent. That’s the good news.”

“The bad news is that we were actually trailing most of our neighboring states here in the southeast. But if you go back and look, for example, at all of 2015 North Carolina’s GDP growth was actually very good. We ranked 10th among all states, and we were above the southeast average. And also, if you look at the first quarter of 2015 we didn’t grow at all.”

“So the first quarter seems to not necessarily be a good predictor of the rest of the year. So the good news, we grew. The bad news, we were below the rest of the southeast, but we’ll have to track this and see how the rest of the year goes.”