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Some growth projected for the U.S. economy, 2020–30

Kevin Dubina | September 2021

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects the economy to grow by 2.3 percent each year, on average, from 2020 to 2030. As the chart shows, this would be faster than the annual rate of growth in the previous two decades but would fall short of that achieved in the 1980s and 1990s.

Economic growth is measured as the increased value of goods and services produced in the United States—gross domestic product, or real GDP. Several factors are expected to impact projected growth of the U.S. economy. For example, the labor force (those who are working or looking for work) is projected to increase relatively slowly over the 2020–30 decade. This labor force constraint is expected to affect production of goods and services, which in turn is expected to hinder overall growth of the economy. In addition, the COVID-19 recession created a low starting point for the projections that raises the expected rate of GDP growth.

BLS uses an estimate of future GDP along with other assumptions about the economy to project industry output, which then is used to project employment in industries and occupations. To learn more, visit the BLS Employment Projections webpage.