Kai Ryssdal

Well, they were a tad pessimistic.

We will have the details when we do the numbers.

This is not, generally speaking, a program about math.

But bear with me for a second here while I spend a little time on two numbers, the gap between them and why it matters.

Last week, we got the early estimate of gross domestic product for the first quarter of the year.

That's January through March.

2% even is what GDP came in at.

You

Buried in that report, though, was another number that grew at two point five percent in the first quarter.

That category, that number is final sales to private domestic purchasers.

It's quite a mouthful.

I'll be honest, it kind of does.

But I promise you'll only hear me say that whole mouthful a couple of more times.

That was Menzi Chin, by the way.

He's a professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

And Carrie Freestone, she's a senior U.S.

economist at RBC.

Basically, we're talking here about a measure of American demand.

It is, that's true, but to understand it and why we want to know it, you've got to know the formula for GDP.

Yes, it's math.