Director’s Message
Earlier this month, the Department of Labor (DOL) announced the elimination of electronic devices in its secure lock-up facility starting March 1, 2020, for news media with prerelease access to statistical data. The DOL said the purpose is to protect the integrity of federal data and to preserve the public benefit from the products produced by the media after the data are released. The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), which uses the DOL lock-up facility, is committed to the secure, timely, and equitable release of all our data products, and as such, we will continue to conduct embargoed media lock-ups and will align our procedures with the new process and timeline.
In this issue of the Survey of Current Business, BEA offers its annual report on the profitability for domestic nonfinancial corporations, for nonfinancial industries, and for 14 major nonfinancial industry sectors.
We also present recently released estimates of gross domestic product (GDP) for the U.S. territories of American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. These estimates are produced in collaboration with the U.S. Department of the Interior Office of Insular Affairs and with staff from the territorial governments. We also provide a Spotlight on a BEA initiative to estimate Puerto Rico GDP for the first time.
Lastly, our “GDP and the Economy” article discusses the advance estimate of GDP for the fourth quarter of 2019.
