US real GDP growth in 2036?

The best available long-run evidence still points to U.S. real GDP growth clustering around 2% in 2036, not around the very high-growth or recessionary tails. Federal Reserve longer-run projections, CBO-style potential growth estimates, and private forecasters all imply a mature economy with demographic drag, modest labor-force growth, and productivity doing most of the work. That makes the 1.6% to 2.0% and 2.1% to 2.5% bins the natural center of mass, while 0.0% or below remains possible but structurally less likely absent a major shock. The 6.1% or above bucket looks especially hard to justify for a full-year 2036 growth rate unless the contract definition is unusually narrow or the U.S. experiences an extraordinary productivity regime shift.

The main reason to lean a bit above the exact 2.0% center is upside from investment-heavy sectors, especially if AI-related capex and diffusion lift productivity longer than current consensus expects. That does not make a 6% plus outcome likely, but it does make the 2.1% to 2.5% range more competitive with the 1.6% to 2.0% range than simple trend extrapolation would suggest. By contrast, a sub-1.5% year is plausible if demographics and policy restraint dominate, yet it should not be the modal outcome given the persistent resilience of U.S. growth over long horizons.

Relative to the market, the 19% price on the 1.6% to 2.0% bucket looks too low. The market seems to be overweighting either a breakout upside story or a tail-risk distribution, while the evidence still favors a fairly ordinary near-2% year as the central case. The biggest caveat is contract definition: if settlement depends on a point-in-time or Q4/Q4 measure rather than a calendar-year average, the bucket probabilities could shift meaningfully, but under the most natural interpretation the market is underpricing the near-2% band.