US real GDP growth in 2035?

The strongest anchor is the long-run consensus around roughly 2% real growth, which is also where the Fed’s medium-term projections are sitting today. That makes a 2035 outcome in the 1.6% to 2.5% range more plausible than either a collapse to near-zero growth or a sustained jump into the high-2% or 3% area. Productivity could improve further, but the evidence so far is still more consistent with gradual trend growth than a dramatic regime shift.

Arguments for a higher outcome are real but still speculative. AI adoption, capital deepening, and improved efficiency could push productivity above its post-2005 average, and if that happens by the early 2030s then the 2.1% to 2.5% bucket becomes the natural center of gravity. Still, the bar for sustained 3%+ real growth is very high, and current official forecasts do not support assuming that kind of acceleration as the base case.

Arguments against the highest-growth buckets are stronger than the bull case suggests. Demographics, mature-cycle convergence, and the long record of modest U.S. trend productivity all make 2.6% to 3.0% a tail outcome rather than a leading one. The market’s broad pessimism, reflected in 86% on No, appears to overweight the chance of an unusually weak 2035 or a settlement in a low-growth bucket, whereas the evidence still points more toward an ordinary but respectable growth year around 2%.

Compared with the current market, I think the No side is somewhat overbought. A fairer distribution puts the mid-2% and low-2% buckets near the top, with the sub-1% outcomes still possible but not dominant; the market seems to be discounting too much stagnation and not enough persistence of normal trend growth.