US real GDP growth in 2035?

The strongest anchor is that official forecasters are still clustering around about 2% long-run US real GDP growth, not a structurally lower number. The Fed’s longer-run median is 2.0%, and its near-term path through 2029 remains close to that level, which suggests the baseline expectation for 2035 should still center on trend growth rather than stagnation or a dramatic acceleration. That makes the middle-of-the-distribution outcomes, especially 1.6% to 2.5%, the most plausible cluster.

The main reason to lean slightly above 2% rather than below it is that the economy still has credible upside from productivity, particularly if AI diffusion produces a sustained capital deepening and efficiency gain. That said, mainstream institutions are not baking in a productivity regime shift, so the more aggressive 2.6% to 3.0% band should remain only a secondary tail case rather than the base case. In contrast, the 0.0% or below and 0.6% to 1.0% bands require either a prolonged productivity disappointment or a major structural slowdown, both of which are possible but not the central forecast.

Compared with the market, I think the pricing leans a little too heavily toward weak-growth outcomes and underweights the chance that the US simply keeps growing near trend for another decade. The market’s top probabilities are spread across several bands, but my view is that the modal outcome is a bit higher than the market suggests, with the 2.1% to 2.5% range clearly the single best bet and 1.6% to 2.0% close behind. The market looks mildly mispriced if it is treating sub-2% growth as more likely than a continued trend-growth regime.