GDP is a production scoreboard for a place and period, rather than a bank balance or a complete wellbeing score.
Go deeper
Gross domestic product brings many kinds of production into one measure. Final goods and services are counted without adding the intermediate inputs used to make them a second time. For the United States, the Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates GDP for quarters and years and publishes several estimates as information improves.
A GDP level and a GDP growth rate are different. The level describes the amount of output; the growth rate describes its change. Headlines commonly report growth in real GDP, which removes price changes. U.S. quarterly growth is usually stated at an annual rate, so it should not be read as the actual percentage increase during that quarter.
Make it concrete
Hypothetical example: real output rises from an index of 100 to 101 in one quarter. That is 1% quarterly growth, or about 4.1% if that pace continued for four quarters.
When you read a headline
Check whether the figure is a level or change, real or nominal, and quarterly or annualized. An annualized rate is not a forecast.