Despite everything that’s going on in this economy right now — tariffs, inflation, and a sluggish job market — gross domestic product is likely to grow even more than expected.

That’s according to economists surveyed by the National Association for Business Economics. Back in June, they expected the economy to grow by 1.3% this year. Now they expect it to add 1.8%. And according to the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow tracker, growth in the third quarter could be as high as 3.8%.

Here’s how gross domestic product is calculated: It’s consumption, plus government spending, plus investment, plus exports, minus imports.

That last piece pulled GDP down early in the year, because businesses imported a ton of stuff to get ahead of tariffs. But after that, things changed.

“We saw a reversal. We saw a significant drop in imports in the middle of the year,” said JoAnne Feeney at Advisors Capital Management.

That led GDP to rebound. But it wasn’t just imports. The next piece of the equation is capital investment, and that’s been huge thanks to the buildout of AI data centers.

“These are expensive facilities full of domestically designed and produced equipment, and that is absolutely having a significant impact on the investment numbers,” Feeney said.

It’s also having a big positive impact on the stock market. And that’s propping up consumer spending, especially among people who own stocks. 

“People at the very top have, through a sort of wealth effect, been powering consumption,” said Stephanie Kelton, a professor of economics at Stony Brook University.

As reported before, the top 10% of earners were responsible for as much as 50% of consumer spending for part of this year. 

That’s pushed up GDP, even as the next piece of the equation — government spending — has been a drag, Kelton said.

Add all this together, and GDP looks pretty good, for now.

“It doesn't feel sustainable to me,” said Shannon Grein, an economist at Wells Fargo. 

There is still just a lot of uncertainty in the economy, she said — around tariffs, interest rates, and the government shutdown. 

“All this uncertainty, from what we're hearing anecdotally, and what we're seeing in the data is leading to just broad confusion and kind of just a halting in behavior of businesses,” Grein said.

She thinks that’ll start to show up in the form of slower GDP growth in the months ahead.