So, it looks like there's a problem with how the government calculates GDP
In a statement to CNBC, the BEA said it is "aware of issues" that the way it tabulates Gross Domestic Product and that it is "developing methods to address what it has found."
In the first quarter, the first estimate of GDP showed the economy grew just 0.2% to start the year, well below what Wall Street economists had forecast.
In a note to clients back in April, Deutsche Bank's Joe LaVorgna said that the recent pattern of first quarter weakness from the economy was likely due to "faulty seasonal adjustment by the Bureau of Economic Analysis."
LaVorgna noted that from 2010 to 2014, first quarter GDP has average around 0.6%, while the rest of the year as seen the economy grow at around 2.2%.
So what's at issue here is the seasonal adjustment that the BEA applies to the data once it has collected its standard inputs for estimating economic growth. In a statement to CNBC, the BEA's Nicole Mayerhauser said the agency "has identified several sources of trouble in the data," among them federal defense spending, which tends to be lower in the first and fourth quarters.
In recent days, there has been a back and forth in the economic community over problems in how the first quarter is seasonally adjusted for.
Bloomberg's Luke Kawa summarized these disagreements last week, noting that economists at Barclays and at the the Federal Reserve disagree over how much "residual seasonality" has been affecting the data.
And it appears that, at least preliminarily, the BEA thinks these adjustments might need some work.