Weekly Economic Index (WEI)
June 23, 2020
Daniel Lewis, New York Fed
Karel Mertens, Dallas Fed
James Stock, Harvard University
The WEI is an index of 10 weekly indicators of real economic activity, scaled to have the units of four-quarter percent change of real GDP.
- The WEI is currently -8.20 percent, scaled to four-quarter GDP growth, for the week ended June 20 and -7.74 percent for June 13; for reference, the WEI stood at 1.54 percent for the week ended February 29.
- Today’s decrease in the WEI for the week of June 20 is due to a decrease in consumer confidence, which more than offset increases in retail sales and steel production. We anticipate an upward revision on Thursday when data series that have recently provided more positive signals are available. The WEI for the week of June 13 was revised upward following an increase in the staffing index, which provided a more positive signal than previously available data.
- As alternative scales, the current WEI implies a 29.43 percent decrease in IP (YoY) and a 1112k employee decrease in nonfarm payroll.
- Data dashboard and .release (.pdf)
- Historical data including recent release (.xlsx)