Weekly Economic Index (WEI)

June 18, 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 -8.39 percent, scaled to four-quarter GDP growth, for the week ended June 13 and -9.23 percent for June 06; for reference, the WEI stood at 1.54 percent for the week ended February 29.
• Today’s increase in the WEI for the week of June 13 was driven by increases in electricity output (the highest year-over-year gain since December), fuel sales, railroad traffic, and tax withholdings as well as a decrease in initial UI claims. The WEI for the week of June 6 was revised upwards due to the release of continuing UI claims, which provided a more positive signal than previously available data.
• As alternative scales, the current WEI implies a 29.98 percent decrease in IP (YoY) and a 1134k employee decrease in nonfarm payroll.
• Data dashboard and .release (.pdf)
• Historical data including recent release (.xlsx)