Weekly Economic Index (WEI)

July 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 -7.08 percent, scaled to four-quarter GDP growth, for the week ended July 18 and -6.99 percent for July 11; for reference, the WEI stood at 1.54 percent for the week ended February 29.
• Today’s decline in the WEI for the week of July 18 is due to an increase in initial UI claims (relative to the same time last year) and decreases in fuel sales and electricity production, which more than offset increases in railroad traffic and tax withholdings. The WEI for the week of July 11 was revised downward due to the continuing UI claims release, which, while lower than the prior week, still provided a more negative signal than previously available data.
• As alternative scales, the current WEI implies a 26.02 percent decrease in IP (YoY) and a 974k employee decrease in nonfarm payroll. 
• Data dashboard and .release (.pdf)
• Historical data including recent release (.xlsx)