Weekly Economic Index (WEI)

September 10, 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 -4.26 percent, scaled to four-quarter GDP growth, for the week ended September 5 and -4.80 percent for August 29; for reference, the WEI stood at 1.55 percent for the week ended February 29.
• The increase in the WEI for the week of September 5 was due to increases in steel production, rail traffic, and tax withholding, which more than offset an increase in initial unemployment insurance claims and a decline in retail sales. The WEI for the week of August 29 was revised downward due to an increase in continuing unemployment insurance claims, which more than offset an increase in the staffing index.
• As alternative scales, the current WEI implies a 17.56 percent decrease in IP (YoY) and a 631k employee decrease in nonfarm payroll.
• Data dashboard and .release (.pdf)
• Historical data including recent release (.xlsx)