Weekly Economic Index (WEI)

October 15, 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 -3.91 percent, scaled to four-quarter GDP growth, for the week ended October 10 and -4.57 percent for October 03; for reference, the WEI stood at 1.55 percent for the week ended February 29.
• The increase in the WEI for the week of October 10 was due to increases in rail traffic, tax withholding, and electricity output (relative to the same time last year), which more than offset an increase in initial unemployment insurance claims. The WEI for the week of October 3 was revised downward due to the release of the staffing index and continuing unemployment insurance claims, which while higher and lower, respectively, than the prior week, still provided a more negative signal than previously available data.
• Data dashboard and .release (.pdf)
• Historical data including recent release (.xlsx)