Weekly Economic Index (WEI)

October 29, 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 -3.32 percent, scaled to four-quarter GDP growth, for the week ended October 24 and -4.01 percent for October 17; 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 24 was due to a decrease in initial unemployment insurance claims and increases in fuel sales and tax withholding, which more than offset decreases in electricity output and rail traffic (relative to the same time last year). The WEI for the week of October 24 was revised downward due to continuing unemployment insurance claims, 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 14.73 percent decrease in IP (YoY) and a 516k employee decrease in nonfarm payroll.
• Data dashboard and .release (.pdf)
• Historical data including recent release (.xlsx)