Weekly Economic Index (WEI)

February 11, 2021

 

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 -2.25 percent, scaled to four-quarter GDP growth, for the week ended February 6 and -1.87 percent for January 30; for reference, the WEI stood at 1.55 percent for the week ended February 29.
• The decline in the WEI for the week of February 6 is due to a decrease in tax withholding, which more than offset a fall in initial unemployment insurance claims and increases in fuel sales, electricity output, and rail traffic (relative to the same time last year). The WEI for the week of January 30 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 an 11.48 percent decrease in IP (YoY) and a 384k employee decrease in nonfarm payroll.
• Data dashboard and .release (.pdf)
• Historical data including recent release (.xlsx)