Weekly Economic Index (WEI)

February 18, 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 -2.31 percent, scaled to four-quarter GDP growth, for the week ended February 13 and -1.98 percent for February 6; 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 13 is due to an increase in initial unemployment insurance claims (relative to the same time last year) and a decrease in rail traffic, which more than offset increases in retail sales and tax withholding. The WEI for the week of February 6 was revised upward due to a fall in continuing unemployment insurance claims, which more than offset a decline in the staffing index.
• As alternative scales, the current WEI implies an 11.65 percent decrease in IP (YoY) and a 391k employee decrease in nonfarm payroll.
• Data dashboard and .release (.pdf)
• Historical data including recent release (.xlsx)