Visualization: Economic indicators in the states

A visualization of coincident and leading economic indicators for the states.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia calculates two indexes that track and forecast economic activity in the states and the country as a whole.

The coincident index is a measure of current and past economic activity for each state. This index includes four indicators: nonfarm payroll employment, the unemployment rate, average hours worked in manufacturing, and wage and salary disbursements deflated by the consumer price index (U.S. city average). The average value for the complete year 2007 is given the value 100. ⁽¹⁾Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. State Coincident Indexes — a monthly coincident index for each of the 50 states. Philadelphiafed.org. Available at www.philadelphiafed.org/research-and-data/regional-economy/indexes/coincident.

The leading index predicts the six-month growth rate of the state’s coincident index. In addition to the coincident index, “the models include other variables that lead the economy: state-level housing permits (1 to 4 units), state initial unemployment insurance claims, delivery times from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) manufacturing survey, and the interest rate spread between the 10-year Treasury bond and the 3-month Treasury bill.” ⁽²⁾Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. State Leading Indexes – current & future economic situation of 50 states with special coverage of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, & Delaware. Philadelphiafed.org. Available at www.philadelphiafed.org/research-and-data/regional-economy/indexes/leading.

Positive values mean the coincident index is expected to rise in the future six months, while negative values mean it is expected to fall.

Because of the pandemic, the leading index is suspended as of February 2020, and I’ve removed it from the visualization.

I’ve created an interactive visualization of these two indexes. Click here to open the visualization in a new window.

For more visualizations, click here.