Economic Indicator Library

The civilian unemployment rate is the percentage of the labor force that is jobless and actively searching for work. Published monthly by the BLS as part of the Employment Situation report.

Total nonfarm employment measured by the Current Employment Statistics survey. The most-watched monthly jobs number.

4-week moving average of new unemployment insurance claims. Smooths out weekly noise from the raw ICSA series.

Number of quits during the month as a percent of total employment. Reflects worker confidence in finding new jobs.

Total employees in the temporary help services subsector. First hires and first fires — the leading edge of labor-market shifts.

CPI for all urban consumers, all items, seasonally adjusted. The most cited headline inflation measure in the United States.

CPI excluding volatile food and energy prices. Preferred by economists and the Fed for tracking underlying inflation trends.

Personal Consumption Expenditures price index — the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge because of its broader coverage and dynamic weights.

PCE excluding food and energy — the specific series the FOMC targets at 2% year-over-year.

Producer prices measure input-side inflation before it reaches consumers. Leads CPI by 1–3 months in most cycles.

CPI subcomponent capturing actual rents paid by tenants for their primary residence. Seasonally adjusted.

Imputed rent that homeowners would pay for their own home. The single largest CPI component (~33% of core CPI) and the primary driver of shelter inflation persistence.

Spread between the 10-year Treasury constant maturity yield and the 2-year Treasury yield. The most-watched yield-curve inversion signal.

Spread between the 10-year Treasury yield and the 3-month T-bill. The New York Fed’s preferred recession signal.

Constant maturity yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note. Benchmark long-term risk-free rate.

Constant maturity yield on the 2-year U.S. Treasury note. Most sensitive point on the curve to Fed policy expectations.

Constant maturity yield on the 3-month U.S. Treasury bill. Reflects near-term risk-free rate expectations.

The effective federal funds rate — the volume-weighted median rate at which depository institutions lend reserves to each other overnight.

Total assets on the Federal Reserve balance sheet — the primary quantitative-easing / quantitative-tightening (QE/QT) measure.

The VIX measures implied 30-day S&P 500 volatility from options prices. Widely known as the "fear index."

Option-adjusted spread of ICE BofA US High Yield index vs. spot Treasury curve. Measures credit-risk premium in junk bonds.

Weekly composite of 105 measures of financial activity across money, debt, and equity markets plus the traditional and shadow banking systems.

The broad trade-weighted dollar index against a basket of 26 currencies. Superseded the narrow DXY as the Fed’s preferred measure.

Yield on 10-year Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities. Represents the real (after-inflation) risk-free rate.

Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey (SLOOS) — net percentage of domestic banks tightening standards on commercial real estate loans secured by multifamily residential structures. Negative = net loosening.

SLOOS net percentage of banks tightening standards on CRE construction and land-development loans. Early-cycle indicator — construction financing tightens before completed-asset lending.

West Texas Intermediate spot price at Cushing, Oklahoma — the U.S. benchmark for light-sweet crude oil.

Weekly national average of 30-year fixed-rate conforming mortgage rates published by Freddie Mac.

New privately-owned housing units started, seasonally adjusted annual rate. A leading indicator of housing-market health.

New privately-owned multifamily housing units started (buildings with 5 units or more), seasonally adjusted annual rate. Isolates multifamily supply from single-family.

Multifamily building permits authorized in permit-issuing places (5+ unit structures). Leads starts by 1-3 months.

Weekly national average of 15-year fixed-rate conforming mortgage rates. Shorter-duration companion to the 30Y rate.

Broad house-price index derived from all conforming-loan transactions (purchases and refinance appraisals). Wider coverage than Case-Shiller.

Proportion of rental inventory that is vacant and available for rent. Direct read on rental-market tightness.

Share of owner-occupied inventory that is vacant and for sale. Complements rental vacancy on the owner-occupied side.

Proportion of occupied housing units that are owner-occupied. Slow-moving structural indicator of housing tenure mix.

Monthly survey-based index of consumer confidence and expectations. Widely used in forecasting consumer spending.

Inflation-adjusted (real) advance monthly retail sales, seasonally adjusted. Cleaner read on unit demand than nominal sales.

Nominal median household income across all U.S. households, from the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement.

Measures the real output of manufacturing, mining, and electric/gas utility industries.

Industrial production excluding mining and utilities. The pure manufacturing-output subindex of INDPRO.

Total nonfarm employees in the manufacturing sector, seasonally adjusted.

Percent of total production capacity currently in use across industry. Readings above 80% historically flag late-cycle overheating.

Average weekly hours worked by production and nonsupervisory employees in manufacturing. A Conference Board leading indicator component.

Corporate profits after tax with inventory valuation and capital consumption adjustments — the NIPA-basis profit measure.

Inflation-adjusted (real) GDP — the broadest measure of U.S. economic output. Published quarterly with two revisions.

M2 monetary aggregate — currency, demand deposits, savings, and small time deposits. Broad measure of money in the economy.

Delinquency rate on single-family residential mortgages booked in domestic offices at all commercial banks.

Delinquency rate on commercial real estate loans (excluding farmland) booked in domestic offices at all commercial banks.