BEV BUTULA: Economic Indicators

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The economic indicator is a monthly publication prepared for the Joint Economic Committee. It provides a variety of economic information including “information on gross domestic product, income, employment, production, business activity, prices, money, credit, security markets, Federal finance, and international statistics.”

The economic indicator reports from April 1995 forward can be found on the new FDsys website. Researchers select a specific report and then can narrow their search by an area of interest (e.g. corporate profits). Each report will commonly contain a graph and a very brief summary of the current economic situation. For example, sections within the April 2011 report state that employment fell by 190,000, unemployment rose by 205,000, and commercial bank loans and leases fell .3 percent in March. In addition, each topic usually includes a detailed table containing 10 years of data.

Older economic indicator reports (back to 1948) can be found on FRASER (Federal Reserve Archival System for Economic Research). Here the user can select a report by date, subject area, or browse the alphabetical list.