Literacy layer

One economy, thirteen honest instruments.

No single number captures how an economy is doing. Each measure is built to capture one thing well and miss others by design. Read across them and a fuller, more complicated picture appears than any headline gives.

Seven habits for reading the data

No single number is the economy.

Each gauge is built to capture one thing well and miss others by design. The skill is knowing what each one leaves out.

Read across, not down one number.

A strong aggregate and a strained typical household can both be true at once, because they measure different things.

Track real wages →

Correlation is not causation.

Two lines moving together is not one moving the other. A shared trend often traces back to a third force, or to chance.

Overlay two series →

The first print is not the final number.

Figures get revised, sometimes by a lot. Every number on this site shows the date it is current as of.

How figures are pulled →

Falling inflation is not falling prices.

A lower inflation rate means prices are rising more slowly, not that they are coming down. The level stays where it climbed to.

Track inflation →

An average hides the spread.

A national figure is not every state or every household. Comparing places carries cost-of-living and margin-of-error caveats.

See it by state →

The market is not the economy.

Asset prices track the wealth of asset-holders and their expectations. That is a different question from how people are doing.

The thirteen instruments

Each gauge below is one the dashboard tracks. The point is not to crown a winner. It is to see what each one shows, and what it leaves out.

Real GDP

The total value of goods and services produced, inflation-adjusted.

What it's good for

One comparable number across countries and decades.
Captures real production broadly.
Standardized, and revised on a schedule.

What it misses

Silent on who receives the gains.
Counts cleanup and rebuilding as positive.
Whippy quarter to quarter, and distorted by one-offs.

Latest $24.2T, Jan 2026 · FRED GDPC1 · full history →

Unemployment Rate

The share of people who want work and cannot find it.

What it's good for

Monthly and timely; it often moves first.
Tied closely to how people feel.
Intuitive and widely understood.

What it misses

Leaves out discouraged and underemployed workers.
Early job counts get revised hard.
Can look fine while job quality erodes.

Latest 4.3%, May 2026 · FRED UNRATE · full history →

Nonfarm Payrolls

The total number of jobs on US payrolls outside farming.

What it's good for

A broad monthly count of where the jobs are.
Deep history, back to 1939.
The figure the Fed and markets watch closely.

What it misses

Counts jobs, not people; two part-time jobs count twice.
The first print is revised for two more months.
Says nothing about pay or hours.

Latest 159.0M, May 2026 · FRED PAYEMS · full history →

Labor Force Participation Rate

The share of working-age adults either holding a job or looking for one.

What it's good for

Counts people the unemployment rate sets aside, including those who stopped looking.
A read on the size of the workforce, not just who is hired.
Monthly, with history back to 1948.

What it misses

Demographics move it; an aging population pulls it down on its own.
Silent on whether the available jobs are good ones.
A national rate hides who is in the workforce and who is out.

Latest 61.8%, May 2026 · FRED CIVPART · full history →

Real Wage Growth (YoY)

Whether the typical weekly paycheck is growing faster than prices, after inflation.

What it's good for

Cuts through nominal raises to what a paycheck actually buys.
Speaks to living standards, not just national output.
One read on whether work is getting people ahead.

What it misses

A median; it hides who got the raise and who did not.
Swings hard when inflation moves, even if pay holds steady.
Says nothing about hours, benefits, or job security.

Latest +0.8%, Jan 2026 · FRED LES1252881600Q · full history →

CPI Inflation (YoY)

How fast consumer prices are rising compared with a year ago.

What it's good for

Measures the cost squeeze households feel.
Monthly and granular.
Drives Federal Reserve policy.

What it misses

Falling inflation is not falling prices; the level stays high.
One basket cannot match every household.
Energy swings can swamp the signal short-term.

Latest 4.2%, May 2026 · FRED CPIAUCSL · full history →

Federal Funds Rate

The Federal Reserve's policy rate, which sets borrowing costs across the economy.

What it's good for

Shows the Fed's read of the economy in one number.
Drives mortgage, card, and loan rates.
Signals whether policy is fighting inflation or weakness.

What it misses

A blunt tool; it hits the whole economy at once.
Effects arrive with long and variable lags.
Says nothing about who feels the rate most.

Latest 3.63%, May 2026 · FRED FEDFUNDS · full history →

10-Year Treasury Yield

The market yield on a 10-year US Treasury.

What it's good for

A live read on expected growth, inflation, and rates.
Anchors mortgage and long-term borrowing costs.
Set by buyers and sellers, not an agency.

What it misses

Moves on expectations, which can be wrong.
Blends several forces into one number.
Says nothing about who borrows at it.

Latest 4.45%, Jun 11, 2026 · FRED DGS10 · full history →

10Y-2Y Treasury Spread

The gap between the 10-year and 2-year Treasury yields, the slope of the yield curve.

What it's good for

A negative reading has come before most recent recessions.
Set by the market, distilling rate and growth expectations into one number.
Daily, and watched closely as a warning gauge.

What it misses

It has led recessions, not caused them; the lag has run from months to years.
It gives false alarms; not every inversion is followed by a downturn.
Signals roughly when, never how deep or why.

Latest +0.39 pp, Jun 12, 2026 · FRED T10Y2Y · full history →

Industrial Production

The output of US factories, mines, and utilities, as an index.

What it's good for

A monthly read on the physical economy.
Long history, back to 1919.
Sensitive to the manufacturing cycle.

What it misses

Manufacturing is a shrinking share of a service economy.
An index, not dollars or jobs.
Weather and strikes can swing it.

Latest 102.5, Apr 2026 · FRED INDPRO · full history →

Retail Sales

What Americans spent at stores and restaurants in a month.

What it's good for

A fast read on consumer demand, which is most of the economy.
Monthly, and released early.
Broad coverage of spending.

What it misses

Nominal dollars, so inflation alone can lift it.
The advance estimate is revised.
Counts spending, not whether people can afford it.

Latest $757B, Apr 2026 · FRED RSAFS · full history →

Housing Starts

The number of new homes builders broke ground on, at an annual rate.

What it's good for

A leading indicator; building responds early to rates.
Ties to jobs, materials, and confidence.
Decades of monthly history.

What it misses

Volatile month to month.
Weather-sensitive.
Starts are not completions; plans change.

Latest 1.47M, Apr 2026 · FRED HOUST · full history →

Consumer Sentiment

How confident households feel about the economy and their own finances.

What it's good for

Captures felt experience that output data cannot.
Predicts spending and mood.
Decades of consistent monthly history.

What it misses

Noisy, and swayed by the news cycle.
Feelings are not a substitute for output data.
Can diverge from how people actually behave.

Latest 49.8, Apr 2026 · FRED UMCSENT · full history →

Why they disagree

Put the thirteen together and they will not always agree. That is not a flaw in the data. It is the point. Output can rise while the typical household treads water, because they measure different things.

No instrument is the economy. Each is one honest gauge, with a blind spot built in. Reading them together, and knowing what each leaves out, is the whole skill.

Reading the eras Before you credit a president → The long form of habit three: why the economy is hard to pin on one office. The lag, the Fed and Congress, the unseen baseline, and revisions.