The Weekly Economic Index (WEI) provides a signal of the state of the U.S. economy based on data available at a daily or weekly frequency. It represents the common component of ten different daily and weekly series covering consumer behavior, the labor market, and production.
The WEI is currently -11.70 percent, scaled to four-quarter GDP growth, for the week ended May 16 and -10.37 percent for May 9; for reference, the WEI stood at 1.58 percent for the week ended February 29.
The WEI for the week of May 9 was revised upward following the release of the staffing index, which was more positive than previous data. The decline in the WEI for the week of May 16, relative to this revised number, was driven by decreases in retail sales and consumer confidence and a modest fall in steel production. These releases reversed positive moves seen in all three series in the prior week.
