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 -10.79 percent, scaled to four-quarter GDP growth, for the week ended May 30 and -9.48 percent for May 23; for reference, the WEI stood at 1.58 percent for the week ended February 29.
Today’s decline in the WEI for the week of May 30 was driven by falling retail sales and a decrease in consumer confidence relative to the same time last year, which more than offset increased steel production. The WEI for May 23 was revised upward as an increase in the staffing index more than offset decreases in fuel sales and electricity production relative to the same time last year.
