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 -11.84 percent, scaled to four-quarter GDP growth, for the week ending May 2 and -10.90 percent for April 25; for reference, the WEI stood at 1.58 percent for the week ending February 29.
Today’s decline in the WEI for the week of May 2 is driven by decreases in steel production and retail sales, as well as a small drop in consumer confidence. The upward revision of the WEI for the week of April 25 is a result of the decline in this morning’s staffing index release being less negative than previously available data.
