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 -11.14 percent, scaled to four-quarter GDP growth, for the week ended May 9 and -10.91 percent for May 2; for reference, the WEI stood at 1.58 percent for the week ended February 29.
Today’s increase in the WEI for the week of May 9 was driven by a decrease in initial unemployment insurance (UI) claims and increases in fuel sales and electricity output. These factors more than offset a decrease in payroll withholdings and unchanged rail traffic. The upward revision to the WEI for the week of May 2 reflects a decrease in continuing UI claims, which may be due to some workers claiming benefits from pandemic relief programs instead of state programs.
