Which economic indicator should you use?
Start with what you want to know. A national total, an average, a price index and a growth rate each leave something out. The useful measure is the one whose population, period and units fit your question.
Match your question to the measure
These eight starting points use the site’s acquired histories. Follow the companion measure when one headline cannot answer the whole question. Scroll sideways on a narrow screen to read every table column.
| Your question | Start here | How to read it | What it cannot tell you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Are consumer prices rising more slowly? | CPI inflation and PCE inflation PCE inflation | Read year-over-year inflation for the longer pace and seasonally adjusted monthly change for the recent pace. A slower positive rate still means prices are rising. | An inflation rate is not the price level or your household’s inflation rate. |
| Is the labor market adding jobs? | Nonfarm payrolls, unemployment and participation Labor-force participation | Payroll change measures jobs at establishments. Read the unemployment rate with participation to understand the resident labor-force denominator. | Payroll jobs and employed people come from different surveys and need not move together. |
| Is pay keeping up with prices? | Average hourly earnings, CPI and the Employment Cost Index Real-wage calculator | Compare earnings and price growth over identical dates. The real-growth formula divides the earnings ratio by the price ratio; subtraction is an approximation. | Average earnings reflect the mix of employees. ECI covers compensation costs, including benefits, with a fixed basket of labor. |
| Is national output growing? | Real GDP and industrial production Industrial production | Use real GDP for broad quarterly output and industrial production for monthly manufacturing, mining and utilities. Keep annualized quarterly growth separate from year-over-year growth. | Industrial production omits most services; it is not monthly GDP. GDP is not a household income measure. |
| Are consumers buying more, or just paying more? | Real consumer spending and retail sales Retail sales | Real personal consumption expenditure adjusts spending for prices and covers goods and services. Retail sales provide a narrower monthly sales measure. | Seasonally adjusted retail sales are still nominal. Do not treat a dollar increase as an equal increase in quantities. |
| Is home construction expanding? | Permits, housing starts and completions Compare the three stages | Compare authorizations, construction beginnings and finished units separately. The headlines are thousands of housing units at a seasonally adjusted annual pace. | The stages are not the same cohort. An annual rate is not the number actually built in that month; survey uncertainty matters. |
| How are market interest rates changing? | Effective federal funds rate and Treasury yields 10-year minus 2-year spread | Match the dates and maturities. The overnight effective rate, a ten-year Treasury yield and a yield-curve spread describe different markets. | A reference rate is not a mortgage or business loan offer. A spread is a percentage-point difference. |
| Which state economies are growing fastest? | State real GDP growth, size and income State economic size | Use the same year and price basis. Inspect levels alongside ranks; the fastest-growing state need not contribute the most to national growth. | GDP per resident and personal income per resident are different measures. Neither is median household income. |
Read a release without mixing its clocks
An observation period says when the activity occurred. A producer release date says when an estimate became public. The site acquisition date says when we retrieved a particular file. GDP for a quarter can be revised months later, and a later file can change earlier values. None of those dates substitutes for another.
Compare the same definition and adjustment at both endpoints. A seasonally adjusted monthly change and an unadjusted annual change can both be useful, but they are different calculations. An annualized quarterly rate scales a quarter’s pace; it is not the change actually realized over a complete year and is not a forecast.
When a figure misses a forecast, the difference concerns an expectation. When an older figure changes in a new release, the difference is a revision. This site preserves two acquired versions and shows their revisions; it does not supply consensus forecasts or a complete historical information set.
Averages do not describe every household
Average hourly earnings divide a covered payroll earnings total by hours. They can change because workers’ pay changes or because the mix of jobs changes. BEA personal income per resident divides a broader income aggregate by population. Neither statistic is the income of the household in the middle of the distribution.
A question about the typical household calls for a median and an identified household population. A question about wealth calls for assets and debts. A question about buying power calls for a price measure and comparable income periods. These questions need distinct data, even when they appear in the same discussion of living standards.
For a practical example, earnings rising 5% while prices rise 3% gives real growth of 1.94%, calculated as (1.05 / 1.03 − 1) × 100. The two-percentage-point difference is an approximation. The real-wage calculator uses the ratio formula, while the comparison with 2019 keeps its actual input periods visible.
Questions that need additional data
The 41-indicator catalog is a selected national and state reference. It does not contain every statistic a household, researcher or business needs. These official programs answer important questions outside the acquired catalog; their figures are not incorporated into this snapshot.
- What does a typical household earn?
- Census income statistics
Look for median household income and check the population, year and survey. This site’s average hourly earnings and BEA income per person cannot answer that question.
- How many people are in poverty?
- Census poverty statistics
Choose the poverty measure and population explicitly. A growing GDP total does not reveal how many people fall below a poverty threshold.
- How is household wealth distributed?
- Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances
Wealth concerns assets and debts, rather than income earned during a period. This survey is a separate source; it is not a monthly series in this catalog.
- What is happening to exports and imports?
- BEA international trade in goods and services
Use the trade release for exports, imports and the balance, with goods and services coverage identified. Those series are not currently acquired here.
Detailed industry, county and metro data also need their own source coverage and geographic definitions. The coverage register and regional documentation state what is acquired and where coverage stops. We do not derive local values from a state or national average.
Keep the evidence with the conclusion
A useful citation identifies the producer, series code, geography, reference period, unit, adjustment, transformation and snapshot. Save the exact displayed CSV when a conclusion depends on a calculation. Keep the underlying raw series separately so another reader can reconstruct it.
Start with separate comparison panels when units differ. Indexing to 100 compares relative paths; it does not make populations or definitions identical. A correlation is descriptive and does not establish a cause. A numerical movement in survey data does not, by itself, establish statistical significance.
Definition references: BLS labor-force concepts, BLS CPI questions, BLS compensation costs, and Census retail sales. Each on-site indicator supplies its exact source metadata. Check data status before treating this acquired version as the producer’s latest release.