FRED has added 153 series from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s Quarterly Banking Profile (QBP). The QBP provides the earliest comprehensive summary of financial results for all FDIC-insured institutions. These series provide quarterly aggregate U.S. data since 1984.
Also, the Reports of Condition and Income for All Insured U.S. Commercial Banks release will be discontinued. Similar aggregate U.S. data can be found in the QBP release. Links to series similar to the discontinued ones are provided in the series notes where available. Raw data to reconstruct the other regional-based series are available from the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) Central Data Repository’s Public Data Distribution.
Focus on the Nominal and the Real Value of the Minimum Wage
This assignment provides instructions on building the graph below and includes writing prompts for out-of-class assignments.
Using GeoFRED® to Compare Minimum Wages Across States
This assignment provides instructions on creating the map below and suggests prompts for in-class discussion. See how you do on our sample discussion question below.
Click on the map above to view an interactive version. Question: Name three states where the minimum wage was above $10 an hour in 2020. Be sure to look at all 50 states.
Learning About the Minimum Wage to Forecast Changes in Employment
In January 2021, nonfarm payroll employment changed little. Read on for more details and a list of resources to become a better FREDcast forecaster.
BLS Headline:
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “In January 2021…nonfarm payroll employment changed little.”
Quiz Yourself on the Economics of the Minimum Wage
The graph above shows the value of the minimum wage as a proportion of the average wage (in blue) and the mean value of that calculation (in purple).
Q1. Between 1965 and 2020, what was the mean value of the minimum wage as a proportion of the average wage?
Q2. Between 1965 and 2020, when was the minimum wage closest in value to the average wage?
Q3. Between 1965 and 2020, when did the minimum wage represent the smallest fraction of the average wage?
The graph above shows the value of the minimum wage periodically revised by Congress (in blue), and its 1984 value had it been indexed to the consumer price index at that time (in purple).
Q1. As of December 2020, which one is higher?
Q2. Between 1984 and 2020, was the minimum wage set by Congress ever higher than the hypothetical inflation-indexed 1984 minimum wage?
Q1. When did Congress first set a minimum wage for farm workers?
Q2. When did Congress make the minimum wage for farm workers and nonfarm workers equal?
Q3. When the two minimum wages set by Congress were different, which one was lower?
Now that you’ve aced this quiz, give it to your students using this dashboard. To customize this dashboard, just click the “Save to My Account” button at the top of the dashboard.
These four series are an extension of the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR). The SOFR averages are compounded averages of the SOFR over rolling 30-, 90-, and 180-calendar-day periods. The SOFR Index measures the cumulative impact of compounding the SOFR on a unit of investment over time, with the initial value set to 1 on April 2, 2018 (i.e., the first value date of the SOFR). The SOFR Index value reflects the effect of compounding the SOFR each business day and allows the calculation of compounded SOFR averages over custom time periods.
Users can view a daily snapshot of these data with the release tables.
The Board of Governors has made several changes to the H.6 statistical release, “Money Stock Measures,” to reflect changes announced on December 17, 2020.
As of February 23, 2021, the H.6 statistical release is published at a monthly frequency, on the fourth Tuesday of the month. In addition, the following changes have been made:
Savings deposits are now recognized as a type of transaction account, reflecting the Board’s action on April 24, 2020, to remove the regulatory distinction between transaction accounts and savings deposits. Therefore, the items “Savings deposits” and “Other checkable deposits” are now combined into “Other liquid deposits” in the M1 monetary aggregate. This action increases the M1 monetary aggregate significantly while leaving the M2 monetary aggregate unchanged.
The press release now contains only monthly average data needed to construct the monetary aggregates, thereby eliminating the release of data on institutional money funds and memorandum items on U.S. government deposits and deposits due to foreign banks and foreign official institutions. Components of the monetary aggregates will continue to be reported at a total industry level without a breakdown by banks and thrifts.
Weekly average, non-seasonally adjusted data will continue to be made available, while weekly average, seasonally adjusted data will no longer be provided.
In addition, due to the discontinuance of institutional money funds series, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis is no longer able to calculate Money Zero Maturity (MZM) Money Stock, so these series and the Real MZM Stock (MZMREAL) have been discontinued in FRED as well. Users interested in calculating MZM can obtain institutional money funds data from the Investment Company Institute (ICI).
FRED has expanded job posting data from Indeed. The release now features trends in job postings for France and several new metro areas in the U.S.
Indeed has discontinued wage-tier posting data, and these data will no longer be updated on FRED. Indeed has also modified their release methodology significantly.
These data are copyrighted and require pre-approval: Contact Indeed to request permission to use the data.
The U.S. Census Bureau has updated their Business Formation Statistics (BFS) release, and FRED now includes new monthly data starting in July 2004 (including new data for U.S. Census regions and national data by two-digit NAICS codes).
Quarterly data have been discontinued and replaced with similar monthly data. These monthly series can be found within the notes of the quarterly series. FRED also allows aggregation of data through the “Edit Graph” panel’s “Modify frequency” menu.
The BFS release
provides timely and high-frequency data on business applications and employer business formations
measures business initiation activity (Business Application Series) as indicated by applications for an employer identification number (EIN) on the IRS Form SS-4
provides information on actual and projected employer business formations that originate from these applications, based on the record of first payroll tax liability for an EIN
contains measures of delay in business starts as indicated by the average duration between the application for an EIN and the transition to an employer business
FRED has added about 120 series on weekly historical balance sheet records for the Federal Reserve System, starting in 1914 and spanning through April 2018. These series were digitized by Cecilia Bao, Justin Chen, Nicholas Fries, Andrew Gibson, Emma Paine, and Kurt Schuler in their working paper “The Federal Reserve System’s Weekly Balance Sheet Since 1914,” issued jointly with the Center for Financial Stability.
The Fed’s balance sheet line items evolve over time: Some aggregates do not appear in all of the historical press releases or stop being included after a certain date. The authors continue to calculate these series based on their subcomponents.
Details on the authors’ calculations and links to the corresponding series in the H.4.1 Factors Affecting Federal Reserve Balances statistical release from the Board of Governors are available in the relevant series notes under the individual FRED graphs.
FRED has added about 18,500 new series from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Expenditure Surveys (CE) program. The CE program provides data on expenditures, income, and demographic characteristics of consumers in the United States, which are primarily used to revise the relative importance of goods and services in the market basket of the consumer price index.
The CE surveys collect data that fall into one of the following major expenditure categories:
alcoholic beverages
apparel and services
cash contributions
education
entertainment
food
healthcare
housing
miscellaneous
personal care products and services
personal insurance and pensions
reading
tobacco products and smoking supplies
transportation
The expenditure data and demographic and income information are provided in a variety of formats, including tables with estimates by region, income, age, race, education, occupation, and various other characteristics of the household or reference person. CE also provides tables that cross-tabulate using two characteristics (e.g., age and income) to allow users to further analyze the spending behavior for a particular subset of the population.
Focus on Employment Changes Across Educational Attainment Groups
This assignment provides instructions on building the graph below and includes writing prompts for out-of-class assignments.
Using GeoFRED® to Compare Educational Attainment and Unemployment Rates
This assignment provides instructions on creating the maps below and suggests prompts for in-class discussion. See how you do on our sample discussion question below.
Click on the map above to view an interactive version.
Again, click on the map above to view an interactive version Question: Compare both maps. What differences or similarities do you see between educational attainment and unemployment across geographical areas in the U.S.?
Learning About the Economics of Education to Forecast Changes in Payroll Employment
In December 2020, the total number of workers on payrolls decreased. Read on for more details and a list of resources to become a better FREDcast forecaster.
BLS Headline:
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Total nonfarm payroll employment declined by 140,000 in December (2020).”
Q1. As of the second quarter of 2020, which population group had the second-highest median weekly income level?
Q2. As of the second quarter of 2020, which population group had the lowest median weekly income level?
Q1. As of November 2020, which population group had the lowest participation rate in the civilian labor force?
Q2. As of November 2020, which population group had the highest participation rate in the civilian labor force?
Q1. Between 2000 and 2020, which population groups had the most constant unemployment rates?
Q2. Between 2000 and 2020, which population groups experienced the largest changes in unemployment rates?
Now that you’ve aced this quiz, give it to your students using this dashboard. To customize this dashboard, just click the “Save to My Account” button at the top of the dashboard.
