FRED has added 1,479 monthly series on the average prices of household fuel, motor fuel, and food items.The data come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and accompany the release of the CPI. However, unlike the CPI, average prices are estimates of the prices paid for specific goods in a given month, while the CPI tracks price changes. The data are also available in release tables.

FRED has added 216 quarterly series on the distribution of U.S. household wealth from the Distributional Financial Accounts release from the Board of Governors. The data are broken down by item in the Financial Accounts wealth table and percentile bracket (top 1, next 9, next 40, and bottom 50).

Users now have access to some of FRED’s most popular data while they’re still hot. FRED now sources the Treasury bond and bill data used to calculate interest rate spreads directly from the U.S. Treasury Department rather than from the Board of Governors’ H.15 release. The release update schedule was changed to 5 PM Central Time. This improvement will provide some interest rate spreads with no lag. For example, values will be available for the 10-year minus 2-year and the 10-year minus 3-month spreads on the same day those Treasury bond and bill data are released.

FRED has added 383 annual series on resident population estimates by metropolitan statistical area (MSA) from the U.S. Census Bureau. The map above shows annual population growth for all MSAs in the U.S. from 2017 to 2018.

FRED has added over 36,400 series from the Board of Governors‘ Financial Accounts of the United States Z.1 release. With this addition, FRED now offers the entire Z.1 release, which includes data on transactions and levels of financial assets and liabilities by sector and financial instrument, full balance sheets, integrated and macroeconomic accounts, and additional details.