Search Results
Seventh District Year in Review for 2024: Economic Growth Slowed to Near Average
In 2024, economic growth slowed for both the United States and the Seventh Federal Reserve District, with growth rates having come in close to their respective ten-year averages.1 District employment continued to grow more slowly than national employment overall, and this was partly due to slower growth rates for the District in the education and health services sector and the manufacturing sector. One bright spot for District employment was the public sector: Employment in the public sector grew faster than in the private sector, making up for several years of relatively slow job gains ...
Working Paper
Predicting Benchmarked US State Employment Data in Realtime
US payroll employment data come from a survey of nonfarm business establishments and are therefore subject to revisions. While the revisions are generally small at the national level, they can be large enough at the state level to substantially alter assessments of current economic conditions. Researchers and policymakers must therefore exercise caution in interpreting state employment data until they are "benchmarked" against administrative data on the universe of workers some 5 to 16 months after the reference period. This paper develops and tests a state space model that predicts ...
How Is the Challenge of Finding Childcare Affecting Labor Force Participation? Perspectives from Employers Across the Seventh District
Through the Chicago Fed Survey of Economic Conditions (CFSEC) and during roundtable discussions with business, nonprofit, and government leaders, the Chicago Fed asked employers from a variety of sectors for their perspectives on how childcare access has affected labor force availability.1 These survey and roundtable findings contribute to the Chicago Fed’s Spotlight on Childcare—an effort to increase our understanding of how the lack of access to childcare impedes labor force participation in the Seventh Federal Reserve District. In this article, we summarize the responses from over 100 ...
How Do Manufacturers Decide When to Invest in New Equipment?
Although purchasing more and better capital leads to higher productivity, explanations for when and why firms choose to adopt new technology are not straightforward. In this article, we shed some light on how manufacturers choose to adopt new technology by purchasing equipment. The decision can be complicated, so we surveyed manufacturers to get insights into how they approach it. We find that the top two reasons manufacturers invest in new equipment with advanced technology is to keep up with competitors and save on labor costs. But upgrading is not always an obvious choice. Manufacturers ...
Journal Article
Education and the Evolution of Earnings Across Population Groups Since 2000
By nearly all macroeconomic measures, the US economy is in good shape: unemployment is low, jobs growth is steady, inflation is stable, and GDP has expanded uninterrupted for 10 years?the longest expansion in US history. The good news from the aggregate data means that most people are in the best economic position they have been in for some time. But by definition, aggregate data cannot tell us whether an overall good economy is benefitting some population groups more than others. This article disaggregates the good news in the macrodata by tracking the fortunes of a variety of population ...
What Region Looks Most Like the U.S. as a Whole?
The United States is a diverse country, whether you’re looking at its economic, population, or environmental (i.e., topographic and weather) characteristics. Some places are growing quickly; others, slowly. Some are home to large numbers of computer programmers; others, just a few ranchers. Some are hot and dry; others, cold and wet. The U.S. is also a large country, with regions that themselves are the size of some countries. While these regions all share in major U.S. trends like recessions and an aging population, some regions track national trends more closely than others.
Working Paper
Predicting Benchmarked US State Employment Data in Real Time
US payroll employment data come from a survey and are subject to revisions. While revisions are generally small at the national level, they can be large enough at the state level to alter assessments of current economic conditions. Users must therefore exercise caution in interpreting state employment data until they are “benchmarked” against administrative data 5–16 months after the reference period. This paper develops a state-space model that predicts benchmarked state employment data in real time. The model has two distinct features: 1) an explicit model of the data revision process ...
Newsletter
Using the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book to Track Economic Activity
This article provides the public a first look at a new set of indexes constructed from the Chicago Fed?s Beige Book survey, and describes their ability to track economic activity.
Seventh District Midyear Review: Economic Growth Continued to Be Solid in the First Half of 2024
Overall, economic growth was steady during the first half of 2024 in both the nation and the Seventh Federal Reserve District.1 Real gross domestic product (GDP) growth slowed some in both, but employment growth was up, especially in the District. Over the last few years, the District has almost always lagged the nation in both real GDP and employment growth, continuing a decade-long trend. Slower growth and slower inflation often go hand in hand, and recent data indicate inflation has indeed been somewhat lower in the Midwest.
Journal Article
Understanding Patterns in U.S. Regional Economic Growth
An analysis examines how differences in productivity growth and shifting preferences for amenities generate regional variations in U.S. economic growth.