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Regional Economic Indicators

We monitor a variety of indicators that speak to the economic health of the Ninth District. We collect and share this data to assess current economic conditions.

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Ninth District Data Focus

Inflation

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) measures the average change in prices paid by consumers for everyday goods and services over time. Tracking the CPI at a regional level can inform us about differences in inflation within the United States.

Employment

Unemployment insurance claims

Unemployment insurance benefits provide partial wage replacement to workers who become unemployed through no fault of their own. Initial claims represent the number of people who filed a claim after separation from an employer. Continued claims represent the number of people who have already filed an initial claim and are continuing to receive weekly benefits.

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Labor Markets

Job opening rate vs. hiring rate

The job opening rate measures the percent of job positions that are currently vacant while the hiring rate measures the percent of workers hired to fill these positions. A gap between hires and job openings indicates an imbalance between the number of available workers and the number of open jobs.

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Business conditions

These data are drawn from a monthly survey conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Responses come from a list of business owners and/or managers in a variety of industry sectors from across the Ninth District, who have volunteered to share information with the Minneapolis Fed via electronic survey. Contacts are asked to report on a consistent set of business metrics each month, indicating whether they have increased, decreased, or remained unchanged relative to the previous month, and to report about their expectations for the month ahead. Results are summarized here as the net share of those reporting whether an indicator increased.

Ninth District Surveys

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Endnotes

1 The economies of the Ninth District states vary in size, which makes it hard to compare different indicators without first indexing each state’s data. Indexing is the practice of setting each state’s data equal at a certain point and then measuring relative to that value over time. This allows us to compare growth between states rather than just the size of the indicator in each state. For a month in-depth overview on indexing, please click here.

2 Farm employees are not included from this measurement by the Bureau of Labor Statistics because of the difficult nature of accurately measuring employment levels in the agricultural workforce.

* While the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is part of the Ninth District, the data for Michigan are not included here due to the majority of the state’s economic output and population being outside of the Ninth District.