Federal Reserve Economic Data

The FRED Blog has discussed how the daily operations of the Federal Reserve Banks and, specifically, the New York Fed generally maintain the effective federal funds rate within the target range set by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).

As part of this management effort, the New York Fed monitors a variety of overnight interest rates that help take the pulse of financial markets and the overall cost of borrowing. Data added to FRED last October allow us to see how recent changes to the Federal Reserve System’s balance sheet have impacted money market conditions.

The FRED graph above shows two different categories of rates:

• Interest rates set by financial markets:
  • Solid red line: The effective federal funds rate (EEFR), which is set by financial institutions who charge one another for unsecured overnight loans in what is known as the federal funds market.
  • Dashed blue line: The tri-party general collateral rate (TGCR), which is set by financial institutions that borrow and lend from one another, through a third party, offering Treasury securities as collateral for overnight repayment.
• Interest rate target range set by the FOMC. The dotted orange lines show the targeted upper and lower limits of rates for trading in the federal funds market, described above.

Over the past year, the EEFR has steadily remained within its targeted limits, while the TGCR has fluctuated above and below the EEFR, sometimes even exceeding the EEFR’s upper target limit.

The gradual reduction in the amount of Treasury securities held in the Federal Reserve System’s balance sheet, combined with the Treasury’s management of its own holdings at the Fed, can help explain the volatility of the TGCR. The draining of Treasury securities from financial markets has made them dearer to institutions relying on them to borrow and lend overnight, in turn making interest rates more responsive to small day-to-day changes in their availability.

For more information about daily financial markets and monetary policy implementation, see these November 12, 2025, remarks by the Manager of the Federal Reserve System Open Market Account and this Implementation Note issued by the FOMC on December 10, 2025.

How this graph was created: Search FRED for and select “Federal Funds Target Range – Upper Limit.” Click on the “Edit Graph” button and select the “Add Line” tab to search for “Tri-Party General Collateral Rate.” Don’t forget to click on “Add data series.” Repeat the last two steps to search for and add the other two series: “Federal Funds Effective Rate” and “Federal Funds Target Range – Lower Limit.”

Suggested by Diego Mendez-Carbajo.

Every December, retailers hire a large number of extra workers to keep up with holiday demand. Our FRED graph above shows a clear seasonal spike in the number of retail employees at the end of the year, as stores bring on temporary and part-time workers to stock shelves, run registers, and load presents. Hiring picks up in November, peaks in December, and then falls once the holidays are over.

Our second FRED graph shows average hourly earnings for retail workers. Even though more “elves” are on the job than at any other time of year, average hourly earnings in retail often dip a bit in December. That doesn’t necessarily mean these workers are getting a pay cut. It’s likely that holiday hiring brings in seasonal workers who tend to earn lower wages than permanent, full-time staff. So, when you average all workers in December, the seasonal workers bring the average wage down.

How these graphs were created: For the first graph, search FRED for “All Employees, Retail Trade” and select the Monthly, Thousands of Persons, Not Seasonally Adjusted series. For the second graph, search FRED for “All Employees, Retail Trade” and select the Monthly, Dollars per Hour, Not Seasonally Adjusted series. Finally, start the sample period on 2020-11-01 for both graphs.

Suggested by Bill Dupor and Melanie LeTourneau.

Our FRED graph above shows one of the all-star statistics for the US economy: industrial production. It’s a compelling data series for at least two reasons.

• It measures something people can relate to—the production of tangible stuff.
• The data are relatively easy to collect, so this series has been available continuously for over a century.

But the real reason we’re highlighting this data series today is that it’s a favorite of George Essig, especially when he’s testing enhancements in FRED.

A note of gratitude and recognition, on the retirement of George Essig

FRED wouldn’t be what it is today without George Essig. He joined the St. Louis Fed Research Division as a research associate and soon began working full-time on FRED. Over the past 25 years, George has made countless insightful and meaningful contributions to FRED, making it the world-class data service that it is today.

• George started working on FRED because he thought it would be useful to people, but he never imagined that it would become such a big deal.
• Right from start, he engineered FRED to be scalable.
• He has scrapped new developments right before deployment, because he found a better way of doing things.
• He moved FRED’s collection of plain text files into a proper database.
• He decided that each series should have its own web page, instead of only listing data in tables.
• He built an independent, dynamic website for FRED, to accommodate expanded features, including all its popular graphing capabilities.
• He made it possible to increase FRED from a few hundred time series to almost 1 million.

We wish George Essig all the best! We will continue to take good care of FRED as he enjoys his well-earned retirement.

How this graph was created: Search FRED for and select “industrial production.”

Suggested by the FRED Team.