Federal Reserve Economic Data

Consumer price indices are supposed to cover everything that households buy. That includes “administratively set prices” for various fees and taxes. Postal services is one example.

Our FRED graph above shows postal services price indexes for a few European countries. These prices typically change infrequently; thus, their evolution often looks like a step function. (This step pattern can also occur for some product categories that aren’t sampled every month, such as housing rents.)

There’s also some indication these price have changed more frequently recently. This may have to do with the “technological” innovation in some countries of labeling stamps as a service instead of a value, which makes it easier to change the price. (Read more about this menu-cost theory of price stickiness.)

Our second FRED graph, above, provides some local color: In the Netherlands and Latvia, letter postage is lower in December to encourage people to write to family and friends for the holidays. There are even special December stamps that are valid only from mid-November to early January.

Our third FRED graph, above, explores the interesting case of Denmark. The Danes have highly advanced digital communications and send few physical letters anymore. Their postage prices (solid blue line) have increased much more than their general level of prices (dashed green line). It now costs 29 Danish kroner ($4.56) to mail a domestic letter, and the Danish postal service will stop delivering letters at the end of 2025.

Then there’s the case of Turkey, shown in our final FRED graph below. They’ve had an even speedier increase in postal prices, but it’s largely due to overall inflation.

How these graphs were created: Search FRED for and select the “postal Spain” price index. From the “Edit Graph” panel, use the “Add Line” tab to search for and select the “postal Greece” and “postal France” series. From the “Format” tab, change the line patterns to make the separate steps more apparent. Use a similar process for the other graphs.

Suggested by Christian Zimmermann.

In a previous FRED blog post, we discussed the Summary of Economic Projections (SEP) released by the FOMC this past June. In this blog post, we will again use ALFRED to compare the latest projections released in September 2025 with several of the recent projections for the following variables:

• the unemployment rate
• core PCEPI inflation
• real GDP growth
• the federal funds rate

It’s important to note that these projections represent neither a committee plan nor a decision on future policy.

The first ALFRED graph, above, shows the unemployment rate projections for the fourth quarters of 2025, 2026, 2027, and 2028 according to the four most recent SEPs. Every September the FOMC adds another year to the projections. Most recently, as shown by the gold bar, the median FOMC participant projects that the unemployment rate will average 4.5% in Q4 2025 with a drop to 4.3% by 2027. This is slightly below the projection provided in June. The median projection for the unemployment rate in 2028 is 4.2%.

The second graph shows the core inflation rate projections for the same years. The median FOMC participant projects 3.1% inflation over 2025, with a return to the FOMC target of 2.0% by 2028.

The third graph, below, shows the median projections for real GDP growth. Growth projections for 2025 have been revised downward since December 2024, from 2.1% to 1.6%, but are above June’s projection of 1.4%. The projections for real GDP growth in 2026 and 2027 are slightly higher than they were in June, revised upward from 1.6% to 1.8% and 1.8% to 1.9%, respectively. The longer-run projection for 2028 is 1.8%.

Our final graph below shows the median participant’s projections of the federal funds rate. The most recent projections for the fourth quarter of 2025 are lower than their June 2025 values: from 3.9% down to 3.6%. But they are similar to the March and December projections for 2026 and 2027, at 3.4% and 3.1%. June’s projections were slightly raised for 2026 and 2027, at 3.6% and 3.4%. The federal funds rate is projected to remain at 3.1% in 2028. It is worth noting, though, that focusing on the median federal funds rate projection does obscure some of the dispersion of the individual participant projections. For example, projections for the year-end policy rate range from 2.6% to 3.9%.

How these graphs were created: Search ALFRED for “FOMC unemployment” and take the median projection. Click on “Edit Graph,” choose a bar graph, and add three bars with the same series again. Finally, select the proper vintage for each bar. For the other three graphs, proceed similarly with “FOMC Consumption,” “FOMC Growth,” and “FOMC Fed Funds Rate.”

Suggested by John Fuller and Charles Gascon.

During the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, many credit card holders improved their repayment histories and enjoyed a noticeable boost in credit scores. However, research by Juan M. Sánchez and Masataka Mori at the St. Louis Fed has underscored the temporary nature of the factors driving that improvement in creditworthiness.

Our FRED graph above uses large bank credit card data, reported by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, to offer a complementary perspective on this topic:

• The solid blue line shows the percentage of credit card accounts that recorded an increase in their borrowing limits. Between 2013 and 2019, that percentage rose steadily, declined precipitously during 2020, and quickly bounced back to its pre-pandemic trend.
• The dashed green line shows the percentage of credit card accounts that recorded a decrease in their borrowing limits. The uptick in 2020 doesn’t stand out all that much compared with the entire period between 2013 and 2024.

Thus, the short-lived boost to credit scores referenced earlier did not seem to translate into broad changes to borrowing limits.

Our interpretation of the data matches the findings from recent research by Joanna Stavins at the Boston Fed. She notes that, as of late 2024, “any erosion of lending standards that took place during the early stages of the pandemic has been reversed.” In other words, the credit card industry has seemingly returned to its long-term, relatively stable practices.

How this graph was created: Search FRED for and select “Large Bank Consumer Credit Card Balances: Accounts with Credit Line Increase.” From the “Edit Graph” panel, use the “Add Line” tab to search for and select “Large Bank Consumer Credit Card Balances: Accounts with Credit Line Decrease.”

Suggested by Noelle Pak and Diego Mendez-Carbajo.