Federal Reserve Economic Data

The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) calculates price indexes that help all of us better understand changes in underlying economic activity, including inflation.

One of the BEA’s headline inflation indicators, the personal consumption expenditures price index (PCEPI), is used by the Federal Reserve to adjust monetary policy to promote maximum employment and stable prices. The BEA reports different price indexes for the final goods and services available in the U.S., and the FRED graph above shows their quarterly percent change from a year ago side by side.

• • Orange bars show the personal consumption expenditures price index, which measures prices for both domestic and imported goods and services bought by consumers.
  • Light blue bars show the gross domestic purchases price index, which measures prices for both domestically produced and imported goods and services bought by consumers, businesses, and governments.
  • Dark blue bars show the gross domestic product price index, which measures prices for domestically produced goods and services bought by consumers, businesses, governments, and the rest of the world.

Differences in the scope of these price indicators explain the differences in their year-over-year inflation rates.

This FRED Blog post is an adaptation of The BEA Wire’s “A Historical Look at BEA’s Price Measures.”

How this graph was created: Search FRED for “Personal Consumption Expenditures: Chain-type Price Index.” Next, click on the “Edit Graph” button and select the “Add Line” tab. Search for “Gross domestic purchases (chain-type price index)” and click on “Add data series.” Repeat the last step to add “Gross Domestic Product: Chain-type Price Index” to the graph. Next, select the “Edit Lines” tab to change the units to “Percent Change from Year Ago” and click on “Copy to all.” Last, use the “Format” tab to select “Graph type: Bar.”

Suggested by Diego Mendez-Carbajo.

With household finance, the monthly difference between your net income and your expenses is the cash supply left over that you can save. The US Bureau of Economic Analysis summarizes all this information at the national level. Here at the FRED Blog, we’d like to help connect and clarify those national and household perspectives.

The FRED graph above shows the monthly changes, measured in billions of dollars, in net personal income (blue bars), expenses (green bars), and saving (orange bars) between January and December 2024. Notice the name of the first two data series:

• Net personal income is labeled disposable personal income, which is the sum of all streams of personal income (including employer contributions to pensions, insurance funds, and social security) received by households, minus the personal taxes they paid.
• Expenses is labeled personal outlays, which is the sum of all the payments households made to buy goods and services (including repaying loans), plus donations, fees, and fines paid to the government or to the rest of the world.

Back to the FRED graph: In January and October, the monthly change in disposable income was larger than the change in outlays and personal saving increased. During the rest of the year, the change in outlays was larger than the change in disposable income and total personal saving decreased.

How this graph was created: Browse FRED data by “Release” and navigate the alphabetical listing to “Personal Income and Outlays > Table 2.6. Personal Income and Its Disposition, Monthly.” Next, select the following three series by clicking on the box to the left of their names: “Equals: Disposable personal income,” “Less: Personal outlays,” and “Equals: Personal saving.” Next, click on the “Add to Graph” button at the bottom of the webpage. Next, click on the “Edit Graph” button above the FRED graph and “Edit Lines” by changing the units to “Change, Billions of Dollars.” Click on “Copy to all.” Last, select the “Format” tab to change the “Graph type” to “Bar.”

Suggested by Diego Mendez-Carbajo.

Central banks around the world manage the composition and size of their balance sheets to achieve specific monetary policy goals. Economic conditions in Japan, however, have made this common tactic increasingly challenging.

The FRED graph above uses data from the World Bank’s Global Financial Development Database to show the value of assets held by the Bank of Japan (solid line) and the Federal Reserve System of the United States (dotted line). Those values are plotted as a percent of GDP to easily compare their change in relation to the overall economic activity in each country.

It’s obvious there are large differences between Japan and the US: The Fed started growing the size of its balance sheet during the global financial crisis that emerged in 2007. Japan’s central bank started a decade earlier and substantially accelerated that trend after 2012. The latest data available at the time of this writing shows that, in 2021, the value of the Bank of Japan’s assets is equivalent to 89% of their overall economic activity.

Recent research from YiLi Chien and Ashley Stewart at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis offers insights into the economic implications: Given the different types of assets held by the Japanese government and its central bank, tightening monetary policy could result in losses to the value of their stock and foreign currency assets. Thus, the potential pull-and-push between monetary and fiscal policy is particularly pronounced in Japan.

For more about this and other research, visit the publications page of the St. Louis Fed’s website, which offers an array of economic analysis and expertise provided by our staff.

How this graph was created: Search FRED for and select “Central Bank Assets to GDP for Japan.” From the “Edit Graph” panel, use the “Add Line” tab to search for and select “Central Bank Assets to GDP for United States.”

Suggested by Diego Mendez-Carbajo.