Federal Reserve Economic Data

This post offers something old and something new: It covers similar ground from a post last November, but it’s the first post to use FRED’s new mapping feature! We hope you like the look and functionality!

Our splendid new map above depicts growth in new business creations by state during 2021—specifically, the percent change between 2020 and 2021 in the number of business applications recorded by the U.S. Census for each state. Darker colors represent higher growth rates.

The data themselves also offer something old and something new: Growth in business applications was highest for the first state to enter the Union and lowest for the next-to-last state to enter the Union.

In Delaware, known as the “First State,” businesses grew by 47%, which is almost double the typical (or median) growth rate of 25%. Business laws there have long facilitated the formation, or incorporation, of new commercial enterprises, so perhaps this is no surprise.

However, in Alaska, on the opposite side of the continent, their 2% growth in business applications was the lowest in the country. Here at the FRED Blog, we shall not wander “into the wild” speculating about the reasons behind the slow growth in new business creations in the “Last Frontier” state.

How this graph was created: Search for and select “Business Applications for Alaska.” From the “Edit Graph” panel, use the “Edit Line 1” tab to modify the data frequency to “Annual” and the aggregation method to “Sum.” Last, close the edit panels and click on the “View Map” green button. Happy travels with FRED maps!

Suggested by Diego Mendez-Carbajo.

Corporate profits have been growing at unprecedented rates, and inflation in producer prices has risen sharply as well. Our FRED graph above helps us compare the two and briefly discuss their relationship.

Pre-tax corporate profits (shown by the blue line) increased by 51% between the fourth quarter of 2019 and the first quarter of 2022. During the same period, producer price index (PPI) inflation in manufacturing rose by 21.2% (shown by the red line).

Why would this matter? PPI inflation measures changes in prices producers receive for their products and prices other producers pay for those products as intermediate goods in their own production. During the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain disruptions contributed to an increase in the price of these products. (See this Review article for a deeper discussion.) And yet, corporations seem to have passed through enough of these intermediate costs onto the consumers of their final products to see record profits and large profit margins.

How this graph was created: Search FRED for “corporate profits” and select “Corporate business: Profits before tax (without IVA and CCAdj).” From the red “Edit Graph” button in the top right, use the “Add Line” tab at the top to type in the search box “PPI manufacturing” and select “Producer Price Index by Commodity: Total Manufacturing Industries.” Change the units for PPI to “Percent change from a year ago.” In the “Edit Graph” panel, use the “Format” tab and under Line 2 change the y axis to “Right.” Change dates in the top right of the graph to the desired period.

Suggested by Ana Maria Santacreu and Jesse LaBelle.

Part of the “My favorite FRED graph” guest post series.

It’s July 14th, Bastille Day! So the FRED Blog focuses on France, where the retirement age was a central issue in their recent elections.

France’s legal retirement age is 62, conditional on time worked. President Emmanuel Macron, who was re-elected in April, prefers raising it to 65. Jean-Luc Mélenchon campaigned on lowering it to 60 as part of the leftist coalition policy proposal. That political debate didn’t include a great deal of data, so we provide some here, including international comparisons.

The FRED graph above uses OECD data to display employment rates—that is, the employed as a fraction of the relevant population. In this case, the population is men 55 to 64 years old in France, Spain, Italy, the U.S., Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands. Why only men? The differences in women’s employment rates are driven more by cultural factors, and working women aren’t the norm everywhere and in every generation.

Although France’s employment rate for men 55 to 64 is increasing, it is the lowest in this group. Some may see this as a lost opportunity to contribute to economic activity; others may see opportunities for spending free time on non-market activities that improve well-being. Opinions diverge on why many in this age category don’t manage to find work. Previous reforms postponing the retirement age have contributed to increasing employment in this age category, but could also have pushed the least-qualified workers further into poverty.

A compromise could be found in improving working conditions for seniors to extend their labor force participation while also maintaining good health for all. Sweden has consistently had an employment rate at the top of the field, so maybe they can show us that older workers and quality of life aren’t incompatible.

How this graph was created: Search FRED for “Employment Rate Aged 55-64 Males for France.” From the “Edit Graph” panel, use the “Add Line” tab to successively search for and add the other series. Use the “Format” tab to thicken the French line.

Suggested by Guillaume Gaulier.