Federal Reserve Economic Data

The first shaded region on the FRED graph above indicates the 2008-09 Great Recession. In that recession, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate (red line, right axis) nearly doubled from 5% in December 2007 to 9.5% in June 2009. At the same time, seasonally adjusted credit card delinquency rates (blue line, left axis) increased from 4.6% in the fourth quarter of 2007 to 6.8% in second quarter of 2009. In short, as workers became unemployed, some stopped making on-time credit card payments.

Research by Athreya, Sánchez, Tam, and Young (2015) shows how this relationship can emerge in a model where low-income households may skip credit card payments (“informal default”) to sustain a minimum level of consumption.

The FRED graph also shows the most recent recession, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, from February 2020 to April 2020. During this time, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate spiked from 3.5% to 14.8%, a more than fourfold increase. However, unlike in the Great Recession, seasonally adjusted credit card delinquencies declined. Thus, there was a slight negative correlation between unemployment and credit card delinquency rates. What would cause such different behavior in credit card repayment during this recession?

It is probably a mix of several reasons: easy access to forbearance programs, unusually generous unemployment insurance programs, and government stimulus checks. Of course, more research is needed to understand the specific role of each of these programs.

How this graph was created: Search for and select “Delinquency Rate on Credit Card Loans, All Commercial Banks.” Open the graph, click on “Edit Graph,” open the “Add Line” tab, and search for and select “UNRATE.”

Suggested by Juan M. Sánchez and Olivia Wilkinson.

FRED has some surprising international data, including U.S. trade data for Christmas Island.

Christmas Island doesn’t appear to be a home for Santa, as it is just south of Indonesia, administered by Australia, with remarkably stable tropical weather. A couple of thousand inhabitants principally work in phosphate extraction from guano deposits. It was named on December 25, 1643, by a British captain sailing past it. The first human set foot on the island in 1688, but it took two centuries for the first settlement after the discovery of those nearly pure phosphate deposits.

Overall, trade with Christmas Island is modest, even considering its small size. The latest value for its annual worldwide exports is about $17 million. Yearly trade with the U.S. sometimes exceeds a million and sometimes is even zero.

The above FRED graph shows monthly trade with the U.S., which allows us to see several small spikes and one very large one. In September 2008, something very pricey was exported from the U.S. to Christmas Island, which the Census Bureau trade database classified as jewelry: NAICS codes 339911 (Jewelry except Costumes) and 339913 (Jewelers’ Material and Lapidary Work). Was it a Christmas gift?

How this graph was created: Search FRED for “Christmas Island imports.” Once you have the graph, use the “Edit Graph” panel to open the “Add Line” tab. Then search for and select “Christmas Island exports.”

Suggested by Christian Zimmermann.

Today, the FRED Blog offers its 750th post of engaging graphs from the FRED data library. To celebrate, we draw a serendipitous connection between historical and current economics.

In 1271, 750 years ago, Marco Polo first left Venice for Asia. In the spirit of this traveling merchant, the FRED Blog compares air freight costs to and from Asia, which is not as straightforward as you might think.

The FRED graph above shows the price index for air freight (cargo) reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: U.S. cargo outbound to Asia in blue and U.S. cargo inbound from Asia in red. Because this data series uses an index number, equal to 100 in the year 2000, we can’t compare the actual price levels for flying cargo back and forth between the U.S. and Asia. However, we can compare the rates of growth of air freight prices and point out some thought-provoking patterns.

Between 1992 and 2020, both inbound and outbound air freight prices moved nearly in lockstep. That should be expected if the back-and-forth routes are very similar. Then, between February and May 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic caused a large spike in prices due to the drop in overall international travel driven by health and safety protocols. However, since mid-2020, inbound air freight prices have maintained a faster rate of growth than outbound air freight prices.

The reason for this disparity? Supply and demand.

This article from the Bureau of Labor Statistics describes how air freight flies both in dedicated cargo planes and in the holds of passenger planes. Increased U.S. demand for COVID-19-related masks, gowns, and other personal protection equipment drove air shipping costs up at the same time that inbound passenger travel decreased.

If Marco Polo were collecting mementos from trips to Asia today, he would be paying significantly more to ship them home than he would to send thank-you gifts to Asia for the hospitality he received.

How this graph was created: Search for and select “Outbound Price Index (International Services): Air Freight for Asia.” From the “Edit Graph” panel, use the “Add Line” tab to search for and select “Inbound Price Index (International Services): Air Freight for Asia.” To change the line style of the series use the “Format” panel.

Suggested by Diego Mendez-Carbajo.