Federal Reserve Economic Data

More data from the Chicago Fed’s Advance Retail Trade Summary (CARTS) release are now in FRED. These estimates of retail and food service sales (excluding some motor vehicles and parts) track the U.S. Census Bureau’s Monthly Retail Trade Survey (MRTS) on a weekly basis, providing an early snapshot of national retail spending.

Our ALFRED^* graph above plots CARTS and MRTS data side by side between April 2025 and March 2026.

1. The two lines in the graph look like a single line, which indicates the monthly averages of benchmarked weekly estimates from the Chicago Fed are identical to the figures reported by the Census.
2. The graph also shows the CARTS data projection beyond the latest MRTS data. These estimates allow economic researchers and policymakers to make early assessments of trends in consumer purchases using higher-frequency data.

CARTS data in FRED go back to January 2018 and also include series about inflation-adjusted estimated retail sales figures, a price index of retail sales, and projections for both.

^*Happy Birthday, ALFRED! For 20 years, ArchivaL FRED has taken people back in time to see the data that were available on specific dates. Learn more about how it can help you understand economic history.

How this graph was created: Search ALFRED for and select “Advance Retail Sales: Retail Trade and Food Services, Excluding Motor Vehicle and Parts Dealers.” Click on the “Edit Graph” button and select the “Add Line” tab to search for “Chicago Fed Advance Retail Trade Summary: Retail and Food Services Sales Excluding Autos.” Don’t forget to click on “Add data series.” Select the “Edit Lines” tab to change Line 2’s data frequency to “Monthly.”

Suggested by Diego Mendez-Carbajo.

On April 9, 2026, the Bureau of Economic Analysis released real GDP data for all US states for the fourth quarter and annualized for 2025. The FRED map above shows the annualized year-over-year growth rates: Light green denotes slow growth (0% to 2%), and dark green denotes moderate growth (above 2%).

Highlights

• All 50 state economies grew in 2025. The mean was at 1.8% annualized growth.
• The median state, New Jersey, grew at 1.8%, slightly above the mean. A total of 26 states had faster growth than the mean.
• South Carolina had the fastest annualized growth, at a 3.1% change from a year ago.
• North Dakota had the slowest annualized growth, at a 0.3% percent change from a year ago.

The St. Louis Fed’s Eighth District states all grew last year. Three had faster growth than the national average: Arkansas, Indiana, and Tennessee. And four had slower growth: Illinois, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Missouri. Indiana had the fastest growth, at 2.5%, while Kentucky was the slowest, at 1%.

NOTE: These data are subject to future revision by the source. Our ALFRED database records vintages of the data, so users can view the data as they appeared at various points in history. The link takes you to real GDP for Missouri, as of April 9, 2026.

How this map was created: Search FRED for “Real Total Gross Domestic Product for Missouri” and click the first available series. Click the “View Map” button and then the blue “Edit Map” button. Modify the frequency to “Annual” and units to “Percent Change from Year Ago.” Use “Format” to switch the number of color groups to 2, with the data grouped by “User Defined Method”; then define the scales to be 2 and 5. For values less than 2, choose light green to show slight growth; for values less than 5, choose dark green to show moderate growth.

Suggested by Violeta Gutowski and John Fuller.

In a recent post, we looked at US-India trade. Today we look at the amount of labor in India that provides their goods and services. In short, India’s workers put in more hours than workers in almost* any other country.

It’s common to use the unemployment rate or the employment-to-population ratio to measure an economy’s performance. A less-familiar metric is how many hours workers are actually working. Our FRED map above shows the average annual hours worked by “persons engaged.” That is, the total number of hours worked per year divided by the average number of persons employed, both full-time and part-time, in the formal and informal sectors of the economy, accounting for holidays, sick leave, and overtime. The time frame is 2019, just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

This metric represents the labor input of a country, where a higher value implies more input. It’s a good measure to use to compare labor inputs across countries. And our map tells a simple but potentially overlooked story: India is among the hardest-working economies in the world. Workers in India spent more than 2,600 hours per year on the job. 

Most of the advanced economies have much lower inputs and fall into the lighter shades on the map. In most parts of Europe, for example, the typical work year is closer to 1,600 hours. In the United States, which has a relatively high number of work hours for an advanced economy, the average worker puts in fewer than 1800 hours. And India is an outlier even among the countries of South and Southeast Asia.

*We can’t say India works the most hours of any country because FRED doesn’t have labor input data for some countries (shaded in gray in the map).

A sample of countries and their hours worked in 2019

1st India  2605.39

2nd Bangladesh  2417.72

3rd Pakistan  2390.25

…

15th Vietnam  2067.56

16th Russian Federation  2062.40                

17th Taiwan  2052.85

…

28th Romania  1803.11

29th United States  1796.65

30th Poland  1796.51

…

64th Norway  1418.55

65th Denmark  1372.39

66th Germany  1372.04

How this map was created: Search FRED for and select “Average Annual Hours Worked by Persons Engaged for India.” Next, click “View Map,” set the date to 2019-01-01, and click “Edit Map.” Under “Format,” make sure the “Number of color groups” is 5. Under “Data grouped by,” select “User Defined Method.” Set the intervals as follows: 1600, 1900, 2200, 2500, and 2800. Finally, click “Apply intervals.”

Suggested by Kritika Chakrabarti, B. Ravikumar, and Debargha Som.