Federal Reserve Economic Data

When it comes to data delivery, FRED wholeheartedly embraces the motto of the Olympics: “Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together!”

Although the FRED Blog team won’t be able to travel to Paris, France, to attend the 33rd Summer Olympic Games, we can talk about the Olympians and Parisiens right here at home.

And, of course, we’re talking about the residents of Olympia, Washington, and Paris (in both Texas and Tennessee).

The FRED map above shows the median number of days a real estate listing spent on the market from the time it was listed for sale until the sale was reported as pending or closed or the property was no longer for sale.*

First, hover over Olympia-Tumwater, Washington, in the map. You can see that, as of June 2024, the median time it took for a real estate property there to exchange hands was 30 days: That is, half did so in 30 or fewer days and the other half did so in 30 or more days. By contrast, the median time a real estate property stayed on the market in Paris, Texas, was 58 days. In Paris, Tennessee, it was 60 days. So, in the parlance of the Games, we have our gold, silver, and bronze medals—at least for this race.

How this map was created: Search FRED for “Housing Inventory: Median Days on Market Year-Over-Year in Olympia-Tumwater, WA (CBSA)” and click the “View Map” option.

*The data are reported by Realtor.com. You can learn more about data geographies in FRED here.

Suggested by Diego Mendez-Carbajo.

This is the FRED Blog’s 1000th post! So, today’s topic is brought to you by the letter M, which stands for 1000 in Roman numerals. M also stands for money and is used to label various technical measures of money in the economy.

First, a definition: Money is a good that’s generally accepted as 1) a store of value, 2) a means of exchange, and 3) a unit of account. Various goods have been considered money throughout history, most prominently precious metals. In this era of fiat money, money is harder to define and measure. Read more on what makes money, money.

Definitions differ from country to country, due to variations in their financial systems. So, today we concentrate on the United States, where the convention is to number the money definitions from the narrowest to the broadest, from M0 to M3:

• M0 is cash, a.k.a. currency in circulation in the form of bills and coins. (It’s labeled “Currency Component of M1” in the graph.) Currency in Federal Reserve and bank vaults doesn’t count.
• M1 adds to M0 all highly liquid bank accounts, such as checking accounts. Since 2020, M1 has also included savings accounts, which caused a jump in M1.
• M2 adds to M1 less-liquid small “time deposits” such as CDs and money market accounts for individuals.
• M3 adds to M2 large and institutional time deposits. The Federal Reserve discontinued collecting the necessary data for M3 in 2006, when the cost outweighed the policy relevance.

All these concepts, and there are more, can be thought of as money. Yet, their statistics vary widely, as does their policy relevance. Check back with the FRED Blog whenever you need data and definitions.

How this graph was created: Search FRED for “currency” and take the component of M1 series, to be consistent with the units of the rest of the graph. Click on “Edit Graph, open the “Add Line” tab, and search for “M1,” “M2,” and “M3.” Adjust the sample period to start on 1959-01-01.

Suggested by Christian Zimmermann.

Today, we compare the labor force participation rate of two groups of women. The FRED graph above shows that the rate for Black women is much more variable than the rate for White women, in both the short term and long term. Here, we’ll concentrate on the latter.

Before the 1990s, the labor force participation rate for White women was increasing at a faster rate than it was for Black women. Around the mid-1990s, the rate for White women began to flatten out; it began to fall after the Great Recession and dropped sharply during the COVID-19 recession. The rate for Black women has had a slightly different pattern after the 1990s, with substantial drops during and after recessions.

Now let’s look at the gap between these participation rates, which was at its lowest in the mid-1990s. Since then, the gap has tended to decrease when the labor force participation rate of Black women has fallen and increase when the rate has risen. Another way to put it is that the participation rate of White women is so stable that it doesn’t influence the gap. An exception is in the mid-2010s, when the rate for Black women flattened but the rate for White women decreased slightly.

How this graph was created: Search FRED for the series “Labor Force Participation Rate – 20 Yrs. & over, Black or African American Women.” Click “Edit Graph” and use the “Add Line” tab to search for and select the data series “Labor Force Participation Rate – 20 Yrs. & over, White Women.” Change the time frame to January 1, 1975, to the present.

Suggested by Victoria Gregory and Kevin Bloodworth.