Federal Reserve Economic Data

Your credit report is a record of your credit history that includes information about your identity, outstanding balances and history of making payments, publicly available information, and inquiries made by organizations or individuals about your credit history. Your credit score is a number that reflects the information in your credit report. See this Consumer’s Guide from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve to learn more about it.

Credit scores are used by lenders when deciding whether to grant you credit, what terms you are offered, or the rate you will pay on a loan.

The FRED graph above shows data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia about the change in credit scores by three groups of credit card holders: those with the lowest 10% of credit scores (the blue line); those with the lowest 25% of credit scores (the red line); and those with median, or middle-of-range, credit scores (the green line). Personal credit scores may change from quarter to quarter, so individual credit card holders could potentially move between groupings. The data were transformed into a custom index with a value of 100 in the third quarter of 2012, the first available observation, to highlight a striking feature of their recent changes.

During the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the credit scores of many credit card holders increased noticeably. This jump in scores was pretty much irrespective of how high or low those scores were to begin with. More flexible repayment terms on existing debts, reduced spending during the periods of lockdown and social distancing, and substantial income subsidies provided by the government improved the credit scores of many people. However, all those factors boosting personal finances were temporary.

Recent research from Juan M. Sánchez and Masataka Mori at the St Louis Fed finds some evidence that many individuals who experienced a fast improvement in credit scores during the COVID-19 pandemic are not as financially stable as those who improved their credit scores after the 2007-2009 recession, also known as the Great Recession. As a consequence, people who were likely to be financially distressed prior to 2020 and saw their credit scores improve during the pandemic also make up a significant proportion of credit card holders recently missing multiple payments on their existing credit card balances. In short: Their credit scores may have improved, but their long-term underlying ability to repay a loan in time did not.

For more about this and other research, visit the website of the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, which offers an array of economic analysis and expertise provided by our staff.

How this graph was created: In FRED, search for “Large Bank Consumer Credit Card Balances: Current Credit Score: 10th Percentile.” From the “Edit Graph” panel, use the “Add Line” tab to search for and select “Large Bank Consumer Credit Card Balances: Current Credit Score: 25th Percentile.” Repeat the last step to add the third series, “Large Bank Consumer Credit Card Balances: Current Credit Score: 50th Percentile.” Next, select the “Edit Line 1” tab to customize the units by selecting “Index (Scale value to 100 for chosen date)” and enter “2012-07-01” in the date box. Click on “Copy to all” to apply the unit transformation to all the series.

Suggested by Diego Mendez-Carbajo.

The FRED Blog has used data from many different sources to discuss the work conducted by the Federal Reserve System to promote the health of the US economy and the stability of the US financial system. Today, we highlight the workforce employed all across the Federal Reserve System that perform the day-to-day operations supporting the Fed’s key functions.

The FRED graph above shows data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics about the number of persons employed by the monetary authority, the central bank, of the United States. The data span January 1, 1990, through August 1, 2023—the latest available observation at the time of this writing. The number of people employed by the Federal Reserve system peaked slightly above 24,000 in early 1991, bottoming out at roughly 17,000 persons 11 years later.

Recent research from Genevieve Podleski, Jonathan Rose, and Jona Whipple at the St Louis Fed stretches back those employment data to 1915, the year after the Federal Reserve System was founded and records are available. Their work shows that the all-time peak of Fed employment was recorded in the early 1970s. The size of the work force has increased and decreased over the years, as the nature and scope of the day-to-day operations of the Federal Reserve System has evolved over time.

For more about this and other research, visit the website of the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, which offers an array of economic analysis and expertise provided by our staff.

How this graph wase created: Search FRED for and select “All Employees, Monetary Authorities-Central Bank.”

Suggested by Diego Mendez-Carbajo.

The FRED Blog has discussed long trends and unexpected changes in the labor market in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, we focus on a foreseeable change in labor market conditions: the reduction in the size of the labor force due to locked-down border crossings and constrained immigration.

The FRED graph above shows data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics about the number of foreign-born employed persons. The data are available since January 2007, and we have added a customized dashed line (in red) to indicate the trend in those figures between 2009 and the time of this writing. After the Great Recession, the steady growth in the number of employed persons born outside of the US was dramatically interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. It took the better part of three years for that segment of the labor force to bounce back to its pre-pandemic trend of growth. Did the missing workers from immigration restrictions result in long-lasting tight labor market conditions?

Recent research from Hannah Rubinton and Cassie Marks at the St Louis Fed finds some evidence that the immigration restrictions are unlikely to be the underlying cause of continuing labor market tightness. That can be explained by the fact that the number of missing workers from constrained immigration is  relatively small compared with the size of the overall employed population. A similar conclusion is reached when examining the relationship between labor market tightness and missing workers across industries and states. Only in the case of the food services industry did immigration restrictions noticeably increase labor market tightness.

For more about this and other research, visit the website of the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, which offers an array of economic analysis and expertise provided by our staff.

How this graph wase created: Search FRED for and select “Employment Level – Foreign Born.” From the “Edit Graph” panel, use the “Add Line” tab to “Create a user-defined line.” Adjust the “Value start” to “20000.” Last, use the “Format” tab to change the style for “Line 2: User-defined Line” to “Dashed.”

Suggested by Diego Mendez-Carbajo.