Federal Reserve Economic Data

[Note: in the few days between when this post was written and it was published, the BEA published a major revision that only includes data from 2017. Earlier data will be included later in the Fall. The earlier data can be found on ALFRED here: first and second graph.]

How large is the US legal sector? Excessive litigation and overeager solicitation of injury victims aren’t the norm in Western economies, but the level of advertising for legal services alone may give the impression the legal sector has grown by leaps and bounds. But this is circumstantial evidence, so we need data.

FRED can help us measure the legal sector with data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The BEA computes very detailed tables across all sectors of the economy, and the FRED graph above shows what the legal sector contributes to US GDP.

Exhibit A: With data under NAICS code 5411, the FRED graph above shows that from 1997 to 2021 the legal sector’s contribution to GDP roughly tripled.

Objection! Would this statement stand up in court?

Withdrawn. Of course it wouldn’t—because the US economy as a whole has increased as well, as has the general price level.

So, we adjust the graph by dividing the legal sector’s GDP by nominal GDP. Now, we can properly discuss the size of the legal sector, which is shown in the second FRED graph.

What’s striking is that the sector’s contribution isn’t stable at all. The share has indeed increased by a third over the first 11 years, from 1.2% to 1.6%, only to collapse back to 1.3% after the 2008 recession.

Clearly, the real estate industry and finance more generally have had a strong impact on legal activity. But is 1.3% all that much? Without a precedent to compare this number with, you will have to be the judge of that.

Unfortunately, the dataset does not go back far enough to see how the 1977 Supreme Court decision allowing advertising by lawyers may have changed the size of this sector. Also keep in mind that the statistics above do not take into account the public sector side of legal proceedings—that is, judges, their clerks, and other legal system support.

In witness whereof, the parties hereunto have set their hands to these presents as a deed on the day month and year hereinbefore mentioned and furthermore attest as to how these graphs were created: Search FRED for “lawyers GDP” and you have the first graph. To get the second one, click on “Edit Graph,” search for and select “GDP,” making sure not to select real GDP, and apply formula a/b/10 (times 100 to get percentages, divided by 1000 to adjust for the different units). As always, be sure to follow FRED’s terms of use.

Suggested by Christian Zimmermann.

The FRED Blog has discussed the presence of gender gaps in employment in the sports industry. Today we revisit that topic in two seemingly similar occupations within the same industry: janitors & building cleaners and maids & housekeeping cleaners.

The FRED graph above shows Bureau of Labor Statistics employment data for janitors and building cleaners occupations sorted by gender. The areas in the graph are stacked in percent format to facilitate the comparison of proportions: The green area represents men’s employment and the purple area represents women’s employment. The relative size of each area shows that, between 2000 and 2022, when data are available, men traditionally outnumbered women in those occupations.

The second FRED graph presents the gender breakdown of employment in the maids and housekeeping cleaners occupations using the same stacked area visualization. In this industry, the gender pattern is more markedly reversed and noticeably stable over time.

The different gender makeup of those two cleaning industry occupations may stem from the nature of the work involved. The BLS describes the work of janitors and building cleaners using words such as “heavy cleaning duties” and potentially including both outdoors and maintenance tasks. In contrast, the work of maids and housekeeping cleaners is described as involving “light cleaning duties” and lists examples of indoors activities only.

Also, while janitors are likely to work evenings or in shifts, maids’ work schedules can be more flexible. This scheduling flexibility likely facilitates the gendered provision of family childcare services we discussed in an earlier FRED Blog post and further skews the composition of the labor force.

How these graphs were created: Search FRED for and select “Employed full time: Wage and salary workers: Janitors and building cleaners occupations: 16 years and over: Women.” Next, click on the “Edit Graph” button and use the “Add Line” tab to search for and add “Employed full time: Wage and salary workers: Janitors and building cleaners occupations: 16 years and over: Men.” Next, click on the “Format” tab and change the graph type to “Area” and the stacking to “Percent.” For the second graph, repeat with “maids and housecleaning occupations.”

Suggested by Diego Mendez-Carbajo.

The harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP) is a measure of inflation published by Eurostat that’s comparable across all countries in the European Union. It covers all 12 categories of the “European classification of individual consumption according to purpose” (ECOICOP).

FRED has all these data, and the FRED graph above shows some:

• the harmonized index of consumer prices for coffee, tea, and cocoa in the euro area (in red)
• the IMF global prices for coffee (in purple), tea (in green), and cocoa (in orange)

We customized the data to create an index with a value of 100 in the year 2000, when the first HICP data are available, to better compare the changes in commodity prices to the change in the harmonized consumer price index.

So, what’s brewing? Global prices for cocoa and coffee have almost tripled between 2000 and the time of this writing. During that time, the global price for tea has increased at a much lower rate, about 10%. As might be expected, the harmonized consumer price index tracking those categories has also increased. However, that growth was merely 50% because the harmonized consumer price index for the whole of the euro area is an aggregate of the harmonized consumer price index for each of its 19 member countries. As it happens, different countries prefer different comfort drinks.

According to the detailed 2023 HICP data published by Eurostat:

• In Ireland, tea and coffee prices have very similar weights in the calculation of the HICP. So there, the price index of comfort drinks tracks close to the cost of brewing a cuppa.
• In Austria, coffee prices have five times the weight of tea prices in the calculation of the HICP. So there, the price index of comfort drinks tracks close to the cost of brewing a cup of joe.
• In Spain, cocoa and powdered chocolate prices have relatively larger weights in the calculation of the HICP than in Ireland and Austria. So there, the price index of comfort drinks tracks close to the cost of anything chocolate.

How this graph was created: In FRED, search for and select “Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices: Coffee, Tea, and Cocoa for Euro area (19 countries).” Next, click on the “Edit Graph” button and use the “Add Line” tab to search for and add “Global price of Tea, Kenyan.” Repeat the previous step to add “Global price of Cocoa” and “Global price of Coffee, Robustas.” Next, click on the “Edit Line 2” tab and change the units to “Index (scale value to 100 for chosen date)” with 2000-01-01 as the index date.

Suggested by Diego Mendez-Carbajo.