Federal Reserve Economic Data

Life insurance provides a benefit, typically a one-time payout, at the time of death of the insured person. As such, it could be called death assurance. This FRED Blog post seeks to determine the scope of such insurance in the US.

One thing we could look at is the total amount of promised benefits. But imagine if all the promised benefits of all the life insurance policies had to be paid out immediately. How much life insurance companies could pay would be limited by the assets they hold. So that is what our FRED graph above shows. It’s a big number that’s been growing over time, but it’s not a complete picture of what we’re trying to find out.

In our second FRED graph, above, we represent those same life insurance company assets, but this time as a percentage of total yearly US personal income.

We can see that life insurance assets hit a low point in the early 1980s, at 19% of total yearly US personal income; a high point right after the pandemic, at 48%; and it seems to have now settled around 41%. This means that the life insurance industry would now be able to provide the equivalent of a little less than five months of income if everyone had an insurance policy.

Given about 51% of Americans have life insurance, that would amount to an average of about ten months of income as benefits to the insured.

How these graphs were created: Search FRED for “life insurance assets.” The first choice should be our first graph. For the second graph, click on “Edit Graph”; search for “personal income”; take the nominal series, not the real one; apply the formula a/b/10 to get percentages, given the units. Note that this ratio is not perfect, as we divide a series that is not seasonally adjusted by one that is. For looking at longer trends, this is sufficient.

Addendum: Today, our editor George Fortier is celebrating 25 years at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. He is the one who is giving this blog its special je ne sais quoi while getting credit for very few blog posts. A big thank you for your dedication, and we are looking forward to many more posts.

Suggested by Christian Zimmermann.

On September 30, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) released estimates of house price growth for the second quarter of 2025. Their index is estimated using actual sales prices as well as appraisal data, but the data are not seasonally adjusted.

Because home prices can fluctuate over the year, with a cooler market in winter months and a pick-up in the spring, it’s best to measure home prices relative to the same period a year ago. And that’s what our FRED graph above does.

• Since 1976, housing prices have increased an average of 5.1% per year, while the consumer price index (CPI) inflation rate has increased an average of 3.7% per year.
• In the second quarter of 2022, coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, house price growth and CPI inflation peaked at 20.5% and 8.6%, respectively.
• In the second quarter of 2025, the most recent data available indicate house price growth and CPI inflation increased 3.8% and 2.5%, respectively.

While broader CPI inflation trends are relatively consistent across the nation, there’s considerable variation in house prices. (FRED also has CPI data for US metro areas.)

The FRED map below shows second-quarter house price growth for all 50 states and Washington, DC. Prices increased in all states, but declined in DC. Outside of the nation’s capital, house price growth was the slowest in Colorado (0.9%) and Florida (1.0%). The fastest house price growth was in the Northeastern portion of the US, with Connecticut and New York home prices both increasing 7.5% from one year ago.   

For more geographic detail, check out FRED’s FHFA house price data for 337 US metro areas, 24 of which had price declines relative to one year ago. The steepest drop in prices occurred in Punta Gorda, Florida, at –7.4%, followed by Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Florida, at –6.6%. Sumter, South Carolina, had the fastest growth at 18.0%, followed by Auburn-Opelika, Alabama, at 11.8%.

How this graph and map were created: Graph: Search FRED for and select “All-Transactions House Price Index for the United States.” The series you want should be at the top of the results. Change the time frame to 1976-01-01 to the Most Recent data release. From the “Edit Graph” section, change the units to “Percent Change from a Year Ago.” Click “Add Line” and search for “Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: All Items in U.S City Average” and click “Add data series.” Make sure the units are also “Percent Change from Year Ago.” Map: Search FRED for and select “All-Transactions House Price Index for Missouri.” Click the “View Map” button and then “Edit Map”; change units to “Percent Change from Year Ago” and the “Data grouped by” to “User Defined Method” with intervals of 0, 2, 4, 6, and 8. Change the <0 to the color red to identify negative values.

Suggested by John Fuller and Charles Gascon.

On September 26, 2025, the Bureau of Economic Analysis released real GDP data for all US states for the second quarter of 2025. The FRED map above shows the percent change growth rates from the previous quarter: Red denotes contraction, light green denotes slight growth, and dark green denotes rapid growth.

Highlights

• 48 of 50 state economies grew in the second quarter, with a national average of 3.3% growth annualized.
• The median state grew at 3.5%, and 23 other states had slower growth than the US average.
• North Dakota had the fastest growth, at 7.3% annualized.
• Arkansas had the steepest contraction, at –1.1% annualized.

The St. Louis Fed’s Eighth District states all grew except for Arkansas and Mississippi, which contracted 1.1% and 0.9%, respectively. Illinois and Kentucky were the only District states that grew above the national average: Illinois had the largest growth, at about 4.8%, and Kentucky grew 4.6%. Missouri, Tennessee, and Indiana were all close to the national average, each growing 3.1%.

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 September 26, 2025.

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 units to “Compounded Annual Rate of Change.” Use “Format” to switch the number of color groups to 3, with the data grouped by “User Defined Method”; then define the scales to be 0, 4, and 10. For values less than 0, choose red to show contraction; for values less than 4, choose light green to show slight growth; for values less than 10, choose dark green to show faster growth.

Suggested by John Fuller and Violeta Gutkowski.