Economy · current cycleLatest available releases through 2026-10-07

US Economy Health Tracker

Q: Is the US economy expanding right now?

The Economy Health Tracker answers from the latest available releases. Its headline Growth Score combines six equal-weight pillars: current activity, business, labor, households, housing and freight, and recession risk. The live answer changes whenever an underlying release changes the score.

Q: What is the Economy Health Score?

A 0–100 breadth measure built from 22 de-duplicated economic inputs. Higher readings mean expansion is broader across the six pillars; lower readings mean contraction is broader. It is not a recession probability or a market forecast.

Q: Which indicators are included?

Real GDP, industrial production, CFNAI, core capex, business applications, corporate profits, the OECD leading index, payrolls, unemployment, jobless claims, real spending, real retail sales, two confidence surveys, the saving rate, permits, new-home sales, construction underway, freight, the Sahm Rule, recession probability and the yield curve. Inflation and financial-stress inputs are displayed separately.

Q: Why is inflation separate?

Inflation can be high while output and employment expand. Folding it into the growth score would let high inflation incorrectly make a strong economy look contractionary, or deflation make a recession look healthy. The separate pressure gauge preserves both facts.

Q: How often does the tracker update?

The file rebuilds after the daily economic-data pipeline. Daily and weekly inputs can change through the week; monthly and quarterly inputs enter on their release dates and carry forward until a new release arrives.

Q: Does the tracker predict recessions?

It measures current breadth and includes recession gates, but it is not sold as a forecast. The historical panel shows how score bands aligned with NBER recessions using release-timed, current-vintage data; revisions make that a descriptive validation rather than a vintage-pure backtest.

The latest evidence says expansion, but uneven: the Growth Score is 74/100. Business investment and the formal recession gates are the strongest pillars; households and housing are the weak side. This is a breadth measure of expansion. It carries no recession probability and no stock-market forecast. Inflation pressure and financial stress sit beside it instead of being allowed to cancel growth.

Strongest pillar

Recession risk · 100/100

Weakest pillar

Households · 39/100

30-day change

+1 points since 2026-09-04

Sources, methodology & freshnessBEA, BLS, Census Bureau, Federal Reserve, Chicago Fed, St. Louis Fed, OECD, University of Michigan and Cass via the project’s committed indicator CSVs · Daily pipeline; changes when an underlying economic release arrivesData as of 2026-10-07 · Open ↓

Source

BEA, BLS, Census Bureau, Federal Reserve, Chicago Fed, St. Louis Fed, OECD, University of Michigan and Cass via the project’s committed indicator CSVs

Methodology

Twenty-two de-duplicated growth inputs across six equal-weight pillars. Each input maps linearly between a published contraction and expansion bound; inputs average within pillars and pillars average equally. Inflation pressure (five inputs) and financial stress (two inputs) are separate context gauges. Historical observations enter on release dates; old values are current revised vintages.

Updates

Daily pipeline; changes when an underlying economic release arrivesData as of 2026-10-07

Maintained & reviewed by Yuriy Matso — methodology shown on the page.

Growth score2026-10-07

Expansion, but uneven

current activity 68 · business engine 97 · labor 78 · households 39 · housing & freight 64 · recession risk 100

Separate context gauge

Inflation pressure

39/100

Contained

-1 points since the prior-month comparison date. Higher means more inflation pressure.

Separate context gauge

Financial stress

2/100

Calm

+2 points since the prior-month comparison date. Higher means more financial stress.

Chicago Fed financial conditions-0.49
St. Louis Fed financial stress-0.47

The Growth Score through time — release-aligned since 2008

Every line segment holds the last information actually released at that date; quarterly GDP does not enter in the quarter it describes, but on the day the estimate became public. Red bands mark final NBER recession dates for context. The scoring function and bounds are identical throughout the replay.

Window:

NBER recession broad expansion (75+) expansion 60–75 mixed 45–60 contraction risk 30–45 broad contraction (<30)

4,691 business-day snapshots. Historical input values are today's revised vintages; release timing is preserved, revision history is not.

Which pillar moved first — monthly snapshots over three years

The composite can hide sequence. Read left to right: each row is one pillar on the same band scale, followed by the total Growth Score.

broad contraction (<30)contraction risk 30–45mixed 45–60expansion 60–75broad expansion (75+)no data

The six pillars — every input and scoring bound

Inputs map linearly between the red contraction bound and green expansion bound, then clamp at 0 or 100. Inputs average inside their pillar; the six pillars then receive equal weight. That prevents a category with more available datasets from receiving more votes. Open any input name for its full chart and methodology.

Window:

Current activity

68/100

Business engine

97/100

Core capital-goods orders YoY+14.1% → 100
New-business applications YoY+11.4% → 86
After-tax corporate profits YoY+26.6% → 100
OECD leading index vs 12-month avg+0.58 → 100

Labor

78/100

Payroll growth, 3-month avg+51k → 50
Unemployment vs 12-month avg-0.09pp → 85
Claims above 52-week low+0.8% → 100

Households

39/100

Housing & freight

64/100

Recession risk

100/100

Sahm Rule0.00 → 100
Model recession probability1% → 100
10Y−2Y yield curve+0.51pp → 100

What changed over the last 30 days

Headline

Growth Score points since 2026-09-04.

Largest deterioration

Labor · -5

The pillar subtracting most from the latest month-over-month comparison.

Largest improvement

Housing & freight · +14

The pillar adding most to the latest month-over-month comparison.

Historical alignment with NBER recessions

One observation per month prevents daily carry-forward from inflating the sample. “In recession” is overlap with final NBER dates; “within 6m” asks whether a recession month followed during the next six months. The monotonic result is useful validation. A vintage-pure forecast would need first-release values, and the old macro values here include revisions made after their original release.

Growth band	Months	In recession	Recession within 6m
Broad expansion	95	0.0%	0.0%
Expansiontoday	74	1.4%	9.5%
Mixed / slowing	31	6.5%	6.5%
Contraction risk	7	28.6%	14.3%
Broad contraction	19	78.9%	73.7%

Broad expansion

Months

In recession

0.0%

Recession within 6m

0.0%

Expansion

Today

Months

In recession

1.4%

Recession within 6m

9.5%

Mixed / slowing

Months

In recession

6.5%

Recession within 6m

6.5%

Contraction risk

Months

In recession

28.6%

Recession within 6m

14.3%

Broad contraction

Months

In recession

78.9%

Recession within 6m

73.7%

What flips the current read

The band edges are fixed at 75/60/45/30. Today's 74 is 1 points below broad expansion and 15 points above mixed/slowing. Because pillars weigh equally, one spectacular business reading cannot permanently conceal broad household, labor and housing deterioration. The fastest credible bear-case route is payroll growth below zero together with a claims breakout, followed by real spending and industrial production crossing below zero year over year.

What this tracker cannot tell you

“Health” here means breadth of economic expansion, not affordability, distributional welfare or market valuation. A 69 is not a 69% recession probability. The model is national and will miss regional recessions; it is slow around abrupt shocks; and its historical values use today's revised data. Read the score as a disciplined summary of current conditions, then inspect the disagreeing pillars before acting on any narrative.

Growth score2026-10-07

Expansion, but uneven

current activity 68 · business engine 97 · labor 78 · households 39 · housing & freight 64 · recession risk 100

How Economy Health Tracker Works

1
Six independent pillars of growth evidence
Current activity, the business engine, labor, households, housing and freight, and recession risk each receive their own 0–100 score. Inputs are de-duplicated: real spending does not get counted again in the activity pillar, and inflation never votes on whether output is expanding.
2
Fixed bounds turn unlike series into comparable scores
Each input maps between published contraction and expansion bounds. For example, real GDP maps from −2% to +4%, the three-month payroll average from −100,000 to +200,000, and the Sahm Rule from a healthy 0.20 to its 0.50 trigger. Scores clamp at 0 and 100; nothing is fitted to today.
3
Pillars, not raw indicators, receive equal weight
Inputs average within each pillar, then the six pillars average equally. This prevents the five household inputs from overpowering the three labor inputs merely because more household datasets exist. The headline therefore measures breadth across parts of the economy. The number of CSV columns pointing one way has no effect on it.
4
Inflation and stress stay beside the growth score
Inflation pressure and financial stress have their own 0–100 gauges, where a higher number means more pressure. They inform the quality and market consequences of the expansion but do not cancel growth. A hot expansion and a deflationary contraction should never receive the same headline score.
5
History is release-timed and revision-aware
Every monthly and quarterly print enters the replay on its release date; a June observation released in July is invisible before July. The source histories are today’s revised vintages, however, because complete real-time vintages are not available for every input. The page labels the historical validation descriptive rather than a tradable backtest.

Who Uses Economy Health Tracker

Macro investors

Replace a one-chart economic narrative with six visible pillars and the exact inputs driving each one.

Business owners

Separate economy-wide demand from the specific pockets that are already contracting, such as housing or freight.

Rate watchers

See whether inflation pressure is rising inside expansion or arriving alongside genuine contraction — very different setups for yields.

Research writers

Use the release-dated score, component history and linked source charts as an auditable starting point for a macro thesis.

Pro Tips

Start with dispersion

The headline can be stable while one pillar rolls over. A 100 business score beside a 29 household score is more informative than the composite alone.

Labor is the bridge

Hiring can slow long before layoffs rise. Read the payroll three-month average against claims and unemployment; broad contraction becomes more credible when all three weaken together.

Do not read inflation as recession

High inflation is bad economic health in a welfare sense and can be bearish for duration, but it is not falling output. That is why it remains a separate pressure gauge.

Use the score as condition, not forecast

The historical bands describe how the framework aligned with NBER recessions. They do not promise stock returns, Fed action or future GDP.

Common Issues & Solutions

Why not score all 96 indicator pages?▾

Many are duplicate views, valuation measures, commodity prices or slow structural balance-sheet ratios. Counting every page would let heavily represented categories vote several times. The tracker reviews the full directory, then uses 22 de-duplicated cycle inputs with one job each.

Why is weak sentiment allowed to pull down the score while spending grows?▾

Both are real parts of household health, so the household pillar shows the disagreement instead of choosing one. Because pillars receive equal weight, soft surveys cannot overwhelm business, labor or current activity.

Does a 69 mean a 69% chance of expansion?▾

No. It is a breadth score. A 69 means the six pillar scores average 69 on fixed 0–100 expansion bounds.

Is the history a true real-time vintage backtest?▾

No. Release timing is honest, but many FRED histories have been revised. The replay never sees a print before its release date, yet it sees today’s revised value for that old print. This is why the recession table is labeled descriptive validation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the US economy expanding right now?▾

The Economy Health Tracker answers from the latest available releases. Its headline Growth Score combines six equal-weight pillars: current activity, business, labor, households, housing and freight, and recession risk. The live answer changes whenever an underlying release changes the score.

What is the Economy Health Score?▾

A 0–100 breadth measure built from 22 de-duplicated economic inputs. Higher readings mean expansion is broader across the six pillars; lower readings mean contraction is broader. It is not a recession probability or a market forecast.

Which indicators are included?▾

Real GDP, industrial production, CFNAI, core capex, business applications, corporate profits, the OECD leading index, payrolls, unemployment, jobless claims, real spending, real retail sales, two confidence surveys, the saving rate, permits, new-home sales, construction underway, freight, the Sahm Rule, recession probability and the yield curve. Inflation and financial-stress inputs are displayed separately.

Why is inflation separate?▾

Inflation can be high while output and employment expand. Folding it into the growth score would let high inflation incorrectly make a strong economy look contractionary, or deflation make a recession look healthy. The separate pressure gauge preserves both facts.

How often does the tracker update?▾

The file rebuilds after the daily economic-data pipeline. Daily and weekly inputs can change through the week; monthly and quarterly inputs enter on their release dates and carry forward until a new release arrives.

Does the tracker predict recessions?▾

It measures current breadth and includes recession gates, but it is not sold as a forecast. The historical panel shows how score bands aligned with NBER recessions using release-timed, current-vintage data; revisions make that a descriptive validation rather than a vintage-pure backtest.