Global| Nov 22 2019State Coincident Indexes
|in:Viewpoints
Summary
The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank's estimates of state coincident activity for October show some signs of increasing divergence in activity, with perhaps some more indications of weakness. Over the last 12 months, 30 states report [...]
The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank's estimates of state coincident activity for October show some signs of increasing divergence in activity, with perhaps some more indications of weakness. Over the last 12 months, 30 states report increases in their index in the 2 to 4 percent range, down slightly from September's initial report showing 32 in that range—up slightly from the initial August count of 29 in that range. 4 mid-sized states had growth higher than 4 percent. No state saw a decline (Michigan eked out a minimal increase of one-hundredth of one percent). Texas was the only very large state in the 10 for growth, though California ranked 11th, and Florida 15th (New York was 45th). As has been the case for the labor market indicators, the weaker states (aside from Alaska and Hawaii) have tended to be the mid-part of the nation and Northeast, though in the larger states of the Northeast the figures from Massachusetts and New Jersey have been stronger than those from New York and Pennsylvania. It should be noted that the state coincident index measures rely heavily on labor market information.
Over the three months ending in October a full 20 states had gains of less than .5 percent, with 7 outright declines. While the two largest declines (Delaware and Wyoming) were registered in small states, Pennsylvania was also on the negative side. 10 states had gains above 1 percent in this period, including California and Illinois (both Utah and South Carolina had increases greater than 2 percent).
Utah and South Carolina also led in the one-month gains from September to October, while a substantial 13 states, including New York and Pennsylvania, registered declines. Delaware's drop of more than .5 percent was the largest. Louisiana's index only inched up .03 percent in October, while Alabama's .70 percent gain was third in the nation. Of course, these are October numbers—November's figures should have the impact of LSU's victory over the Tide.
The upshot is that these figures reinforce the impression that the expansion is getting choppier, with a somewhat greater number of states, including some large ones, reporting slower growth.
Charles Steindel
AuthorMore in Author Profile »Charles Steindel has been editor of Business Economics, the journal of the National Association for Business Economics, since 2016. From 2014 to 2021 he was Resident Scholar at the Anisfield School of Business, Ramapo College of New Jersey. From 2010 to 2014 he was the first Chief Economist of the New Jersey Department of the Treasury, with responsibilities for economic and revenue projections and analysis of state economic policy. He came to the Treasury after a long career at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where he played a major role in forecasting and policy advice and rose to the rank of Senior Vice-President. He has served in leadership positions in a number of professional organizations. In 2011 he received the William F. Butler Award from the New York Association for Business Economics, is a fellow of NABE and of the Money Marketeers of New York University, and has received several awards for articles published in Business Economics. In 2017 he delivered Ramapo College's Sebastian J. Raciti Memorial Lecture. He is a member of the panel for the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia's Survey of Professional Forecasters and of the Committee on Research in Income and Wealth. He has published papers in a range of areas, and is the author of Economic Indicators for Professionals: Putting the Statistics into Perspective. He received his bachelor's degree from Emory University, his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and is a National Association for Business Economics Certified Business EconomistTM.