Global| Oct 28 2020State Coincident Indexes in September
|in:Viewpoints
Summary
The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia's state coincident indexes continued to be remarkably mixed in September, but still on an uptrend. 11 states saw an increase of 10 percent or more in the three months since June, led by [...]
The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia's state coincident indexes continued to be remarkably mixed in September, but still on an uptrend. 11 states saw an increase of 10 percent or more in the three months since June, led by Massachusetts' gain of nearly 32 percent. In contrast, 2 states saw their indexes drop since June and 3 others—including Texas—had gains of less then 1 percent. Once again, the reported national increase of only 2.3 percent is at odds with the state results (California and Florida also had marked gains, though less striking than New York).
Over the last year, Utah, Nevada, and Georgia saw modest increases in their indexes, while all other states dropped, with Hawaii's 32.2 percent being far and away the largest. Aside from Massachusetts, 3 other large Northeastern states had double-digit gains: New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. From August to September 8 states fell, with Hawaii experiencing a shocking 5.5 percent drop. On the other side, Kentucky and Massachusetts both roe 7.8 percent. As was the case for the three-month move, large Northeastern states also did well in August-September, again including New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania in that group.
The latest report suggests that recovery in the Northeast has been most recently been stronger than most of the rest of the nation; this may reflect in part that area lagging in reopening (and so lagging in the surge connected with that) than elsewhere. However, given the still uncertain path of the economy, complicated by the latest surge in cases, it is hard to draw any conclusions about the underlying trends in state and local divergences.
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.