By Lindsay Jones, Economic Editor

When you see the name ALFRED, does the butler in “Batman” immediately spring to mind? Like the fictional character in the storied superhero franchise, the Federal Reserve’s ALFRED provides a service. But unlike Bruce Wayne’s longtime friend and mentor, this ALFRED is a database containing more than 815,000 data series.

ALFRED (for ArchivaL Federal Reserve Economic Data) launched in 2006 as a companion to its older sibling, FRED, the St. Louis Fed’s signature economic database, according to an April 2021 FRED Blog post. While 30-year-old FRED aggregates the latest data releases from sources such as the U.S. bureaus of Labor Statistics, Economic Analysis and Census, 15-year-old ALFRED captures vintage versions of these data as FRED replaces them with the latest numbers. Research Division analysts keep track of scheduled and unscheduled data releases, and ALFRED is typically updated within one business day, according to the...

You could be the scientist who cures the common cold or the farmer with the perfect green thumb who can grow crops in harsh environments to feed the hungry. You could work in a large company with thousands of employees all over the world. You could own your own small business that supports your local economy by providing jobs in your community and goods and services for your neighbors.

Whatever you dream about doing, you will need to find a way to pay for it and savings is the way to start. Opening a savings account, where your money earns interest every month, is a great place to begin. Putting money into your savings account regularly will help you earn even more. If you are confident that you have enough money saved to cover emergencies, you can open a money market or CD account. These types of accounts offer higher interest rates than most accounts but they also have rules about how much money you must put aside and how long your money is held. When it comes to...

“Economics, certainly, is about the data and the numbers side of things. But it’s also about the stories and the people that are behind those numbers and how we tell those stories,” says Julie Bennett, research associate at the St. Louis Fed. She joins fellow research associates Praew Grittayaphong and Maggie Isaacson, as they discuss research and working in economics with Maria Hasenstab, media relations coordinator at the St. Louis Fed.

By Lowell R. Ricketts, Data Scientist, Institute for Economic Equity

The Great Recession, which occurred from December 2007 to June 2009, was marked by widespread wealth destruction, especially corporate equities and home equity—the latter marked by pronounced inequities by race and ethnicity. In stark contrast, average wealth outcomes among white, Black and Hispanic households hit record highs during the recovery from the COVID-19 recession, which occurred from February to April 2020. It is important to note that these averages are more responsive to the high wealth holdings of the very rich, so these results may not characterize the typical household’s experience. Indeed, given that Black and Hispanic families have borne the brunt of pandemic hardship in many ways, these average outcomes may obscure declining wealth for a relatively large share of families. While average wealth grew across these racial and ethnic groups, the source and magnitude of that growth...

William R. Emmons, Lead Economist in Supervision

Lofty house prices are often associated with wealthy cities like San Francisco or New York. Rapid and sustained house-price increases have drawn attention at various times in California, the desert Southwest, Texas, Florida and the Northeast.

Yet the largest increase in housing valuation of a major metro area during the last 30 years, measured as the net change in a metro area’s house price-to-rent ratio, was in Denver. Between the first quarter of 1991 and the first quarter of 2021, house prices in the Mile High City grew more than twice as fast as local rents. No other major metro area came close to this dizzying pace of housing valuation increase.

Want a quick way to keep up with what's new and noteworthy at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, part of our nation's central bank?

Subscribe to our e-newsletter to see a sample of what we do: videos, podcasts, essays, infographics and more—on everything from academic research on the economy to practical lessons on personal finance, from community development efforts to conferences about community banking.

We won't overwhelm you – we'll give you just a handful of notes in each issue, and you can decide whether to follow the links for "the full story."

By Ana Hernández Kent, Senior Researcher, Institute for Economic Equity

Widespread racial, ethnic and gender economic disparities exist in the United States. These gaps represent lost potential—fewer innovations, less-diverse ideas, untapped talent and unrealized growth. Though these disparities most keenly affect minority communities and women, they also have an economic cost for everyone.

What exactly is that cost, and how much could the economy improve if the gaps didn’t exist?

Those are the exact questions that colleagues from across the Federal Reserve System and I set out to answer. The result was the creation of a data simulation tool offered for free to the public via Fed Communities, a website that highlights the Federal Reserve’s work in underserved communities.

Using the tool, one can visualize the estimated economic gain—measured by annual gross domestic product (GDP)—for each state and Washington, D.C.; this is the potential benefit...

By Lowell R. Ricketts, Data Scientist, Institute for Economic Equity

The Great Recession, which occurred from December 2007 to June 2009, was marked by widespread wealth destruction, especially corporate equities and home equity—the latter marked by pronounced inequities by race and ethnicity. In stark contrast, average wealth outcomes among white, Black and Hispanic households hit record highs during the recovery from the COVID-19 recession, which occurred from February to April 2020. It is important to note that these averages are more responsive to the high wealth holdings of the very rich, so these results may not characterize the typical household’s experience. Indeed, given that Black and Hispanic families have borne the brunt of pandemic hardship in many ways, these average outcomes may obscure declining wealth for a relatively large share of families. While average wealth grew across these racial and ethnic groups, the source and magnitude of that growth...

By Hannah Rubinton, Economist; and Maggie Isaacson, Research Associate

Income volatility often has negative consequences for families, especially for those with children. Children living in households with unstable incomes are more likely to experience behavioral problems, reduced earnings, and income instability later in life.

How well can households insure themselves against fluctuations in income? If families are able to predict these fluctuations and have full access to credit markets, they should be able to smooth their consumption over time, and income fluctuations should not impact a family’s ability to purchase necessary goods and services.

In this blog post, we explore the relationship between income instability and instability in food consumption for families with and without children. We found that as income volatility increases, food volatility increases faster for families with children than for families without children. This suggests that...

By Lowell R. Ricketts, Data Scientist, Institute for Economic Equity

The Great Recession, which occurred from December 2007 to June 2009, was marked by widespread wealth destruction, especially corporate equities and home equity—the latter marked by pronounced inequities by race and ethnicity. In stark contrast, average wealth outcomes among white, Black and Hispanic households hit record highs during the recovery from the COVID-19 recession, which occurred from February to April 2020. It is important to note that these averages are more responsive to the high wealth holdings of the very rich, so these results may not characterize the typical household’s experience. Indeed, given that Black and Hispanic families have borne the brunt of pandemic hardship in many ways, these average outcomes may obscure declining wealth for a relatively large share of families. While average wealth grew across these racial and ethnic groups, the source and magnitude of that growth...

By Doreen Fagan, Manager and Senior Content Editor

Comparing an economy’s actual output with its potential output can provide useful information about the economy’s health.

The difference between actual output and potential output is known as the output gap, as discussed in a recent Page One Economics article by Scott Wolla. This economic measure is expressed as a percentage of potential output, which is estimated using potential gross domestic product (GDP), where:

The FRED Blog has previously looked at the negative impact of social distancing on employment levels in the leisure and hospitality industry. Today, one year later, we take a look at how the overall economic recovery is reflected in this industry.

The GeoFRED map above shows the percent change between May 2020 and May 2021 of employment levels in the leisure and hospitality industry for each state. The data are seasonally adjusted, meaning they correct for the recurring ups and downs in activity during any given year. For example, winter ice fishing in North Dakota or summer vacationing in Florida.

Overall, the number of employees in the leisure and hospitality industry increased from May 2020 to May 2021 by a stunning average of 42%. The smallest increase was 20% in Oklahoma, and the largest increase was 73% in Delaware.

The high-growth states, with increases in employment of over 60%, are in dark green. Eight of these ten states are concentrated in the...

Given ongoing disruptions to child care arrangements, many working parents, especially of very young children, must provide more hands-on care during the workday, rendering them unable to work the same number of hours (if at all) than they otherwise would. This represents an important labor supply bottleneck that is contributing to a shortage of workers that has attracted considerable public attention.

According to the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey, 25% of parents with very young children reported that their children were unable to attend child care arrangements in mid- to late-May* because of the pandemic, versus 16% for those with school-age children. Importantly, these constraints predominantly keep women out of the workforce: Roughly 39% of prime-working-age women with children (versus 12% of men) reported not working because they were caring for children not in school or day care. This lopsided care arrangement has the capacity to depress women’s upward...

The FRED Blog has previously looked at the negative impact of social distancing on employment levels in the leisure and hospitality industry. Today, one year later, we take a look at how the overall economic recovery is reflected in this industry.

The GeoFRED map above shows the percent change between May 2020 and May 2021 of employment levels in the leisure and hospitality industry for each state. The data are seasonally adjusted, meaning they correct for the recurring ups and downs in activity during any given year. For example, winter ice fishing in North Dakota or summer vacationing in Florida.

Overall, the number of employees in the leisure and hospitality industry increased from May 2020 to May 2021 by a stunning average of 42%. The smallest increase was 20% in Oklahoma, and the largest increase was 73% in Delaware.

The high-growth states, with increases in employment of over 60%, are in dark green. Eight of these ten states are concentrated in the...

Families with female survey respondents had lower median family wealth than those with male respondents. These results reflect associations between wealth and gender rather than causal links. Yet the results are telling. Even after accounting for a variety of factors, the gender wealth gap remained significant. The “raw” gender wealth gap was largest between men and women who had never been married. In this group, women had 34 cents per $1 of men’s wealth. After controlling for various factors (age, children, race and ethnicity, education, income, homeownership, inheritance, employment, and financial risk taking), this gap was significantly reduced—71 cents per $1—yet remains potentially consequential for current and future generations.

Michael McCracken, Assistant Vice President and Economist; and Aaron Amburgey, Research Associate

In August 2020, the Federal Reserve announced a change in its approach to monetary policy and how this relates to its mandate of price stability. Previously, a 2% inflation target meant that if inflation started to rise toward 2%, the Federal Reserve would raise the federal funds rate (FFR) to prevent inflation from overshooting 2%. In practice, this strategy not only prevented inflation from rising above 2% but also kept inflation from even reaching 2%. It is also believed that this approach to price stability hampered employment growth, particularly for low- and moderate-income communities, by slowing economic growth more generally.

The Federal Reserve now intends to implement a strategy called flexible average inflation targeting (FAIT). Under this new strategy, the Federal Reserve will seek inflation that averages 2% over a time frame that is not formally...

The FRED Blog has previously looked at the negative impact of social distancing on employment levels in the leisure and hospitality industry. Today, one year later, we take a look at how the overall economic recovery is reflected in this industry.

The GeoFRED map above shows the percent change between May 2020 and May 2021 of employment levels in the leisure and hospitality industry for each state. The data are seasonally adjusted, meaning they correct for the recurring ups and downs in activity during any given year. For example, winter ice fishing in North Dakota or summer vacationing in Florida.

Overall, the number of employees in the leisure and hospitality industry increased from May 2020 to May 2021 by a stunning average of 42%. The smallest increase was 20% in Oklahoma, and the largest increase was 73% in Delaware.

The high-growth states, with increases in employment of over 60%, are in dark green. Eight of these ten states are concentrated in the...