Global| Oct 30 2018State Coincident Indexes
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Summary
The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank's estimates of state coincident activity, like the state job numbers, suggest that September saw some slowing in the pace of growth in large portions of the nation. 10 states are reported to have [...]
The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank's estimates of state coincident activity, like the state job numbers, suggest that September saw some slowing in the pace of growth in large portions of the nation. 10 states are reported to have experienced declines in activity in the month (albeit, in numbers of cases, extremely small). Only 5 states saw increases of more than .5 percent. While monthly changes can be erratic, over the last 3 months 5 states (Maine, Vermont, Louisiana, Wyoming, and Hawaii) clocked declines. 16 states did see gains of more than 1 percent over this period, but this count is down from the number shown in the preliminary August report. South Carolina was one of those strong states, which suggests that Florence did not have that sharp a negative impact there. However, North Carolina, not surprisingly, was a state that reported a decline from August to September, and its growth over the last three months has been meager.
Over the last year 10 states, largely but not exclusively in the western half of the nation, grew more than 4 percent (and California and Florida both had 3.99 percent gains). Maine had the smallest increase, of 1.35 percent. So the overall picture remains one of decent, widespread, advances in activity. Still, September is the second consecutive month where the latest numbers in this series are a bit less ebullient.
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.