The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s state coincident indexes continued to be on the soft side in January (February numbers will be released on April 9). In the one-month changes, Montana led with a .66 percent gain, while West Virginia and South Carolina had increases above .5 percent. 13 states registered declines, none greater than North Dakota’s .34 percent. Over the three months ending in January, only two states (Missouri and Wyoming) were down, both by small amounts. The gains were also somewhat muted, with only five (South Caroilina, Washington, Idaho, Utah, and Maryland) showing increases above 1 percent, topping off at South Carolina’s 1.35 percent. Over the last twelve months, three states were down, and eleven others saw increases of less than one percent. No state had an increase higher than four percent, and only three were higher than three percent. Washington’s index rose 3.66 percent, while Michigan was down 1.34 percent.
The independently estimated national estimates of growth over the last three and twelve months were, respectively, .61 and 2.41 percent. These both appear to be roughly in line with the state numbers.