Added to presidential data explorer: Economic indexes

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Explore the economic record of presidents through the lens of two economic indexes.

To examine the record of presidents regarding economics, I gathered data from several sources and present it in an interactive visualization. Today, two economic indexes have been added.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia calculates two indexes that track and forecast economic activity in the states and the country as a whole. The coincident index is a measure of current and past economic activity for each state. The average value for the complete year 2007 is given the value 100. The leading index predicts the six-month growth rate of the state’s coincident index. Positive values mean the coincident index is expected to rise in the future six months, while negative values mean it is expected to fall. 1

For each president, data is presented by month, with the first month of each president’s term having number one. Presidents that served two full terms have data up to month 96 of their term, while others have fewer months.

Data is shown in several views:

  • A table.
  • A timeline chart showing the monthly value of a statistic by month for each president. There are two versions.
  • A chart showing the change in the absolute value of a statistic by month for each president.
  • A chart showing the proportional change in the value of a statistic for each president.
  • Grids of the same data.

Click here to learn more about the data and access the visualization.

Example from the visualization. Click for larger.


Notes

  1. For more about these indexes, and for a visualization of these for each state, see Visualization: Economic indicators in the states.

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