Follow the Data features regular posts on macroeconomic trends, paired with hands-on use of RESERVE to explore the underlying data via the St. Louis Fed’s FRED® platform.
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Discovering FRED’s Hidden Treasures: From the Source
The Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED®) platform is globally renowned as a massive repository of authoritative macroeconomic data. Series such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Consumer Price Index (CPIAUCSL), and the Unemployment Rate (UNRATE) appear in financial news headlines almost daily. Still, beyond these familiar indicators, FRED publishes more than 800,000 individual time series, many …
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RESERVE Pipelines Made Easy
A long string of piped commands can look intimidating at first glance. But they shouldn’t be. In this article, we’ll break down some of the most common RESERVE pipeline commands and show how they work together to build powerful workflows. The Unix Philosophy Command-line programs gained popularity in the 1970s with the adoption of an …
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The Sleeping Inflation Giant Hidden in Semiconductor Data
Economists watch oil. Politicians watch groceries and rent. Markets watch the Fed. Everyone is watching gas and diesel prices. But buried deep inside a relatively obscure U.S. Bureau of Labor producer-price series may be an entirely different inflation story — one that could define the next decade of enterprise economics. The number is semiconductor and …
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Tracking Exploding Beef Prices
Ground beef comes in a wide range of varieties, with pricing influenced by factors such as fat content, grading quality, and premium options like grass-fed beef. Every one of these characteristics affects the final retail price consumers see at the grocery store. Historically, ground beef prices have moved in cycles, rising and falling alongside broader …
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What Say Kai Ryssdall?
Marketplace, the popular economics podcast, has built a reputation for making complex economic topics accessible to everyday listeners. Much of that appeal comes from host Kai Ryssdal, whose mix of sharp insight, humor, and storytelling makes even the driest data surprisingly entertaining. On May 7, 2026, the Marketplace episode contained a segment titled “Measuring Economic …
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$34 Trillion in Debt: Crisis or Context?
The U.S. national debt has surpassed $34 trillion. That number sounds alarming—but on its own, it doesn’t tell you much. To understand whether this is a crisis or just context, we need to stop looking at headlines—and start looking at the data. The Problem with Big Numbers $34 trillion is a big number. But so …