State of the Union: Survey shows slight economic improvement at state level

The latest “Coincident Indexes for the 50 States” release from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia indicated overall weakness in economic activity in January with 23 states showing declines, 19 showing increases and 8 remaining unchanged.

That compares slightly more favorably to the latest three month results of 31 declining states, 15 increasing and four unchanged.

The worst showing was West Virginia with a month-to-month decline of 1.39% and a decline of 13.43% on a year-over-year basis.

The best, yet very volatile showing was from Louisiana which increased 0.66% on a month-to-month basis but still remained 2.33% below the level seen in January 2009.

The national index indicated that economic activity increased 0.08% since December 2009 but remained 2.82% below the level seen in January 2009.

The coincident indices are formulated from four state level indicators (nonfarm payrolls, unemployment rate, average hours worked in manufacturing and wages and salary disbursements deflated by the CPI) giving essentially a time-series summary of the current general economic conditions of each state.

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