Methodology

The benchmark

Every indicator is compared with its value on Jan 19, 2025, the day before the second Trump inauguration. Where a series is not published daily, the benchmark is the last reading on or before that date — for stock indexes that is the Friday close, for monthly series it is the December 2024 reading.

Updating

Data is pulled from the original publishers and cached for a few hours at a time, so figures refresh through the day without hammering the source APIs. Each card shows the date of the reading it displays, which is the honest measure of how current it is.

Limitations

• Market levels are end-of-day closes, not live quotes.
• Monthly series such as CPI, payrolls and home prices are released weeks after the period they describe.
• Price indexes are index levels, not dollars. The percentage change since the benchmark is the meaningful number.
• No figure here is adjusted, smoothed or reweighted; values are shown exactly as published.
• The annual deficit chart uses the supplied 2007–2026 workbook; its 2026 period contains 353 days.
• The ground beef, gasoline, diesel and electricity charts use supplied monthly price tables; they are not part of the live federal data feed. Electricity values cite BLS Series APU000072610.

Series tracked