Finding Economic Data & Statistics

The Federal Reserve and its 12 Reserve Banks constitute the central bank of the United States. The system engages in a lot of economic research and data gathering related primarily to financial topics.  

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis operates a number of databases that are incredibly beneficial for accessing data produced by the Federal Reserve System and other economic data sources. Databases covered on this page are:

• FRED: times series of economic data of all types
• GeoFRED: using FRED data to create maps
• ALFRED: historical, unrevised FRED data

Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons. 

The Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) database contains 528,000 economic data time series from the Federal Reserve Bank System as well as other national and international sources of economic data, including sources covered elsewhere in this guide such as the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the OECD, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. 

FRED allows you to see and download multiple economic datasets of current and historical data. FRED can also create graphs using its datasets. Use this how-to guide to better understand FRED.   

GeoFRED is a mapping tool that allows you to take FRED data and visualize it geographically. Regions of comparison can go from as small as counties and metropolitan statistical areas to as large as nations. Use this orientation video to better understand GeoFRED. 

The St. Louis Fed's Archival FRED (ALFRED) tool allows users to access the same data sets as FRED, with one important difference. Economic data is often revised as more information comes in and a more accurate picture is developed. FRED uses this revised data in its time series, but ALFRED allows you to look up that same data in its original, unrevised format.