Assessing the State of the Economy in Real Time using Headline Economic Indicators

From the CEA (I will miss the Obama CEA):

Assessing the State of the Economy in Real Time using Headline Economic Indicators: Measuring the position of the U.S. economy in real time is difficult, both because there is no single comprehensive indicator of the state of the economy and because the many existing measures that do exist capture different aspects of the economy and are subject to frequent (and large) revisions. This issue brief presents new analysis by the Council of Economic Advisers on how to best weight different preliminary headline measures in assessing the state of the U.S. economy in real time. The analysis finds that employment growth is best measured solely using data from the payroll survey and ignoring estimates of changes in employment levels from the household survey altogether. It also finds that, in understanding the current state of the economy, data on both employment growth and output growth are useful — with substantially more weight, roughly two -thirds or more , given to headline estimates of employment growth and less weight, roughly one -third or less , given to headline estimates of output growth. ...