A Federal Reserve index tracking the Sunshine State’s economy sees the biggest increase in seven years.
A Federal Reserve index shows a big improvement for Florida’s economy.
Each month, the Fed’s Philadelphia bank issues state-by-state indices that combine wage, employment and manufacturing data. And while most states have been improving since 2009, Florida’s index for October saw the biggest jump in seven years.
The so-called coincident index by the Philadelphia Fed tracks overall job growth, unemployment, average hours worked in the manufacturing industry and wage levels. The four indicators are combined into a single index, which the Fed says should roughly match growth in each state’s economic output.
For October, the most recent index available, Florida’s coincident score grew by three-tenths of a percent. That would amount to an economy growing at 3.5 percent per year. It was the largest monthly increase since September 2005, when the Florida index grew by slightly more than three-tenths of a percentage point. The biggest dip came in January 2009, when Florida’s “Philly Fed” index dropped by almost two percentage points in a single month.
