How widespread is the economy's movement? Every member indicator casts one monthly vote — improving, abstaining, or deteriorating, judged against its own history. This page reports the count.
basis: revised live census · updated Sep 13
Each member counted at its latest monthly vote; the month record settles on the chart.
Growth is the default state: net breadth above +25 in 61.5% of months since 1963, below −25 in only 4.5% — improvement is diffuse and constant; broad deterioration is rare and concentrated.
Widest recorded: +100.0% (May 1978). Narrowest: -77.3% (Dec 2008).
Data through: August 2026 · updated Sep 13
Net breadth = improving minus deteriorating, as a share of the full electorate. Pink bands: NBER recessions. The last 40 years shown; expand the chart to reach the full record back to 1963.
Of the 34 months below −25, 94.1% were NBER recession months.
Not every broad deterioration ran into a recession: Feb 2003, Oct 2015, Feb 2025 deteriorated broadly with no recession following. Counting describes; it does not predict.
Regime record window: Aug 1981–Aug 2026 · 541 months
| regime | months | median net breadth | range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Healthy Expansion | 213 | +42.9% | -5.9% to +86.7% |
| Soft Patch | 85 | +21.1% | -22.7% to +57.1% |
| Contraction | 44 | -28.9% | -77.3% to +18.2% |
| Overheating | 41 | +25.0% | -12.5% to +80.0% |
| Early Recovery | 40 | +24.9% | -28.6% to +86.7% |
| Cooling | 35 | +33.3% | +4.2% to +53.3% |
| Disinflation | 22 | +20.8% | 0.0% to +60.0% |
| Transitional | 20 | +9.5% | -22.7% to +45.8% |
| Below-Target Drift | 19 | +39.1% | +16.7% to +50.0% |
| Unclassified | 14 | +10.1% | -9.5% to +33.3% |
| Snapback | 8 | +62.5% | +4.5% to +66.7% |
Ranges overlap across regimes — a month's label does not fix its participation, and a participation reading does not name a regime. Label and participation are different facts.
Regime record window: Aug 1981–Aug 2026 · 527 months compared
Same side in 499 of 527 months (94.7%) · current run 16 months.
Both lean expansionary most months — net breadth is at or above zero in 88.6% of compared months and the regime label sits on the expansion side in 91.7% — so high agreement is partly expected; the disagreements are the informative months.
Mar 1982 · Jul–Aug 1982 · Oct 1982 · Sep 1990 · Apr–May 1991 · Mar 1993 · Nov 2000 · Jan 2001 · Jul–Aug 2001 · Dec 2001 – Jan 2002 · Feb 2003 · Jul–Dec 2007 · Feb 2008 · Jul–Aug 2009 · Nov–Dec 2019 · Jun 2022 · Feb 2025
Where the count and the label diverged — shown whether flattering or not.
24 voters, one per economic fact · deferred: existing home sales (2030), ISM mfg + services (~2031) · cell of record: 3-month window, p50 band · descriptive only — counts, never probabilities · methodology →