From the course: Economic Tips for Everyone

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Adjusted data

Adjusted data

From the course: Economic Tips for Everyone

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Adjusted data

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- Not all economic data shows the actual level of activity. Sometimes the data is adjusted to account for variations in seasonal dynamics. A lot of economic reports include seasonal adjustments because things like the weather, holidays, the school year, and the number of days in a month can impact different data series like retail sales, jobless claims, the unemployment rate, and more. For example, in the United States, February retail sales are very different from November retail sales. February is a short month, plus November has Black Friday, which is a major shopping day. Data over many years or decades are used to come up with the seasonal adjustments, but even those seasonal adjustments are revised over time. Of course, entities like the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and Eurostat usually publish both the actual data as well as the seasonally-adjusted data. But the numbers most people talk about in the press or in…

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