Take a 10-minute guided tour of FRED, the St. Louis Fed's free economic data website. Simple step-by-step activities equip users to find and graph economic data, mastering FRED's look and feel. The guide also shows how to customize, save, and share a FRED graph.

This online activity shows how to use FRED, the Federal Reserve's free online economic data website, to analyze changes in real gross domestic product (GDP) and GDP makeup over time. Following simple instructions, you will locate spending data for the individual components of real GDP, and then combine them into a highly informative area graph. You will also use FRED's ability to stack data and see how trade—imports and exports—contributes to GDP. The resulting customized graph will let you see how economic output varies from year to year.

As the Rolling Stones song says, "You can't always get what you want." So we make choices. Every day, governments and individuals choose how much money to spend and what to purchase. The January 2013 issue discusses opportunity costs and scarcity and how they effect our spending decisions.

     This is a pathfinder designed for users who are new to Tableau Desktop and Tableau Public.  The purpose of this pathfinder is to be a companion resource to the February 25, 2023 presentation Create Accurately and Interactive Dashboards with Tableau.  The Tableau Student Ambassador presenters of the workshop were Taiwo Adegite, Junior Analyst; and Zena Patton, Corporate Learning Professional, and Librarian.  To learn more about the Tableau Community Leader Ambassador program, go to the following link  https://www.tableau.com/community/community-leaders/ambassadors      This companion resource is an artifact of a global, collaborative effort between Taiwo Adegite (Nigeria), Junior Analyst; and Zena Patton (United States of America), Corporate Learning Professional, and Librarian.Last update April 15, 2023.  This update includes resources from Flip the Tableau! Learning Experience.   

This online activity demonstrates how easy it is to master key functions in GeoFRED, the data-mapping tool for FRED. In just a few minutes you can create an engaging binary map that will spur comments and questions. The binary map created in this demonstration displays the following data: real per capita personal income, not seasonally adjusted, quarterly, dollars.

This online activity demonstrates how simple it is to use key tools in GeoFRED to focus on regional economic growth and development. The activity examines U.S. unemployment data at the county level to explore how employment was affected by the energy boom around the time of the Great Recession.

Students learn that economic forces have an impact beyond the financial world. First, they learn that Progressive Era public health reforms inspired a commercial response to the growing demand for sanitation through the rapid increase in bathroom-fixture production. Students then use FRED, economic data from Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, to analyze how bathroom-fixture production changed throughout the 1920s. They examine primary documents—1920s advertising—to see how companies fused the Progressive Era with the new consumer culture. Finally, students complete the lesson by responding to AP U.S. History-style short-answer questions.

How is the total value of all the goods and services produced in a country's economy measured? Gross domestic product (GDP) is one common and fairly comprehensive measure. The May 2013 issue explains GDP components and how GDP is calculated. It also describes what GDP does—and does not—measure.

You may be doing all you can to prepare for the price of education after high school, but if your savings, grants, and scholarships aren’t quite enough, do not overlook student loans as a means to gaining the education you need to make the big bucks.

History holds many economic lessons. The Great Depression, in particular, is an event that provides the opportunity to teach and learn a great deal about economics-whether you're studying the economic reasons that the Depression took place, the factors that helped it come to an end or the impact on Americans who lived through it. This curriculum is designed to provide teachers with economic lessons that they can share with their students to help them understand this significant experience in U.S. history.

History holds many economic lessons. The Great Depression, in particular, is an event that provides the opportunity to teach and learn a great deal about economics-whether you're studying the economic reasons that the Depression took place, the factors that helped it come to an end or the impact on Americans who lived through it. This curriculum is designed to provide teachers with economic lessons that they can share with their students to help them understand this significant experience in U.S. history.

Drivers may wonder whether the most recent spike in gasoline prices is temporary or will be longer lasting. Will prices eventually decline—maybe even to below $3 per gallon? Or is it time for drivers to alter their driving habits, maybe by buying a hybrid car? Be sure to read the September 2012 issue for a discussion of factors that might influence that decision.

This unique activity features a primary source from the Fed's online archive, FRASER. 75 Years of American Finance: A Graphic Presentation, 1861-1935, is an 85-foot long detailed timeline compiled in 1936. The activity reviews the document layout and provides historical inquiry questions divided into four sections: observe, reflect, question, and analyze. Students can evaluate any given year(s) of the timeline, and the document may be used to introduce historical inquiry and/or to support study of historical themes, years or eras noted in the timeline.

Historians are experts at assessing and analyzing documents to build a narrative but may be stymied by numbers. Charts (tables, graphs, maps, diagrams, and so on) provide a graphical view of information and can be a powerful way to display evidence. This toolkit provides a series of resources for students to read, interpret, and think critically about charts in textbooks and historical documents.

GDP is a useful measure of the health of the economy, and it’s among the most important and widely reported economic data. However, the current “textbook treatment” of how international trade is measured as part of GDP can lead people to misunderstand the role trade plays in the economy. The September 2018 issue of Page One Economics intends to correct misconceptions and provide clear instruction on how imports affect GDP.

Federal individual income tax must be paid to the U.S. government, but the amounts paid vary widely. The December 2016 issue of Page One Economics: Focus on Finance addresses basic facts about the tax—its history, purpose, and current structure.

"Human capital" may not be the first thing that comes to mind when we think about investments, but investing in education and training is an important economic decision. Learn about human capital and the return on such an investment in the February 2013 issue.

This online activity shows how to use FRED, the Federal Reserve's free economic data website, to measure changes in the cost of living in your lifetime. Each month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) collects data on prices consumers pay for tens of thousands of goods and services, everything from software to car insurance. Using rigorous statistical methods, the BLS transforms this mountain of price data into the consumer price index (CPI). The CPI is a numerical index that measures inflation by tracking monthly changes in prices urban dwellers pay for a diverse market basket of thousands of goods and services. Following simple instructions, you will locate the overall level of U.S. consumer prices as it existed on your birth date. You will then compare that level with the level today to see how prices have inflated during your lifetime. FRED's ability to create a graph with a custom index scale will allow you to visualize the rise in prices over your lifetime.

They say that "money makes the world go round." Just imagine a world without money as our method of payment for everyday transactions. Without money, we would all need to barter for necessary goods and services. For example, suppose an accountant needs to have her car fixed. Under a barter system, she would have to find someone who needed some tax advice in exchange for car repairs. The search to find a barter partner is time consuming and wasteful. Money solves this problem and many others. Read more about the three main functions of money and the damaging effects of too much inflation on these functions in the March 2013 issue.