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Industrial Production
About This Indicator
What Is Industrial Production?
The output of factories, mines, and utilities, measured in volume, not dollars, as an index set to 100 in a base year, from the Federal Reserve. This site starts it in 1929.
Why Does It Matter?
In hard times people put off buying a car but keep paying rent, so goods output swings far harder than services. The index fell by more than half between mid-1929 and mid-1932, and it is one of a handful of monthly series used to date recessions.
Can Politics Influence It?
Trade policy, defense orders, energy rules, and interest rates reach it: rearmament and war orders more than doubled it between 1939 and 1943.
Key Idea
The index roughly doubled between 1979 and 2018 while factory employment fell by about a third, so losing factory jobs has not meant making less. Much of the gain came from computers and electronics, where faster, cheaper chips register as more output.
Scored: Faster Growth Ranks Better
Source: FRED (Federal Reserve G.17). INDPRO.
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