"Persons 16 years of age and older." That's it??

The notes for Population Level (CNP16OV) say:

Civilian noninstitutional population is defined as persons 16 years of age and older residing in the 50 states and the District of Columbia, who are not inmates of institutions (e.g., penal and mental facilities, homes for the aged), and who are not on active duty in the Armed Forces.

 

The notes for Civilian Labor Force Level (CLF16OV) say:

Persons 16 years of age and older.

which makes the labor force more inclusive than the population. That's not right.

Those notes, by the way, are usually very helpful. Not being an economist, I depend on them. I trust them. This is the first time I ever saw one so obviously wrong.

Also, the date in the citation is wrong. That's weird.

I know, GDP and GDI are almost identical, but

 I had to do a Google Search for gross domestic income, historical data to find the GDI series at FRED.

Adding quarterly DPI

I can add quarterly DPI as the first series,
but I'm not able to add it as the second series.
I'm not done trying, but that's what I find so far.

I'm trying to get DPI, the quarterly series, the one that goes back to 1947:

(I'm only showing the upper part of the FRED window.)

I typed dpi into the FRED Search Box.  Three options came up: Two for Debt Service and one for DPI. I selected the last of these. Here's what I got:

(Again, only the upper part of the window is shown.)

I got the monthly series DSPI. The one that goes back to 1959. Not what I wanted.

If there was a chance for me to select which version of DPI I wanted, I didn't see it.

//

Okay. Try again. On a new FRED page, I search for dpi, but don't select anything, and press ENTER. I get two series for Debt Service and one for DPI, the monthly one again, but this time there is "1 other format" available -- the quarterly series that I'm looking for:

I clicked the one other format ("Quarterly...") and got the series I was looking for.

Okay, we're off to a good start.

Now, I want to add the quarterly DPI again, as the second series. Or actually, the problem came up because I started with some other series, then tried to add the quarterly DPI series as the second series for my calculation. Let's try that now.

I've got Total Currency and Deposits Including Money Market Fund Shares for the Household sector in a FRED graph already. But it is given as Percent of DPI and I want it in Billions. No problem, right? Multiply by DPI and divide by 100. So now I have to bring in the DPI series.

As you have seen, getting the monthly DPI series (DSPI) is no problem. And yes, FRED will automatically convert the monthly data to quarterly for me. But it only gives me data back to 1959, which means I lose all the information from the early and mid-1950s. And I find this unacceptable. So, here we are.

I type dpi in the "Add" field and three series are offered: TDSP, CDSP, and DSPI. The last of these is the monthly version of  DPI, the series I want.

If I type DPI (upper-case) in the "Add" field I get the same three series.

If I type disposable in the "Add" field I get a long list, including Debt Service series, Real DPI series, a Personal Saving series, a Net Worth series, and two DPI series -- the monthly one DSPI, and (last on the list) the annual series A067RC1A027NBEA.

But I still don't get the quarterly DPI series with the series name DPI.

Must be an oversight.

//

Here's the problem: I can add quarterly DPI as the first series, but I'm not able to add it as the second series.

No more Down-Down-Down-Down-Down-Down-Down-Down-ENTER

GDP is now second on the list:

The good old days are back!

Nice touch!

Things keep up like this, I might have to rename the blog!

Sweet!

I'm on a new project: trying to reverse engineer the average length of loans from debt and debt service data. So I rounded up some data, converted it all to annual (to match the "monetary interest paid" series) and changed the aggregation method to "end of period" (the same way debt series are figured), checked it quick, and downloaded the FRED data as an Excel file.

Happy as a pig in shit, I glanced at the file and right away noticed that FRED now shows the calculations as part of the data descriptions in the header area. Here's a clip from the file, where I convert debt service payments as a percent of DPI to debt service payments in billions:

At left, an identification tag. On the right, the formula in highly readable format, showing the unique series identifiers for the data I used in the calculation. Next, the formula again, this time showing the units I had chosen for the data. Finally, the data frequency -- "Annual" -- which is great, because I changed it from the default.

With this information, people can figure out what I did. People can duplicate my graph, if they want. This is perfect. This is how it should be. Pig in shit.

Then I glanced at the values for my calculated debt service numbers. Horrors! My numbers were smaller instead of bigger than the percent values I started with. After an "Oh, man" I took another look at FRED's documentation of my formulas.

Bingo: I divided by DPI-in-billions where I should have multiplied, and multiplied by 100 where I should have divided. And I figured out the problem from within the spreadsheet. FRED just made my life easier.

Thank you, FRED. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Here's a question

I. Household Debt in Billions

Searching FRED for household debt the other day, I came across
Households and nonprofit organizations; consumer credit; liability, Level
and
Households and nonprofit organizations; home mortgages; liability, Level
and
Households and nonprofit organizations; debt securities and loans excluding home mortgages and consumer credit; liability, Level

Tidy package, I thought. Mortgages, plus consumer credit, plus everything other than mortgages and consumer credit. That's all there is.

Those three should add up to Households and nonprofit organizations; debt securities and loans; liability, Level, I thought. I wonder if it does.

Yup. On the graph below, I show the big number as a wide black line. I show the three components, added together, as a white line over top of the black. The white line runs right down the middle of the black line. The three components add up to the "debt securities and loans" number. Nothing left out. Nothing extra. It's perfect:

Mortgage Debt plus Consumer Credit plus Other equals Household Debt

(Click the graph to see it bigger.)

But that's not my question.

II. Household Debt relative to DPI

I remember seeing Household Debt Service data at FRED, back when a search for it turned up only four series: mortgage debt, consumer debt, the total of those two, and a "financial obligations" series that counted things that were not really debt (as it seemed to me, at least).

I remember ignoring the Financial Obligations series, and just working with the three Debt Service series. You could take Mortgage Debt Service and Consumer Debt Service and add the two together, and the total would be equal to the Household Debt Service series. Still is, in fact:

Mortgage Debt Service plus Consumer Debt Service equals Household Debt Service

The wide black line shows Household Debt Service. The narrow green line that follows exactly the same path is the sum of the two components. The two components add up to the "Household Debt Service" number. Nothing left out. Nothing extra. It's perfect.

(Again,  you can click the graph to see it bigger.)

That's not my question, either.

III. My Question

When you add up the components of Household Debt in billions, there are three components. But when you add up the components of Household Debt as a percent of DPI, there are only two components. The one calculation includes, and the other apparently overlooks "debt securities and loans excluding home mortgages and consumer credit". How can this be right?

That's my question.

I found the Series Analyzer and housedebt/about but it'll take me years to figure out if the answer is there...

If the answer is that "consumer credit" and "consumer debt" are two different things, wow, I need a link.

Wow, I need a drink.