Our Data Sources
The American Distress Index draws on 96 indicators from 39 sources — federal agencies, Federal Reserve banks, industry reports, and academic research. Every data point is publicly available and independently verifiable. No proprietary data, no paywalled sources, no models.
Federal Government
Federal Reserve
Auto16 indicators
The Federal Reserve Board of Governors publishes bank supervision data, the Survey of Consumer Finances, the Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey (SLOOS), and ...
Bureau of Labor Statistics
Auto14 indicators
The BLS produces the Consumer Price Index, employment situation reports, JOLTS, and wage data that drive the ADI's Cost Pressure and Labor Market components.
U.S. Census Bureau
Parsed4 indicators
The Census Bureau conducts the Household Pulse Survey and Business Trends and Outlook Survey, providing real-time measures of household financial hardship an...
U.S. Courts
Parsed4 indicators
The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts publishes quarterly bankruptcy filing statistics — the foundation for the ADI's Legal Filings indicators.
Department of Labor
Auto2 indicators
The Department of Labor publishes initial and continuing unemployment claims — the ADI's primary measure of income disruption in the Labor Market component.
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Parsed2 indicators
The CFPB publishes consumer credit market reports, complaint data, and financial well-being indices used to track household financial stress.
Bureau of Economic Analysis
Auto1 indicator
The BEA produces national income and product accounts including the personal savings rate and disposable personal income — key inputs to the ADI's Buffer Dep...
USDA
Parsed1 indicator
The USDA Food and Nutrition Service administers SNAP (food stamps) and publishes enrollment data that tracks household food insecurity — a direct measure of ...
Department of Housing and Urban Development
Parsed1 indicator
HUD publishes the Annual Homeless Assessment Report, providing point-in-time counts of homelessness — the most severe outcome of household financial distress.
Energy Information Administration
Parsed1 indicator
The EIA publishes energy price data and utility disconnection statistics that feed the ADI's Cost Pressure indicators.
Department of Education
Parsed1 indicator
The Department of Education's Federal Student Aid office publishes student loan portfolio data including delinquency and default rates.
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
Parsed1 indicator
CMS publishes monthly Medicaid and CHIP enrollment data — a countercyclical indicator that rises as household financial distress increases.
FDIC
Parsed1 indicator
The FDIC conducts the National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households, measuring financial exclusion as an indicator of household distress.
Federal Reserve System
Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Parsed10 indicators
The NY Fed publishes the Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit, the Consumer Credit Panel (with Equifax), and consumer expectations surveys — the pri...
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Auto1 indicator
The Chicago Fed publishes the National Financial Conditions Index (NFCI), whose leverage subindex measures credit market tightening — the ADI's Financial Con...
Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta
Auto1 indicator
The Atlanta Fed produces the Wage Growth Tracker, used in the ADI's Cost Pressure component to measure whether wages are keeping pace with inflation.
Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia
Parsed1 indicator
The Philadelphia Fed conducts the LIFE Survey (Labor, Income, Fiscal & Expectations), providing household-level data on financial expectations and hardship.
Industry & Research
ATTOM Data Solutions
Parsed2 indicators
ATTOM publishes monthly foreclosure filing data including pre-foreclosure notices, scheduled auctions, and bank repossessions — key Legal Filings indicators ...
Vanguard
Parsed2 indicators
Vanguard's annual How America Saves report and hardship withdrawal data track retirement account stress — a leading indicator that households are depleting l...
Challenger, Gray & Christmas
Parsed2 indicators
Challenger publishes monthly job cut announcements and tracks layoffs by industry — an early warning indicator for labor market disruption before unemploymen...
Bank of America Institute
Parsed2 indicators
The Bank of America Institute publishes anonymized transaction data on consumer spending and savings behavior, providing real-time measures of household fina...
Indeed
Auto2 indicators
Indeed publishes job posting data and hiring trends that provide real-time measures of labor market demand, complementing official BLS employment statistics.
CoreLogic / Cotality
Parsed1 indicator
CoreLogic (now Cotality) publishes monthly mortgage performance data including early-stage delinquency and home price indices.
Mortgage Bankers Association
Parsed1 indicator
The MBA publishes the National Delinquency Survey, the industry's most comprehensive quarterly measure of mortgage delinquency by loan type (FHA, VA, convent...
TransUnion
Parsed1 indicator
TransUnion publishes quarterly credit industry insights including delinquency rates by loan type from their consumer credit database.
Equifax
Parsed1 indicator
Equifax publishes monthly consumer credit data and partners with the NY Fed on the Consumer Credit Panel, providing granular delinquency and balance data.
The Conference Board
Parsed1 indicator
The Conference Board publishes the Consumer Confidence Index, measuring household expectations about business conditions, employment, and income — a forward-...
Google Trends
Parsed1 indicator
Google Trends data measures search interest in financial distress terms, providing a real-time behavioral signal of household economic anxiety.
National Multifamily Housing Council
Parsed1 indicator
NMHC publishes the Rent Payment Tracker, measuring the share of apartment households making full or partial rent payments each month.
Bankrate
Parsed1 indicator
Bankrate's annual Emergency Savings Report tracks the share of Americans with adequate emergency savings — a direct measure of household financial buffers.
American Bankers Association
Parsed1 indicator
The ABA publishes quarterly reports on consumer credit delinquency across bank portfolios.
WARNTracker
Parsed1 indicator
WARNTracker aggregates Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act filings from state departments of labor, providing advance notice of mass lay...
Academic & Nonprofit
University of Michigan
Auto1 indicator
The University of Michigan's Surveys of Consumers produce the Consumer Sentiment Index, a long-running measure of household confidence in their financial sit...
METR
Parsed1 indicator
METR (Model Evaluation & Threat Research) publishes AI capability benchmarks used in the American Worker Index to track the pace of AI advancement relative t...
Feeding America
Parsed1 indicator
Feeding America's Map the Meal Gap study provides county-level food insecurity estimates, measuring how many households cannot consistently afford adequate f...
Financial Health Network
Parsed1 indicator
The Financial Health Network conducts an annual survey measuring household financial health across spending, saving, borrowing, and planning dimensions.
Opportunity Insights
Parsed1 indicator
Opportunity Insights (Harvard/Brown) publishes the Economic Tracker with high-frequency data on consumer spending, small business revenue, and employment fro...
Yale Budget Lab
Manual1 indicator
The Yale Budget Lab analyzes fiscal policy impacts including tariff burden estimates as a share of household disposable income.
Derived Indicators
For details on how these sources feed into the American Distress Index, see our methodology.