Recession Dashboard

How the score works

The Recession Score runs from 0 to 100 and measures recession risk in the US economy. Higher is worse. It is calculated, not estimated: the same inputs always give the same number, and this page shows every one of them.

The bands

0 to 30

Expansion

31 to 60

Caution

61 to 100

Recession Likely

Today's working

As of 25 October 2026.

Component Reading Score Weight Points
TXMC sequence 10 of 13 steps before a recession have triggered 76.9 60% 46.2
H.O.P.E cycle Housing stable, Orders expanding, Profits expanding, Employment stable 25.0 20% 5.0
Standalone indicators 5 of 5 green 0.0 20% 0.0
Total, rounded 51

The three components

TXMC sequence, 60%

The TXMC sequence lists 31 events in the order they have tended to happen around a recession. Of those, 13 come before a recession starts, and the score uses only those 13: the share that have triggered. The later steps can only happen once a recession is under way or over, so counting them would keep the score low until it was too late to be useful as a warning.

  • 1. New Orders Peak triggered 2021-02
  • 2. PMI Peak triggered 2021-01
  • 3. Housing Permits Peak triggered 2022-12
  • 4. Yield Curve Inversion triggered 2022-07
  • 5. Unemployment Off Low triggered 2023-07
  • 6. Earnings Peak not yet
  • 7. Market High not yet
  • 8. Tightening Ends triggered 2023-07
  • 9. Industrial Production Peak not yet
  • 10. CPI YoY Peak triggered 2022-06
  • 11. New Orders Contraction triggered 2022-01
  • 12. PMI Contraction triggered 2022-11
  • 13. Real Sales Peak triggered 2022-04

H.O.P.E cycle, 20%

Four parts of the economy: Housing, Orders, Profits and Employment. Each scores 0 if expanding or rebounding, 50 if stable, and 100 if contracting. The component is the average of the 4.

  • Housing: Stable, 50 points. Housing permits at 1,400K in September, down from 1,433K in July and broadly flat for a year.
  • Orders: Expanding, 0 points. ISM New Orders at 55.3 in September, up from 53.7 in August, well above the 50 line.
  • Profits: Expanding, 0 points. Corporate profits at a record $5,112.0B in Q2 2026, up about 9.4% on the quarter.
  • Employment: Stable, 50 points. Unemployment at 4.2% in September, up from 4.1%.

Standalone indicators, 20%

Five widely followed recession measures. Each scores 0 if green, 50 if amber and 100 if red. The component is the average of the 5.

  • Sahm Rule: Green, 0 points.
  • Smoothed recession probability: Green, 0 points.
  • GDP based recession indicator: Green, 0 points.
  • NBER recession indicator: Green, 0 points.
  • Conference Board LEI: Green, 0 points.

Where the data comes from

Most figures come from FRED, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis database. They are fetched fresh every time the site is built, so the numbers on the cards are always the latest published.

The 3 sources not on FRED are checked by hand at each update: the ISM manufacturing survey (last checked 25 October 2026), the Conference Board Leading Economic Index (last checked 25 October 2026), and the ClearBridge dashboard (last checked 25 October 2026). The site will not publish if any of them goes more than a few months without a check.

FRED revises past figures as better data arrives. Every update compares against the revised figures, not the ones we published before, and if a revision changes a step, we say so below.

Corrections

  • 25 October 2026

    We checked every written claim on the indicator pages and in the Knowledge Centre against its source, and corrected or removed the ones that did not hold up. Among them: the Sahm Rule page said the rule had never given a false signal, but it triggered in 2024 with no recession following. Several articles said a recession had followed every time an indicator crossed a line, for bank lending standards, inflation above 5% and the yield curve, when each has crossed without one. The LEI page overstated how far ahead the index leads, and the NBER page listed 7 indicators in a fixed order where NBER uses 6 and no fixed order.

  • 25 October 2026

    The dashboard showed ISM New Orders at 47.7, in contraction, for most of 2026. ISM's own reports show it in expansion: it was 55.3 in September. The Orders sector of H.O.P.E now reads expanding, which lowered the score.

  • 25 October 2026

    We described real retail sales as setting new records during 2026. Revised FRED data shows the April 2022 high of $229,244M has not been passed. The Real Sales Peak step of the TXMC sequence now counts as triggered, dated April 2022, which raised the score.

  • 25 October 2026

    In June we reported all 12 ClearBridge indicators as green. ClearBridge's published table shows Job Sentiment red in March, June and September 2026. The panel now shows 11 green and 1 red. ClearBridge does not feed the score.

  • 25 October 2026

    The H.O.P.E card on the homepage read "3 of 4 declining" whatever the data said. It is now worked out from the 4 sectors.

  • 27 August 2026

    Until August 2026 the score was set by judgement. The scores of 77, 70 and 66 published between March and June could not be reproduced from any written method. The method on this page was written down and applied, which gave 51.