Recession signals · three independent readingsThree recession signals for the US economy
The Sahm rule, the 10-year minus 2-year Treasury spread, and the NBER recession indicator. Raw readings and trigger states, each shown on its own — this site does not combine them into a recession probability.
The Sahm value is taken directly from the official FRED series SAHMCURRENT; nothing is recomputed here.
- Data through
- 2026-09-21
- Signals fired
- 0 of 3
- Coverage
- 1986-08 – 2026-08 (480 months)
- Units
- percent / percentage point
01Key facts
The whole page in one block. Figures are filled from the latest data.
- The three signals
- S1 the Sahm rule (momentum in unemployment), S2 the 10-year minus 2-year Treasury spread (how the bond market is priced), S3 the NBER recession indicator (dated after the fact). Each is judged on its own.
- Sahm reading
- As of 2026-08 the official Sahm value was −0.07 percentage points, against a trigger of 0.50. The three-month average unemployment rate was 4.13% and the lowest three-month average over the previous twelve months was 4.20%.
- Spread reading
- As of 2026-09-21 the 10-year minus 2-year spread was +0.20 percentage points; counting month-end values and the current month at that daily reading, the spread has been negative for 0 consecutive months.
- NBER status
- USREC was 0 for 2026-08 (1 means a recession month). The most recent recession dated by the NBER ran from 2020-03 to 2020-04.
- Sample
- 480 months of unemployment data starting 1986-08; the NBER indicator from 1970-01; 600 month-end observations of the yield spread.
- Update cadence
- Every series is refetched automatically once each weekday. The underlying series are mostly monthly, but the agencies publish on dates spread across the month, so a daily refetch gets new data live as soon as it exists.
- Sources
- FRED: UNRATE (Bureau of Labor Statistics), SAHMCURRENT (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis), T10Y2Y (Federal Reserve Board H.15), USREC (NBER reference dates).
- Disclaimer
- This is a personal project with no affiliation to FRED, the Federal Reserve, the NBER or any government agency. The page is a data monitoring tool and does not constitute investment advice.
02Three recession signals
0 currently fired
S1○ Clear
Sahm rule
The three-month moving average of the unemployment rate minus its lowest value over the previous twelve months; it triggers at 0.50 percentage points. The value shown is the official FRED series SAHMCURRENT.
Sahm value −0.07pp (2026-08, FRED SAHMCURRENT) · 3-month average 4.13% · lowest of previous 12 months 4.20%
S2○ Clear
Yield curve inversion
The 10-year Treasury yield sitting below the 2-year yield, i.e. a negative spread. Historically the gap from inversion to the start of a recession has run roughly 6 to 24 months, and it has varied widely.
10Y−2Y +0.20% (2026-09-21) · the latest daily reading is not an inversion
S3○ Clear
NBER recession
The recession months dated by the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee, published as the FRED series USREC; 1 means the month falls inside a recession. The call usually comes many months after the fact.
USREC = 0 (2026-08) · most recent recession 2020-03 to 2020-04
Each of the three signals is read on its own; this site does not combine them into a weighted score.
As of S1 2026-08-01 · S2 2026-09-21 · S3 2026-08-01
03Sahm rule
Trigger at 0.50 percentage points
The monthly unemployment rate, with a three-month moving average computed here from the same series (last 120 months). The moving average is only used to draw this chart; the Sahm value in the tiles and the table comes from the official FRED series.
Unemployment rate (UNRATE)Three-month moving average (computed here)
The official Sahm value (FRED series SAHMCURRENT), last 48 months, in percentage points. The shaded band spans ±0.50; a reading that reaches +0.50 fires the rule.
0410-year minus 2-year spread
Below zero is an inversion
The 10-year minus 2-year Treasury yield, taken on the last trading day of each month, last 360 months. Below the zero line is an inversion.
05NBER recession indicator
Shading marks NBER recessions
The unemployment rate (UNRATE), last 480 months. Shading marks the recession months dated by the NBER (USREC = 1).
Unemployment rate (UNRATE)Recession
06Monthly detail
Last 36 observations
| Month | Unemployment % | 3-month avg % | Sahm value pp | 10Y−2Y % | NBER |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-08 | 3.7 | 3.60 | +0.10 | −0.76 | 0 |
| 2023-09 | 3.7 | 3.63 | +0.13 | −0.44 | 0 |
| 2023-10 | 3.9 | 3.77 | +0.27 | −0.19 | 0 |
| 2023-11 | 3.7 | 3.77 | +0.27 | −0.36 | 0 |
| 2023-12 | 3.8 | 3.80 | +0.30 | −0.35 | 0 |
| 2024-01 | 3.7 | 3.73 | +0.23 | −0.28 | 0 |
| 2024-02 | 3.9 | 3.80 | +0.30 | −0.39 | 0 |
| 2024-03 | 3.9 | 3.83 | +0.33 | −0.39 | 0 |
| 2024-04 | 3.9 | 3.90 | +0.40 | −0.35 | 0 |
| 2024-05 | 3.9 | 3.90 | +0.40 | −0.38 | 0 |
| 2024-06 | 4.1 | 3.97 | +0.43 | −0.35 | 0 |
| 2024-07 | 4.2 | 4.07 | +0.50 | −0.20 | 0 |
| 2024-08 | 4.2 | 4.17 | +0.57 | 0.00 | 0 |
| 2024-09 | 4.1 | 4.17 | +0.53 | +0.15 | 0 |
| 2024-10 | 4.1 | 4.13 | +0.40 | +0.12 | 0 |
| 2024-11 | 4.2 | 4.13 | +0.40 | +0.05 | 0 |
| 2024-12 | 4.1 | 4.13 | +0.40 | +0.33 | 0 |
| 2025-01 | 4.0 | 4.10 | +0.37 | +0.36 | 0 |
| 2025-02 | 4.2 | 4.10 | +0.30 | +0.25 | 0 |
| 2025-03 | 4.2 | 4.13 | +0.30 | +0.34 | 0 |
| 2025-04 | 4.2 | 4.20 | +0.30 | +0.57 | 0 |
| 2025-05 | 4.3 | 4.23 | +0.33 | +0.52 | 0 |
| 2025-06 | 4.1 | 4.20 | +0.23 | +0.52 | 0 |
| 2025-07 | 4.3 | 4.23 | +0.17 | +0.43 | 0 |
| 2025-08 | 4.3 | 4.23 | +0.13 | +0.64 | 0 |
| 2025-09 | 4.4 | 4.33 | +0.23 | +0.56 | 0 |
| 2025-11 | 4.5 | — | +0.35 | +0.55 | 0 |
| 2025-12 | 4.4 | — | +0.35 | +0.71 | 0 |
| 2026-01 | 4.3 | 4.40 | +0.30 | +0.74 | 0 |
| 2026-02 | 4.4 | 4.37 | +0.27 | +0.59 | 0 |
| 2026-03 | 4.3 | 4.33 | +0.20 | +0.51 | 0 |
| 2026-04 | 4.3 | 4.33 | +0.13 | +0.52 | 0 |
| 2026-05 | 4.3 | 4.30 | +0.10 | +0.47 | 0 |
| 2026-06 | 4.2 | 4.27 | +0.07 | +0.30 | 0 |
| 2026-07 | 4.1 | 4.20 | −0.03 | +0.47 | 0 |
| 2026-08 | 4.1 | 4.13 | −0.07 | +0.41 | 0 |
The last 36 unemployment observations (a month the source did not publish gets no row, so the span covers more than 36 calendar months). The three-month average is computed here for context only; the Sahm value is the official FRED series SAHMCURRENT. Missing observations are left blank — never carried forward, never filled with zero. The table scrolls horizontally.
07Frequently asked questions
How each signal is defined, how late it arrives, and what this page deliberately does not do.
What is the Sahm rule, and how is it calculated?
- The Sahm rule is a real-time recession indicator proposed by the economist Claudia Sahm: take the three-month moving average of the unemployment rate and subtract the lowest value that same moving average reached over the previous twelve months. A gap of 0.50 percentage points counts as a trigger. It measures momentum in unemployment rather than its level, so it can fire while the unemployment rate is still low by historical standards. The Sahm value shown here is taken directly from the official FRED series SAHMCURRENT rather than recomputed, because the definition admits several reasonable readings at the edges and a locally derived number that disagreed with the FRED page would be impossible for a reader to check. A three-month average is also computed here from the unemployment rate, but only to draw the chart and to cross-check the pipeline; it never feeds the trigger.
What does a yield curve inversion mean, and how long is the lead time?
- When the 10-year Treasury yield falls below the 2-year yield the spread turns negative, which is what is meant by an inversion. It reflects how the bond market is pricing future short-term rates: investors expect the central bank to cut later, so long-dated yields are pushed below short-dated ones. An inversion has preceded most US recessions of recent decades, but it is not a timetable — historically the gap between the first inversion and the start of a recession has run roughly 6 to 24 months, has varied widely from episode to episode, and inversions have also occurred without a recession following close behind. This page shows the raw spread and its sign, and does not infer timing from it.
How does the NBER date a recession, and how far behind is the USREC series?
- Recession start and end dates in the United States are set by the Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research, which weighs the depth, diffusion and duration of a range of monthly measures of income, employment, production and sales — not the popular rule of two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. The committee waits until the data are stable enough, so a call typically arrives many months after the turning point and has sometimes taken more than a year. The FRED series USREC flattens that judgement into a monthly 0 or 1: it is 1 from the month after a business cycle peak through the month of the trough, and 0 otherwise. USREC is therefore an authoritative record of the past, not a live alarm.
Why is there no "recession probability: X%" on this page?
- Because no such number could be checked by the reader. Combining the three signals into a single percentage requires assigning a weight and a base rate to each one, and those coefficients have no published source and cannot be reproduced from anything on this page; change any of them and the headline figure changes while the reader sees none of it. The choice made here is to publish the raw reading and trigger state of each signal side by side and leave the weighing to the reader. Anyone who does want a probability model can use the yield-curve recession probability published by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which is public and comes with documented methodology.
How often is the data updated, and where does it come from?
- Automatically, once every weekday. All four underlying series come from FRED at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis: UNRATE (the unemployment rate, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics), SAHMCURRENT (the Sahm value, computed by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis), T10Y2Y (the 10-year minus 2-year spread, whose two legs come from the Federal Reserve Board H.15 release), and USREC (the NBER reference dates). The series are mostly monthly, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Federal Reserve and the NBER publish on dates spread across the month, so refetching daily gets new observations live as soon as they appear; a run that finds nothing new changes nothing. The full fetched dataset is published as JSON at /data/indicators.json.