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The goal of the County Economic Performance Index (CEPI) is to identify regions whose local economies may be more adversely affected during medium- to long-term disruptions with near real-time data.

What is the County Economic Performance Index (CEPI)?
Disruptive events often result in significant changes in employment, personal income, industry output, and other measures of economic well-being and activity. Depending on the nature of the disruption, economic consequences can be relatively short-lived or they can linger for months or years. Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne) developed the CEPI (originally named the County Economic Impact Index, or CEII), to track monthly economic activity levels in local economies across the United States following national-level disruptive events (namely, the COVID-19 pandemic). As such, it also provides insight into economic activity and recovery over time. A CEPI value of 1 indicates that a county’s economy is in the same position as it was in the selected base period, while scores below 1 indicate that economic activity has declined and scores greater than 1 indicate that economic activity has since grown.

What Does the CEPI Measure?
The CEPI estimates changes in overall county-level economic activity relative to a defined base period. It shows which counties may be more susceptible to large reductions or gains in economic activity compared to normal conditions by looking at which industries make up each county’s economy and then tracking monthly changes in industry employment at the national level. Economic activity in the CEPI is measured by the total value added of all industries within the county, also referred to as the county’s Gross Regional Product (GRP). Accordingly, the CEPI data also includes annualized monthly estimates of county-level value added for more than 100 industries. Counties with economic activities dominated by industries experiencing rising unemployment can expect larger direct impacts to their local economies, particularly if the industries account for a large portion of the economic output of that county. Results are updated monthly and available for all U.S. counties, as well as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico municipios, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Why Is the CEPI Important?
The CEPI provides the ability to monitor trends over time of the economic health of counties in the United States. One way to measure overall economic activity in a region is through its gross regional product (GRP), or the monetary value of all final goods and services produced in a regional economy in a given year. GRP can also be thought of as the total sum of the value added by each industry in an economy. Higher GRP values are associated with more economic activity in a region, while lower values are associated with less economic activity. For this reason, GRP (and Gross Domestic Product, or GDP) is often used as an assessment of a regional economy’s overall size and health. While not a perfect indicator of overall economic wellbeing, increasing GRP over time generally implies an economy is experiencing more economic activity (i.e. more production of final goods and services, higher levels of personal expenditure and investment, higher wages and profits, government purchases, etc.). Decreases in GRP may imply that an economy is experiencing higher levels of unemployment, lower wages, lower profits, and overall less production and spending in the economy. As such, CEPI values lower than 1 imply that more people are unemployed (due to fewer jobs) and businesses are producing and earning less than they were prior to a given base period.

How Can I Use the CEPI?
You can use the CEPI to check on the current or trending economic activity in your local area. The CEPI also provides insight into economic activity within individual industries. The CEPI data can be accessed within the National Economic Resilience Data Explorer at this link.

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Argonne National Laboratory’s work is supported by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency, via interagency agreement through U.S. Department of Energy contract DE-AC02-06CH11357. FEMA does not endorse any nongovernment entities, organizations, or services.