Facts with context.
The sources, definitions and reporting periods behind the chart.
Explore the dashboard ↗Common questions
What is RealPulse?
RealPulse is a free dashboard of 17 national indicators. It brings prices, employment, income, output, safety, border encounters, stock-market performance and military recruiting into one timeline, with histories from 2000 where sources are available.
How are presidents compared?
Comparisons align the elapsed time since each January 20 inauguration. Monthly and annual data use equivalent reference periods; daily and weekly data use the last observation at or before the matched day, within seven days. Completed annual and quarterly periods are matched to the corresponding calendar period. Each row shows its actual observation date. Missing matches stay missing.
Does a favorable check mean a president caused the result?
No. A check identifies the favorable measured value for that indicator, using the dashboard’s stated comparison rules. It is not evidence of presidential causation, statistical significance, or an overall score for a presidency.
Why are the latest dates different?
Sources release observations on different schedules. RealPulse checks sources daily, but a check date is not the date of the period measured. Delayed releases, revisions and unavailable feeds are identified; failed feeds retain their last validated history. Annual murder estimates and archived monthly reports have separate reporting and review rules.
Are all readings monthly snapshots?
No. Prices and rates use dated readings. Overdose deaths cover the preceding 12 months. Border history uses rolling-year totals and presidential comparisons use matched calendar-year-to-date totals. Recruiting is cumulative since October against the target through the same fiscal-year month; September is the final fiscal-year result. Stock-market comparisons use gains from each term’s starting baseline. Household income is annual; real GDP per person is quarterly and annualized.
Which deaths are shown per capita?
The dashboard defaults to deaths per 100,000 residents. Annual murder rates use FBI published national rates. Overdose rates divide the rolling 12-month total by the Census monthly resident population for the ending month; these are crude rates, not age-adjusted rates. Archived monthly murder reports remain counts with reporting coverage, because a matching population denominator is not included.
The 17 indicators
Each indicator retains its source’s dates and available history. Missing observations are not invented or interpolated.
- Gasoline
- Eggs
- Ground beef
- Milk
- 30-year mortgage
- Unemployment
- Murders
- Border encounters
- Overdose deaths
- U.S. stock market (VTI)
- Inflation
- Real wages
- Rent inflation
- Military recruiting
- Real household income
- Real GDP per person
- Working-age adults employed
Gasoline
Latest stored observation: 4.2 $/gallon ·
- U.S. city average retail price of regular unleaded gasoline.
- Monthly BLS observations; not a daily pump-price feed.
Eggs
Latest stored observation: 2.27 $/dozen ·
- Grade A large eggs, U.S. city average.
- Nominal retail prices; not seasonally adjusted.
Ground beef
Latest stored observation: 6.92 $/pound ·
- 100% ground beef, U.S. city average.
- Nominal retail prices; not seasonally adjusted.
Milk
Latest stored observation: 4.23 $/gallon ·
- Whole fortified milk, U.S. city average.
- Nominal retail prices; not seasonally adjusted.
30-year mortgage
Latest stored observation: 7.28 % ·
- Freddie Mac national 30-year fixed mortgage rate (PMMS).
- Weekly observations retained.
- Survey methodology changed November 17, 2022.
- Source observations are unchanged; relative chart changes are calculated by RealPulse. © Freddie Mac; retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
- PMMS archive information-use notice permits use with proper attribution.
Unemployment
Latest stored observation: 4.2 % ·
- National U-3 unemployment rate; seasonally adjusted.
- Percentage-point changes are often more informative than relative percentage changes.
Murders
Latest stored observation: 14,085 murders/year ·
- Annual estimated murder and nonnegligent manslaughter.
- Annual values plotted at year end; no monthly interpolation.
- 2000–2005 from 2019 Table 1; 2006 onward from 2025 CIUS Table 1, except 2021.
- The 2021 national modeled estimate is from FBI/BJS NIBRS Estimation Program, Homicide Victimization in the United States, 2023, appendix table 2 (revised August 19, 2025).
- It adjusts for missing agencies and reports and has wider uncertainty: 23,060 ±6,972 murders, or 6.9 ±2.10 per 100,000 (95% confidence).
- Differences across this method change compare published point estimates; they do not establish statistical significance or presidential causation.
Monthly reporting alternative
- Monthly reported homicide offenses from participating agencies (SRS + summarized NIBRS), not complete national estimates.
- Population reporting coverage varies by month and is shown in the tooltip.
- Reporting changes, especially the 2021 NIBRS transition and incomplete recent months, affect comparisons.
- Downloaded October 4, 2026; FBI data as of September 15, 2026.
- Monthly coverage through June 2026.
- Annual estimates are available in the Murder data menu.
Border encounters
Latest stored observation: 8,870 encounters/month ·
- Southwest land border, U.S. Border Patrol only (between ports of entry).
- Events, not unique people; excludes undetected crossings and OFO encounters at ports.
- Title 8 apprehensions before March 2020; Title 8 plus Title 42 expulsions after.
- Definition break marked in chart.
Overdose deaths
Latest stored observation: 66,937 deaths / 12 months ·
- Provisional predicted deaths (reported deaths if prediction absent), national, all drugs, rolling 12-month ending total.
- Not deaths in one month.
- Begins January 2015; delayed and revised.
U.S. stock market (VTI)
Latest stored observation: 184.38 total-return index · Oct 2023 = 100 ·
- Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI) total-return performance, covering large, mid-sized and small U.S. companies.
- Historical dividend- and split-adjusted weekly period-end levels from Returnsview cover June 2001 through October 6, 2023.
- RealPulse normalizes those observed levels to 100 on October 6, 2023, then compounds TickerInside weekly total returns (CC BY 4.0) from the same anchor.
- This is approximate investment performance including dividends, not a share price.
- Weekly dates label Friday-ending periods, including holiday-shortened weeks.
- Returnsview omits ISO week 53; those observations remain missing, rather than compounding an incomplete return grid.
- No historical values after the shared anchor are imported from Returnsview.
- Recent weekly returns are rounded to four decimals; only completed Friday-ending releases are imported and saved history accumulates.
- VTI launched in 2001, so no VTI values exist for 2000.
- Sources are attributed separately; index calculation by RealPulse.
Inflation
Latest stored observation: 3.35 % YoY ·
- Derived: 100 × (seasonally adjusted all-items CPI / same month one year earlier − 1).
- This is an inflation rate, not the price level.
Real wages
Latest stored observation: 11.3 1982–84 $/hour ·
- Derived: private-sector all-employee average hourly earnings / CPI-U × 100.
- Both inputs seasonally adjusted.
- Series begins March 2006; averages can change with workforce composition.
Rent inflation
Latest stored observation: 2.75 % YoY ·
- Derived year-over-year change in BLS rent-of-primary-residence CPI, seasonally adjusted.
- Measures occupied rental housing, not new-listing rents.
Military recruiting
Latest stored observation: 102.09 % of year-to-date target ·
- Every point is cumulative: active-duty enlisted recruits since October divided by the combined target through that same month.
- 100% means on plan through the reported month, not that the full annual recruiting target has been completed.
- The September observation is the final fiscal-year result; October begins a new year.
- Annual targets reflect planned force size and expected departures and can change.
- Recruits and planned totals appear together; this does not measure readiness, patriotism or presidential causation.
- Includes Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Space Force when reported (FY2022 onward); excludes reserves, officers and Coast Guard.
- Verified monthly history starts October 2015; unavailable or mislinked reports remain gaps.
- Dates identify the reported month, not publication day.
Update status: Last verified history retained while the source is unavailable or requires review.
Department of Defense / Department of War, Military Personnel Policy ↗Real household income
Latest stored observation: 87,460 inflation-adjusted $/household/year ·
- Median annual household money income before taxes, adjusted for inflation to a common purchasing-power basis in the latest Census release.
- Includes income beyond wages; not take-home pay, an average, or income adjusted for household size.
- Annual reference years are shown at December 31 as separate points, without monthly interpolation.
- Updates annually, usually the following September; all years are refreshed together when the purchasing-power basis or estimates are revised.
- Census survey and questionnaire changes can affect comparability; see the source historical table footnotes.
Real GDP per person
Latest stored observation: 71,212 inflation-adjusted $/person/year ·
- Real gross domestic product divided by population: inflation-adjusted economic output per person, expressed at a seasonally adjusted annual rate.
- This is output, not personal income or a quarterly growth percentage.
- Reference quarters are plotted at their completed quarter-end dates.
- No monthly interpolation or forecasts.
- Revisions replace the full history consistently.
- Term changes use the last observed completed quarter before inauguration; Q1 contains the transition between administrations.
Working-age adults employed
Latest stored observation: 80.7 % of adults ages 25–54 ·
- Employed civilian noninstitutional adults ages 25–54 divided by all civilian noninstitutional adults of that age, seasonally adjusted.
- Includes people outside the labor force in the denominator, unlike unemployment.
- Counts people rather than payroll jobs; does not measure hours worked, job quality or pay.
- Ages 25–54 reduce the effect of population aging and retirement.
- Differences between observations are percentage points, never cumulative totals.
- Population control revisions can affect comparisons.
Attribution & reuse
- Data access is free; provider attribution and reuse terms still apply.
- RealPulse does not claim a single blanket license for every source.
- VTI history combines Returnsview adjusted levels through October 6, 2023 with TickerInside weekly total returns under CC BY 4.0; the normalized performance index is a RealPulse calculation.
- Government sources do not endorse RealPulse.
Returnsview VTI data · Returnsview terms · TickerInside · CC BY 4.0
Presidential dates: U.S. House of Representatives.