COVID-19 and Recovery: Estimates From Payment Card Transactions

BEA has been researching the use of card transaction data as an early barometer of spending in the United States. Since the emergence of COVID-19, dramatic and fast-moving changes to the U.S. economy have increased the public and policymakers' need for more frequent and timely economic data. In response, BEA is presenting these estimates using daily payment card data to measure the effects of the pandemic on spending, updated approximately every two weeks. Note that these payment card transactions are not necessarily representative of total spending in an industry and the data have other limitations, described below. The estimates in these charts and tables are not a substitute for BEA's monthly and quarterly official data, which are grounded in well-tested and proven methodologies. An event study methodology is used to estimate the difference (in percentage points) in spending from the typical level (relative to the day of week, month, and annual trends) prior to the pandemic declared by the World Health Organization on March 11, 2020.