Forces of Production is a monthly newsletter tracking the US economy through government data on production, employment, prices, and trade.
Each month we compile the latest economic releases—Producer Price Index, Employment Situation reports, Consumer Price Index, trade statistics, Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization, manufacturers’ surveys, and other indicators—into clear analysis of the material economy. Which industries are expanding or contracting? How is production capacity shifting? What do price movements in specific sectors reveal about supply-side dynamics?
Over time, these monthly readings will hopefully stack up into something more useful: a documented account of economic change, a record you can look back through to understand how we got here and what direction things are moving.
Publishing schedule: Second Monday of each month, covering data released over the previous month, starting in February 2026.
Approach
We break the economy down by sector and industry rather than just watching the topline numbers. We track the intricate ways that the circular flow of the economy directs goods and services between sectors, not just how things might look to final consumers. We build each month’s analysis on the month that came before, to help our readers track how things have developed, rather than drowning them in isolated data points.
To understand the economy well enough to plan an effective supply-side policy, the first step is to map the path of supply, not just demand. We look at production—the material side of the economy—not just financial flows. Without directly engaging questions of production, supply-side policy proposals are often little more than hopes and dreams about how business makes decisions.
Forces of Production is not the financial press, it is not an instantaneous data reaction, it is not a forum for endless mathematical abstractions that never seem to touch the real economy, and it is not the kind of thing you should use to place bets on Polymarket. Our goal is to tell an ongoing story about the evolving economy that will be useful for people who need to understand and change our economic reality without wading through finance-speak or formal academic models. Written for organizers, policy people, researchers, or anyone trying to get a grip on what’s actually going on.
About Common Wealth
Forces of Production is published by Common Wealth, a think tank working on the economic forms required to complete the climate transition while building towards a decommodified future.
We believe that massive economic transformations— to remove carbon from our production processes at civilizational scale, to make sure housing, healthcare and the rest of life’s essentials are available to all—require planning and coordination. Coordination begins with a shared understanding of what the economy has been doing and what it could do. Forces of Production plans to build that common reference point.
Learn more at common-wealth.org
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