The Federal Reserve's Beige Book dropped Wednesday, providing anecdotes and insight from the Fed's 12 districts on the state of the US economy.
While it may initially come across as a dry report, there are usually some bizarre tidbits from the member districts on how their local economies are doing.
We collected 7 of the most interesting details from today's dump to show you just how odd, and fascinating, the Beige Book can be.
- Hamilton is getting people to Broadway: "Broadway theaters, on the other hand, have seen some pickup since the beginning of the year; although the January 23rd blizzard closed theaters on a usually busy day, both attendance and revenues bounced back quickly and have been running ahead of 2015 levels since."
- Maine has a hotel boom: "Around Maine, a small boom in hotel-building is reported, a state office building project is in the works, and construction is steady for multifamily and light industrial structures."
- Airbnb may be winning in NYC: "Although tourism activity in the New York District was stable since the last reporting period, occupancy rates at New York City hotels remained below year-ago levels."
- Minnesota turkey farmers are making a killing: "Minneapolis reported weaker farm incomes and lower prices for all commodities except turkeys."
- And Minnesotans are spending more on coffee: "A coffee store chain in Minnesota reported that stores saw a 9 percent jump in sales from a year ago, even though in-store traffic softened after the holidays; consumers spent an additional 50 cents per order on average over this time last year."
- Texas soil is in good shape: "Soil moisture conditions remained healthy, with only 2 percent of Texas considered abnormally dry in February, compared with 56 percent last year in some level of drought."
- Online grocery sales are gobbling up market share in San Francisco: "In the retail grocery sector, competition from online entrants and expanded product offerings at large chain pharmacies held down sales and profits somewhat for traditional retailers."