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U.S. Economy

Real-Time Population Survey

NOTE: The Dallas Fed’s final RPS release was published June 18, 2021.

The Real-Time Population Survey (RPS) was an online survey of adults that are representative of the U.S. population along several key characteristics. The central goal of the RPS was to document labor market trends in real time and at a higher frequency than official statistics.

RPS Authors

The RPS was developed by Alexander Bick, an associate professor at WP Carey School of Business at Arizona State University; Adam Blandin, an assistant professor in the Department of Economics at Virginia Commonwealth University; in collaboration with Karel Mertens, a senior economic policy advisor in the Research Department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.