macrotools 0.3.2

Employ America tools for pulling and graphing U.S. macroeconomic data.

MacroTools

A Python package for pulling, caching, and graphing U.S. macroeconomic data. Built at Employ America.

MacroTools makes it easy to download flat files from the BLS, BEA, and regional Federal Reserve surveys, and to produce publication-ready time series charts with a consistent visual style.

Installation

pip install macrotools

For FRED/ALFRED support:

pip install macrotools[fred]

Quick start

import macrotools as mt
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

# Pull household survey data (cached automatically for 7 days)
data = mt.pull_data('ln')

# Plot prime-age employment rate
fig = mt.tsgraph(
    series=data['LNS12300060'] / 100,
    xaxis={'lim': ('2019-01', '2025-06')},
    yaxis={'lim': (0.76, 0.82), 'ticksize': 0.01, 'tickformat': 'pctg', 'decimals': 0},
    title={'title': 'Prime-Age Employment Rate'},
)
plt.show()

Features

Data access

pull_data(source, freq, columns) downloads and caches full flat files from BLS and other sources. BLS sources support a freq parameter ('M', 'Q', 'A', 'S', or 'all' for unpivoted long-format data) and a columns parameter to select specific series.

# Pull monthly household survey data
data = mt.pull_data('ln')

# Pull only specific series
data = mt.pull_data('ln', columns=['LNS12000000', 'LNS14000000'])

# Pull quarterly data
data = mt.pull_data('ln', freq='Q')

# Pull raw long-format data with all frequencies
data = mt.pull_data('ln', freq='all')

pull_bls_series(series_list) extracts individual series by code, auto-detecting the frequency from the series IDs. Supports monthly, quarterly, annual, and semiannual series. All series must share the same frequency.

data = mt.pull_bls_series(['LNS12000000', 'CES0000000001'])

search_bls_series(source, query) fuzzy-searches BLS series catalogs to find series IDs.

mt.search_bls_series('ln', 'prime age employment')
mt.search_bls_series('cu', 'shelter', sa=True)  # seasonally adjusted only

get_series_list(source) returns the full series catalog for a BLS source as a DataFrame.

Supported sources:

Source	Description
ln	Household survey (CPS) labor force statistics
ce	Establishment survey (CES) statistics
ci	Employment Cost Index (ECI)
jt	Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS)
cu	CPI — All Urban Consumers
pc	PPI — Industry Data
wp	PPI — Commodity Data
ei	Import/Export Price Indices
cx	Consumer Expenditures
tu	Time Use Survey
la	Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS)
nipa-pce	NIPA Personal Consumption Expenditures
stclaims	State-level unemployment claims
ny-mfg, ny-svc	NY Fed Empire Manufacturing & Services
philly-mfg, philly-nonmfg	Philadelphia Fed surveys
richmond-mfg, richmond-nonmfg	Richmond Fed surveys
dallas-mfg, dallas-svc, dallas-retail	Dallas Fed surveys
kc-mfg, kc-svc	Kansas City Fed surveys

BLS sources require an email address. MacroTools will prompt you the first time and store it locally in ~/.macrodata_credentials/.

With the optional fredapi dependency, alfred_as_reported() pulls historical vintage data from ALFRED.

Graphing

tsgraph() wraps matplotlib with EA house styling (colors, fonts, layout). Pass data as a Series, DataFrame, or list of dicts. Formatting is controlled via separate xaxis, yaxis, title, legend, and footnote dicts — see help(mt.tsgraph) for the full list of options.

Features:

• Single and multi-series plots
• Dual y-axes (axis='right' on individual series)
• Customizable axis limits, tick formatting, labels, and legends
• Percentage and decimal tick formats
• Titles, subtitles, and footnotes
• NBER recession shading or custom shading regions
• Horizontal reference lines with callouts (hline)
• Data callouts on individual series (annotate specific points with values)
• Saving directly to file (save_path)

Time series utilities

• cagr(data, lag, ma) — Compounded annual growth rates with optional moving-average smoothing.
• rebase(data, baseperiod, basevalue) — Reindex series to a base period (single date or date range).

Cache management

Data is cached locally in ~/.macrodata_cache/ with a 7-day TTL. Use mt.clear_macrodata_cache() to clear all cached data, or mt.clear_macrodata_cache(source) to clear a specific source.

Credential setup

BLS email: Required for BLS flat-file data pulls. Set once with mt.store_credential('email', '[e-mail]'), pass email= to pull_data(), or set the MACROTOOLS_EMAIL environment variable.

BLS API key: Required for pull_bls_series(source='api'). Register at BLS, then mt.store_credential('bls_api_key', 'your-key') or set the BLS_API_KEY environment variable.

FRED API key: Required for alfred_as_reported(). Register at FRED, then mt.store_credential('fred_api_key', 'your-key') or set the FRED_API_KEY environment variable.

Credentials are resolved in order: function argument > stored file > environment variable > interactive prompt. Credentials are stored as plain text in ~/.macrodata_credentials/credentials.json. For sensitive keys, prefer environment variables instead of storing to disk.

Examples

See the example notebook for detailed usage with output.

License

MIT