macrotools 0.2.0

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(
    data['LNS12300060'] / 100,
    format_info={
        'title': 'Prime-Age Employment Rate',
        'xlim': ('2019-01', '2025-06'),
        'ylim': (0.76, 0.82),
        'yticksize': 0.01,
        'ydecimals': 0,
        'ytickformat': 'pctg',
    }
)
plt.show()

Features

Data access

pull_data(source) downloads and caches full flat files. pull_bls_series() extracts individual series by code.

Supported sources:

Source	Description
ln	Household survey (CPS) labor force statistics
ce	Establishment survey (CES) statistics
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
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). It supports:

• Single and multi-series plots
• Dual y-axes
• Customizable axis limits, tick formatting, labels, and legends
• Percentage and decimal tick formats
• Subtitles, shading, and reference lines
• Saving directly to PNG

Pass data as a Series, DataFrame, or dict of series. Formatting is controlled via the format_info dict — see help(mt.tsgraph) for the full list of options.

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).

Credential setup

BLS email: Required for BLS data. Set once with mt.store_email('[e-mail]') or pass email= to pull_data().

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

Credentials are stored in ~/.macrodata_credentials/credentials.json. Cached data lives in ~/.macrodata_cache/ with a 7-day TTL.

Examples

See the example notebook for detailed usage with output.

License

MIT