The best CPAs I know guide their clients through the economic uncertainty and challenges they face. Decisions on hiring, investments and spending are made based on where the economy is headed. Anyone running a business welcomes thoughts and advice from their financial experts to help figure out their plans.

I’ve been doing this more frequently with my clients, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

I cover the economy for a few major media outlets, so that helps. When I’m looking at economic data, I admit that I’m not a big fan of government-issued numbers, mainly because I question some of the methodology used. Case in point: the Department of Labor dramatically revised its employment numbers both in 2024 and 2025, and often revises GDP long after its initial results were covered in the news. What economic metrics do I use? Here are a few key data points that help me help my clients—and can help you and your clients too.

Inflation: Producer Price Index

This is the one government-produced metric that I watch. The reason is that its data points are made up of actual price points for thousands of actual products being sold and not surveys or opinions. I also like it because it's a leading indicator of inflation because the price increases that businesses are experiencing this month will likely be reflected in their end-user prices two to three months later.

Although the PPI declined in June, it’s still tracking annually at about 5.5 percent, which means future consumer price inflation will remain elevated. California doesn’t separately track producer prices, but the state’s Department of Finance does publish a consumer price index that could be helpful.

Jobs: Paychex and ADP

As mentioned above, I'm not a fan of labor data from the federal government. Rather than surveys, I prefer to look at actual job numbers and what better place than the country's two largest providers of payroll services, ADP and Paychex? Both firms report jobs and wages, all based on the actual payroll for their millions of customers. They also report by region and state, so you can get a job picture in California.

On June 30, Paychex reported broad job gains and an increase in hourly wages. For the same month, ADP said wages rose annually at 4.4 percent (well above consumer inflation) and 98,000 jobs were added.

Construction: AIA Billings

The construction industry has struggled over the past few years and would have much bigger problems if not for the data center boom. Every month the American Institute of Architects collects billing data from its members—those firms that are involved in both residential and commercial construction projects at the very beginning. It's a great leading indicator.

Unfortunately, the indicator itself isn't great. In June, the AIA reported billings “weakened further,” and this was already on top of three years of weak billings. This is not a strong forward sign for the construction industry.

Manufacturing and Services: ISM PMI

The Institute for Supply Management is essentially an association of purchasing managers from various industries. Each month, it collects data from its members and then parses it between manufacturing and service to create a purchasing management index for each sector. It's closely watched by many analysts and is a great, real-life metric of where the money is going. To really get the value, you need to track it historically.

The good news is that the service industry continues to expand, as it has for the past 24 months. The better news is that for the first extended period in a long time, the U.S. manufacturing base is also back to growth and has expanded over the past six consecutive months.

Sentiment: NFIB Small Business Optimism

I get many small business surveys sent to me, and I find most of them to be biased, poorly constructed and mostly unreliable. The National Federation of Independent Businesses has been doing its surveys for more than 50 years, using the same methodology and approach. Their data collection isn't perfect. But it is a long-time barometer that gauges the sentiment of small-business owners and, given that small businesses provide half of the jobs and generate half of the country’s GDP, when they're feeling bullish, that's an overall good sign for the country.

According to its most recent report, small-business optimism is down from a year ago, but still near historical averages. It’s not great, but it’s not bad either. The NFIB also reports on economic trends in California.

Capital: JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Capital One

We live in a capitalistic society, so the state of our capital has a major impact on the state of our economy. For me, the best place to gauge the strength of our country's capital is to listen to the people who control our capital: banks. For this, I look at the most recent earnings releases of our largest banks: JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Capital One. While the CEOs of these financial institutions have their concerns (as always), they’re all reporting, as of mid-July, strong balance sheets and earnings.

For example, in its earnings release JPMorgan's CEO Jamie Dimon said his bank had an “exceptionally strong quarter,” where “credit remained manageable.” He further noted that the bank’s credit card charge-off rate was a decent 3.34 percent, and management lowered its full-year expectation to approximately 3.2 percent, “reflecting better-than-expected consumer-credit performance.”

The CEOs of Wells Fargo and Capital One effectively said the same. I’m not seeing significant red flags concerning capital availability.

Retail Sales: Walmart, Amazon Home Depot

In the end, our economy is all about the consumer. Every one of your clients is making products that will ultimately end up in their hands in some shape or form. When consumers spend, the economy grows. I ignore the surveys of sentiment and “retail sales” sent to me by organizations pushing their message and instead look at the people who have the real numbers. That would be the CEOs of our biggest retailers: Walmart, Amazon and Home Depot.

Like the banking industry’s CEOs, they're always cautious to be over-optimistic and have similar concerns about economic uncertainty. But across the board, they’ve reported increasing sales and profits.

For example, Walmart’s CEO John Furner in May said the company “delivered a strong sales quarter” and that “revenue, customer traffic and faster-growing businesses such as advertising, membership and e-commerce performed well.” Amazon also reported a strong retail sales quarter. Despite softness in the construction and home building industry, Home Depot said its revenue exceeded expectations and returned to growth, helped by an acquisition and modest positive comparable sales.

Those are just a few of the key metrics I follow. You should be doing the same and using these numbers to help your clients make both short- and long-term decisions. Of course, these metrics don’t account for any big problems lurking on the sidelines: an AI bubble, a crypto collapse, a stock market contraction, an energy crisis or the impact of military conflicts. Still, taken together, they form a good basis to help clients form their strategies.