Slowly but surely, U.S. manufacturing is recovering from the pandemic-related slowdown.
Each month, the Federal Reserve measures manufacturing output as a percentage of real output in a base year, currently 2012. The index for October was 99.9. In other words, U.S. manufacturers produced about 0.1 percent less in October 2020 than they did in October 2012. In comparison, the index was 87 in May. In short, we’ve made up a lot of ground in just five months.