R-Word Index
Tracks how much of global news coverage mentions the word “recession”
Source: GDELT DOC 2.0 · Last updated 2026-08-010.302%
of all coverage51
percentile-0.24
standard deviations+0.102
percentage pointsRecession mentions
Daily, as a share of all monitored coverageR-word index explained
What is the R-word index?
The R-word index gauges the mood around the economy by counting how often the word “recession” appears in news coverage. It became known through The Economist, which tallied the word's appearances in major American newspapers, and the R is simply the first letter of recession. It started from the observation that the press and the market begin using the word well before any statistical agency dates a downturn. What sets it apart from other indicators is that it measures a change in how the economy is talked about rather than economic activity itself.
How are the numbers here produced?
This page takes a daily reading from GDELT's public data on what share of all monitored coverage mentions “recession”. Using a share rather than an article count matters because total news output varies a great deal over time; on raw counts a busy news day would look like a day of heightened recession worry. The count covers English-language coverage. Korean outlets write 경기침체 for the same idea, so counting the English word does not capture them. The percentile and standard-deviation figures alongside show where the current reading sits within the last 24 months.
What to keep in mind
More mentions do not mean the economy is deteriorating. What this measures is the volume of worried coverage, not the economy, and it has spiked sharply in periods where no downturn followed. A single political event or one remark can lift the share within a day, so the direction over several weeks reads better than any single value. The mix of outlets GDELT collects also shifts over time, which weakens continuity, so avoid comparing absolute levels at two widely separated dates.