The BugOut Index is 57.11, unchanged from 57.11 on 2026-09-12.
No core raw value changed: inflation stayed at 3.353016322755652 (observed 2026-08-01); crime stayed at 2,723 (file vintage, value month September 2024; file through December 2024; file updated 2025-02-19); unemployment stayed at 4.1 (observed 2026-08-01); debt-to-GDP stayed at 122.59387 (observed 2026-01-01); homelessness stayed at 0.23 (manual, last set 2024 HUD AHAR); trust in government stayed at 41 (annual, 2025).
Initial jobless claims changed from 206,000 to 196,000 (change of -10,000; observed 2026-09-12), the Treasury yield spread changed from 0.33 to 0.25 (change of -0.08; observed 2026-09-18), and VIX changed from 17.84 to 15.44 (change of -2.4; observed 2026-09-17).
Unchanged pulse series: U. Michigan consumer sentiment stayed at 55.2 (observed 2026-07-01); OECD business confidence stayed at 98.96989 (observed 2024-01-01, stale, unchanged across recorded weeks).
Gold changed from 4,349.7002 to 4,379 (change of +29.2998), silver changed from 64.622 to 66.377 (change of +1.755), and the US dollar index changed from 118.0732 to 118.2126 (change of +0.1394); markets fetched 2026-09-19.
Markets and the short-term pulse are not inputs to the BugOut Index score.
Headline labor numbers move after release. See how much the last 24 months of payrolls have been revised on the data revisions tracker.
The BugOut Index is not a forecast or a prediction. It is a transparent, versioned composite score designed to surface slow-moving shifts in stability that individuals and communities can reason about. All inputs come from public sources; see methodology for the full calculation, weights, and normalization ranges. Historical scores can be recalculated at any time from the raw data in this repository.
For the long-horizon structural picture — whether the country is currently set up to produce broadly-shared prosperity and mobility over years and decades — see the American Dream Reality Index (ADRI). ADRI updates annually and weights toward education, health, real income, employment, inequality, and civic and safety fundamentals. The BugOut Index and ADRI are complementary rather than substitutable: BOI moves on short-horizon rupture signals; ADRI moves on slow structural conditions. When BOI spikes, ADRI usually drops as well, but each can move for reasons the other doesn't catch.