What it measures
The Reshoring Index reads three concrete dimensions of whether US manufacturing is actually coming back: total US manufacturing employment (BLS MANEMP), the Transportation Services Index for freight (BTS TSIFRGHT), and the US dollar trade-weighted index inverted (a weaker dollar makes US-made goods more competitive globally). When all three are rising, reshoring is real. When manufacturing jobs are flat while the narrative claims a renaissance, the index tells you the data does not yet support the story.
Why these three
Manufacturing employment is the bedrock — if reshoring is real, you see it in the BLS payrolls report. Anyone can promise factories; only jobs being filled is proof. Freight is the second-order test — reshored production means more goods physically moving on US trucks and rail. The Transportation Services Index captures this in one number. Dollar competitiveness is the enabling condition — a strong dollar punishes exporters; a weak dollar does the opposite. Reshoring needs the dollar to cooperate.
What it does not say
The index does not capture announcements, groundbreakings, or capex commitments — only realized activity. Manufacturing employment has been roughly 12.7M since 2018; a sustained move above 13M would be the first real proof of the new narrative. Tariffs alone do not move this number on a year horizon.
What a high reading means
Above 75 (mania band): manufacturing jobs accelerating, freight expanding, dollar weakening — the reshoring story is finally working in the data. Below 25 (calm band): the narrative is outrunning the data; capital flowing into reshoring themes is paying a premium for a thesis that has not yet earned out.
Revision — 25 September 2026
The freight component, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics Freight Transportation Services Index, had only been stored from October 2023. The index is built on a 20-year baseline, so it was comparing freight against two and a half years instead. The dollar and manufacturing employment components had the same gap until 21–24 September. Each component's history back to 2000 is now stored, all three are scored against the full 20-year window, and every reading since June 2026 was recomputed, so the chart has no break. Freight shipments looked weak against 2023–2026 (2.2 standard deviations below average) but sit above their 20-year average (0.9 above). Recent freight values were also updated to FRED's revised figures. The index read 31 before this revision and 55 after.