<p>The Fed’s liabilities (technically broader than the true monetary base but arguably more relevant depending on your definition of “money printing”) are released weekly in their <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h41/current/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">H.4.1 release</a>. They appear in Table 4. Right now they are about 6.3 trillion dollars, up almost 2.4 trillion from a year ago.</p>

<p>They’re “validated” in the sense that the Fed has internal controls, external third-party auditors, and is subject to regular Congressional oversight. </p>

<p>Yes, you can find a <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WLTLECL" rel="nofollow noreferrer">time series</a> from the St. Louis Fed’s FRED service. </p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-04-23T18:31:14.077Z
The earliest release I found in their H.4.1 was on [1996 June 27](https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h41/), whereas the earliest data on the St. Louis Fed's FRED service was in the end of 2002. Is it possible to get a complete history, or at least from [1913 Dec 23](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve)?
Student
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-04-23T18:32:01.003Z
I was not aware of several possible definitions of "printing money". Are there other ways to measure how much they print?
Student
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-04-23T18:48:08.220Z
Brian’s reference to the H.3 covers the formal definition of “base money”
dismalscience
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-04-23T18:51:48.087Z
@Student I don’t know about 1913, but you can get closer using a recently discontinued series: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/AMBSL
dismalscience
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-04-23T18:55:29.560Z
I should probably note that I’m pretty sure that the discontinuation has everything to do with the fact that seasonal adjustments to the monetary base don’t make a lot of sense now but they made a huge amount of sense back when agriculture was a large part of our economy and as a result there were massive swings in bank deposits over the course of the year.
dismalscience
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-06-18T00:03:43.170Z
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=rLYw suggests (after adjusting for a millions/billion difference, the two series AMBSL and BOGMBASE had been similar since about 1990 to November 2019 though perhaps less so in the 1960s; if you switched from one to the other in say 1991, you may be able to get from 1921 to now
Henry
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-04-23T16:19:55.110Z
2020-04-23T16:19:55.110Z
dismalscience
<p>The Federal Reserve is the bank of banks in the US. While it cannot force banks to change their rates in order to monitor the economy, it has several other ways to influence. One way it by printing money.</p>

<p>Please forgive my questions, whose answers seem easy to be found online. It's a hot topic, so it's very hard to get <strong>validated</strong> information.</p>

<p><strong>Questions:</strong></p>

<ol>
<li>Is the amount of money printed open knowledge?</li>
<li>Where to get a history profile of how much money has been printed by the Fed?</li>
<li>How validated is the info you provide, and in what sense?</li>
</ol>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-04-23T16:08:54.770Z
Can you define “printed”? Are you just asking what the size of the monetary base is?
dismalscience
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-04-23T16:19:17.357Z
https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h3/current/default.htm
Brian Romanchuk
<federal-reserve><quantitative-easing>
How much money has the Fed printed?
Student
# How much money has the Fed printed?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2020-04-23)

The Federal Reserve is the bank of banks in the US. While it cannot force banks to change their rates in order to monitor the economy, it has several other ways to influence. One way it by printing money.

Please forgive my questions, whose answers seem easy to be found online. It's a hot topic, so it's very hard to get **validated** information.

**Questions:**

1. Is the amount of money printed open knowledge?
2. Where to get a history profile of how much money has been printed by the Fed?
3. How validated is the info you provide, and in what sense?

**Tags:** federal-reserve, quantitative-easing

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Can you define “printed”? Are you just asking what the size of the monetary base is?  
> **username_2**: https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h3/current/default.htm  

---

## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2020-04-23. Score: 2

The Fed’s liabilities (technically broader than the true monetary base but arguably more relevant depending on your definition of “money printing”) are released weekly in their [H.4.1 release](https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h41/current/). They appear in Table 4. Right now they are about 6.3 trillion dollars, up almost 2.4 trillion from a year ago.

They’re “validated” in the sense that the Fed has internal controls, external third-party auditors, and is subject to regular Congressional oversight.

Yes, you can find a [time series](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WLTLECL) from the St. Louis Fed’s FRED service.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: The earliest release I found in their H.4.1 was on [1996 June 27](https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h41/), whereas the earliest data on the St. Louis Fed's FRED service was in the end of 2002. Is it possible to get a complete history, or at least from [1913 Dec 23](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve)?  
> **username_0**: I was not aware of several possible definitions of "printing money". Are there other ways to measure how much they print?  
> **username_1**: Brian’s reference to the H.3 covers the formal definition of “base money”  
> **username_1**: @username_0 I don’t know about 1913, but you can get closer using a recently discontinued series: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/AMBSL  
> **username_1**: I should probably note that I’m pretty sure that the discontinuation has everything to do with the fact that seasonal adjustments to the monetary base don’t make a lot of sense now but they made a huge amount of sense back when agriculture was a large part of our economy and as a result there were massive swings in bank deposits over the course of the year.  
> **username_3**: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=rLYw suggests (after adjusting for a millions/billion difference, the two series AMBSL and BOGMBASE had been similar since about 1990 to November 2019 though perhaps less so in the 1960s; if you switched from one to the other in say 1991, you may be able to get from 1921 to now  

---

