If you are so interested, lots of economic data is available from the federal government on-line. Two items of interest to me are unemployment data and GDP changes. Those are fairly major pieces of the economic picture.
Unemployment data: Alternative measures of labor utilization – table A-15 from the Bureau of Labor Statistics
Of particular interest are U-3 and U-6. The most quoted information is the U-3 measure, which is a calculation of unemployed people as percent of the civilian labor force. This is the official number you hear about. The broader data is the U-6 measure. That is based on the total number unemployed plus people only able to work part-time, plus people who want to work but have dropped out of the market. Or at least that is my casual interpretation of the data.
Changes in GDP: Percent change from preceding period in real Gross Domestic Product – table 1.1.1 from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
There are several frequently requested tables from the BEA.
http://www.bea.gov/national/nipaweb/SelectTable.asp?Popular=Y