Two economic notes on the shutdown
Two economic notes on the shutdown
The government shutdown is the economic equivalent of sustaining -800,000, or -0.5%, layoffs. The last time we saw that was in the Panic of 2008.
So needless to say, it is very surprising that last week saw fewer official layoffs than at any time since November 1969. On a population-weighted basis, this is an all-time low. This entire behavior of first time jobless claims during this expansion speaks to employers only having hired new workers when there is compelling need. [Note that government workers are merely being “furloughed,” not laid off, so they are not showing up in these statistics.]
While this is undoubtedly good news, one of the two private sources of weekly consumer spending I follow reported only a +0.7% YoY increase in sales last week. Outside of the 2015-16 “shallow industrial recession,” this is the lowest for either of these series during the entire expansion.
I have a more detailed post about consumer spending pending at Seeking Alpha. Once it goes up, I’ll give you a link to hit here.
Boy, you guys still don’t get the Boomer demographic do you? Total per person to population is pretty much back to early 70’s values. That means layoffs will decline as well. This is why anything over 5% is recession and 4-5% is the middling between. The Boomers are gone, so are their cohort driven rises that started in earnest in the mid-70’s(though you can see it a bit before that as well).
Take jobless claims. Add 100,000 claims per week and you get where it was in 1999. If claims are at 213,000 then in 1999 it would have been around 313,000. That means if claims rise to 250,000, the economy is on the edge or recession. If they rise to 300,000, you are in a recession.
Sorry Bert Boomers are not gone. PR for Boomers are still in the 40 percentile according to BLS. I pointed this out to NDD one time before.
Bert Schlitz bleats: “The Boomers are gone . . .”
LOL! You don’t know anything about the Boomer generation, do you?
I was born in 1955, the mathematical middle of the boomer cohort. I’m not eligible for Medicare for another 13 months. I’m not eligible for “full” social security benefits for more than two years.
Boomers remain a major demographic fact in the economy of the US.
Please don’t post again on this topic until you learn some facts.