Real median household income rose 1.8% in 2017; poeverty rate declined The Census Bureau reported Sept. 12 that *real* median household earnings rose 1.8% in 2017. Here’s their presentation graph: This is another score by Sentier Research, whose monthly estimates have accurately forecast the Census Bureau’s (very tardy) annual reports and showed, on an annualized basis, […]
Scenes from the August jobs report 1. The strong trend of people entering the jobs market and getting jobs remains intact Here’s a nice graph put together by Kevin Drum at Mother Jones showing both a linear and curvilinear trend line (which are nearly identical) (red) with the prime age employment to population ratio (blue): […]
Next Friday could be a very bad day somewhere along the East Coast I think I may have mentioned once or twice that I am a nerd, right? So, last year during hurricane season I got hooked on a site called Tropical Tidbits. The neat thing about this site — well, from a nerdy point of […]
Brad DeLong hops aboard the “Employers have a Taboo against raising Wages” bandwagon For Labor Day Prof. Brad DeLong posted a talk on the implications (or not) of the US being near “full employment.” The arguments on a few of the pages will be familiar to readers of this blog:
(Dan here…better late than not) by New Deal democrat A thought for Labor Day, 2018 US voters will continue to vote for alternating partisan “waves” in Congress, and for “outsiders” however chancey for President, until the problem depicted in the below graph is solved:
Trump’s base: not the white working class, but white evangelicals — all men and lesser-educated women — who believe the ends justify the means Via Digby: __________________ 1. Trump has always been unpopular with college-educated voters [A] Pew Research assessment … [using a] validated voter survey (they matched voter file with the survey respondents) showed white women narrowly preferring […]
Comments on personal consumption expenditures: the September anomaly and the Fed’s 2% inflation ceiliing Let me make a few comments on yesterday’s (Aug. 30) report on personal income and spending. Well, actually, just the spending part for now. First, there is a long-time relationship going back 60 years in the data whereby the YoY% growth […]
Corporate profits after taxes set a new record. But the Fed is worried about wages Yesterday (Aug. 29) in the Q2 GDP update corporate profits were reported for the first time. Since corporate profits are one of four long leading indicators identified by Prof. Geoffrey Moore, I have updated my look at them at Seeking Alpha. […]
House prices continue to rise, exacerbating unaffordability Now that we have both the Case Shiller and FHFA house price reports for June, let’s take a look at how they fit in to the overall market, and in particular on housing affordability. To begin with, let me repeat the general formula for the housing market: interest […]
What the compressed yield curve means for employment Aside from the threat of a recession down the road, is there cause for concern by economic Progressives in the fact that the yield curve has tightened (i.e., the difference in interest rates between long and short term bonds has become very small)? In a word, Yes. […]