Scenes from the September jobs report On Friday I highlighted the difference between the results of the establishment survey and the household survey. A 2006 paper from the BLS (pdf) explaining the differences in how jobs are counted in the two surveys shows us why: Interviewers from the Census Bureau contact households and ask questions […]
September jobs report: establishment survey stinks, but household survey rocks! HEADLINES: -33,000 jobs lost U3 unemployment rate down -0.2% from 4.4% to 4.2% (new low) U6 underemployment rate down -0.3% from 8.6% to 8.3% (new low) Here are the headlines on wages and the chronic heightened underemployment: Wages and participation rates Not in Labor Force, […]
A thought for Sunday: of basic decency and humanity, and how the economy is shoring up the GOP A few threads of the Trump malAdministration came together this past week. The latest attempt to overturn Obamacare confronted Trump with a choice between his two main goals: basking in a Trump triumph vs. erasing all of […]
Ex-hurricane trend in September industrial production is positive As I outlined earlier this week, a reasonable temporary workaround for industrial production unaffected by the recent hurricanes is to average the 4 regional Fed surveys, minus Dallas, plus the Chicago PMI. Over the long run, each +5 in the average of the indexes is consistent with […]
Wow! Yellin confirms 2% inflation is the Fed’s ceiling You may have already seen this elsewhere, but in case you didn’t, Janet Yellin all but officially confirmed the other day that 2% isn’t in fact the Fed’s target, it’s their ceiling. Per the New York Times: Given that monetary policy affects economic activity and inflation […]
A hurricane workaround for industrial production Last week I mentioned that the regional Fed surveys plus the Chicago PMI can be used as a workaround to account for the effects of hurricanes on Industrial Production. It isn’t pretty and by no means is it perfect, but for the (hopefully only) two or three months that […]
A thought for Sunday: the most important issue in the 2016 election was . . . This is a post I’ve been meaning to write for several months. For a while after the election last year, there was a debate about whether the “economic anxiety” in the (white) working class was the most important factor […]
The asterisk in real median household income This is a follow-up to the post I wrote last week about the latest data on real median household income. One of the things I notes is that “households” includes the millions that are composed of retirees, a burgeoning demographic due both to healthier longevities and the demographics […]
Hurricane workarounds for industrial production and housing Hurricane Harvey has already affected some of the August data releases. Irma has already started to affect some weekly releases, and will undoubtedly affect the September monthly releases. I have already begun to adjust for the hurricanes in the case of initial jobless claims. But what of the […]
2.5 cheers for 2016’s new high in real median household income! Given that I consider jobs and wages for average Americans my #1 focus, it’s only fair that I write about this week’s release of the real median household income for 2016, don’t you think? A few years ago I wrote that real median household […]