August JOLTS report conforms to prior early recession recovery pattern Yesterday’s JOLTS report for August showed a jobs market that is still just beginning to mend. Hires were up, and layoffs and discharges were down, which is good, but job openings and voluntary quits both declined. We are far enough along past the worst […]
Jobless claims: yet another week of glacial progress Today marked yet another week of glacial progress in initial jobless claims, at levels worse than the worst weekly levels of the Great Recession. On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, new jobless claims rose by 5,312 to 804,307. After seasonal adjustment (which is far less important than […]
In 2020, the “Blue Wall” is holding At 10 a.m. Eastern time we’ll get the JOLTS report for August. I plan on posting on that later today, but in the meantime here’s an update on the Midwest “Blue Wall” that failed in the 2016 election. Below are the smoothed poll results for Michigan, Minnesota, […]
2020 Presidential and Senate polling nowcast through October 3: a partial rebound for Biden Here is my weekly update on the 2020 elections, based on State rather than national polling in the past 30 days, since that directly reflects what is likely to happen in the Electoral College. Remember that polls are really only nowcasts, […]
September jobs report: a drastic slowdown in improvement, but further demonstrating an economy that *wants* to get better HEADLINES: 661,000 million jobs gained. The gains since May total a little over half of the 22.1 million job losses in March and April. The alternate, and more volatile measure in the household report was 275,000 jobs […]
Happy Every Economic Statistic in the World Day! 4. Manufacturing continued to expand strongly in September This morning’s final economic report is the ISM manufacturing index for September. This is a short leading indicator, and the new orders subindex specifically is one of the 10 components of the Index of Leading Indicators. A neutral reading […]
Happy Every Economic Statistic in the World Day! 3. Private residential construction spending improves smartly This morning’s third economic release is August construction spending. I track this because it is part of the important long leading housing sector. While it isn’t nearly as leading as housing permits or starts, it is the least volatile […]
Happy Every Economic Statistic in the World Day! 1. Jobless claims continue making glacial progress 1. Jobless claims Another week of glacial progress in initial jobless claims, at levels worse than the worst weekly levels of the Great Recession. On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, new jobless claims fell by -40,263 to 786,942. After seasonal […]
Coronavirus dashboard for September 30: a portrait of dismal societal failure I hear the WWE staged a helluva mud wrestling cage match last night! Since we won’t get any economic news until Every Statistic In The World is released tomorrow, in other, more uplifting news, let’s take the most updated look at coronavirus infections in […]
Monday political potpourri for a slow-starting Economic news week It’s a very slow most-of-the-week for economic data. Except for house prices, nothing much gets reported until Thursday, when a slew of data (personal income, spending, ISM manufacturing, construction, and jobless claims) all gets reported at once. And then Friday is the last jobs report before […]