Catching up: November JOLTS report Let me catch up on some data I didn’t examine last week: the November JOLTS report. It decomposes the jobs numbers into a number of metrics, but is less than 20 years old, so only covers one full business cycle, so is of limited forecasting use. To reiterate, here is […]
For MLK Day: unemployment by race In observance of Martin Luther King’s birthday, almost all US markets are closed and there is no economic data. So on this day let’s see the extent to which economic opportunity in several neutral metrics has improved since the passage of the Civil Rights Acts in the 1960s. Here […]
Housing BOOM! 2 Housing is a very important long leading indicator, and it reflects both the consumer and producer sides of the economy. And this morning, at least in terms of starts, it hit a grand slam. Total housing starts were 1.608 million units annualized, the highest number since the end of 2006. The less […]
Real wages declined slightly in Q4 2019; nearly flat since last January In December consumer inflation was +0.2%. Since in last Friday’s jobs report average hourly earnings also increased +0.1%, real average hourly earnings declined slightly: In a longer term perspective, this means that real wages also declined from 97.8% to 97.5% of their all […]
Scenes from the December jobs report: leading jobs sectors and wages Let’s take a more detailed look at last Friday’s December jobs report. First, as usual for the past few months, let’s look at the more leading jobs sectors. This month, let’s also take a more detailed look at wage growth and why it may […]
Scenes from the December jobs report: leading jobs sectors and wages Let’s take a more detailed look at last Friday’s December jobs report. First, as usual for the past few months, let’s look at the more leading jobs sectors. This month, let’s also take a more detailed look at wage growth and why it may […]
Live-blogging the Fifteenth Amendment: January 7 and 11, 1869 January 7: Remarks by Rep. Benjamin M. Boyer, Democrat from Pennsylvania: Mr. Chairman, the issues supposed to have been settled by the election of General Grant to the Presidency formed the subject of an elaborate speech by the honorable gentleman from Maine [Mr. Blaine] a few […]
The 2020 Electoral College playing field expands for Democrats Polling firm Morning Consult has an interactive graph measuring Trump approval by State for each month since January 2016. You can visit it here. The map has some interesting insights for the 2020 Presidential election race. In the first place, while it would be too cumbersome to […]
January’s reports start out with a decidedly mixed picture for 2020 We have our first bits of forward-looking data for the year: November residential construction, December ISM manufacturing, and December light vehicle sales. They paint a decidedly mixed picture. Let’s take a look in order. Residential construction spending improved by a strong 1.9% in November. […]
Republics and the war-making power In view of the militry carrying out Trump’s order to kill an Iranian general, I thought I would weigh in on the issue of the war-making power historically by republics. I don’t have much to add to the substance of the immediate debate. Killing an Iranian general was certainly an […]