Preventing Presidential autocracy: thoughts on reining in Executive power Matt Yglesias posted a jarring tweet this past week when he wrote: He elaborated by linking to a long-form article he wrote four years ago, explaining his position, where in relevant part, he wrote: America’s constitutional democracy is going to collapse. Some day … there is going to be a […]
Leading scenes from the February jobs report Let me catch up with some details from last Friday’s employment report. As a preliminary matter, the overwhelming take was that the poor +20,000 gain was “nothing to see here, just an outlier.” The problem with that take is that, for all of 2018, the average monthly gain […]
Real wage growth continued to improve in February Now that we have February’s CPI (up +0.2%), let’s update nominal and real wage growth. First, here is a graph of nominal wage growth YoY vs. consumer inflation YoY since the beginning of this expansion almost 10 years ago: First of all, why do I bother […]
Negative Nov. and Dec. revisions overwhelm positive January retail sales The initial spin on this morning’s delayed retail sales report for January has been positive, with for example the Wall Street Journal calling it a “rebound” and “a sign of solid economic momentum in the first quarter. Ummmmm, No. Both nominally and in real terms, retails sales […]
A modest proposal to use FICA-style tax withholding as a transition to “Medicare for All” Probably the foremost reform advanced by the Democratic Party at present is “Medicare for All.” Personally I don’t particularly care whether it is ultimately necessary to have single payer (like Canada) or universal coverage (like France or Germany) or a […]
February jobs report: the first sign of the economic slowdown spreading to jobs? HEADLINES: +20,000 jobs added U3 unemployment rate -0.2% from 4.0% to 3.8% U6 underemployment rate -0.8% from 8.1% to 7.3% (NEW 20 YEAR LOW) Here are the headlines on wages and the broader measures of underemployment: Wages and participation rates Not in […]
This Friday, watch out for an outright decline in temporary employment Almost a month ago I flagged the decelerating staffing index, and showed how it corresponded with the leading sector of temporary jobs in the monthly jobs report: the Staffing Index isn’t seasonally adjusted, [so] you really have to compare each on a YoY basis. And […]
Two more leading sectors to watch for in tomorrow’s jobs report Yesterday I updated my look at temporary jobs, a known leading indicator for jobs overall. Today I want to look at two more leading sectors: manufacturing and construction. Unlike temporary jobs, I’m not looking for a possible decline. Rather, I am looking for a […]
Residential construction declines in December, but looks to be bottoming Residential construction spending lags sales, permits, and starts. But it still leads the economy overall, and it is a much smoother data series, with little noise. It is almost all signal, and so it is an important confirmation of the more leading data. In December, […]
December housing permits and starts mixed, support slowdown scenario This morning we finally got December housing permits and starts. Remember that starts are more volatile than permits, and single family permits are the least volatile of all. Here’s what the overall data looks like: While starts and completions laid an egg, permits actually went up […]