– by New Deal democrat We are in the part of the year when, post-Covid, likely residual seasonality has resulted in a declining trend in new jobless claims.  Not this year. On a week over week basis, initial jobless claims did decline -33,000 from last week’s outlier 264,000 to 231,000, and the four week averaged declined […]

– by New Deal democrat A puzzling relationship this year has been that the housing data has been classically recessionary for a number of months, and yet the economy has not rolled over. And this morning’s dismal report on housing construction was even more recessionary.  Let’s start with the most dismal number of all: permits […]

– by New Deal democrat So much is imported that industrial production is much less central to the US economic picture than it was before the “China shock,” but it remains an important if diminished economic indicator. It has been trending generally sideways this year, and that trend continued in August. Headline industrial production (blue in […]

– by New Deal democrat Retail sales is the first of two very important indicators we got this morning. Per yesterday, with employment growth “dead in the water” since April, consumer spending – which leads future employment – is the single most crucial element of a turning point.   It really is incredible how it takes a […]

tomorrow we will find out about production and sales  – by New Deal democrat With no news today, let’s take a look at why two releases tomorrow are especially important. Let me begin with employment, which is “dead in the water.”  I’ve written before about how manufacturing and construction employment, and now the entire leading sector […]

– by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. While job growth has almost completely stalled, and inflation shows signs of picking up, both consumer spending and the stock market continue to plow forward at full speed. It’s an odd situation that may be powered almost exclusively by people at the top […]

– by New Deal democrat The QCEW for Q1 of this year will be released at 10 AM Eastern time this morning. It should also finalize the numbers for last year. Why is that important? Because it will also set the preliminary benchmark revisions for the monthly jobs numbers last year and into this year. […]

– by New Deal democrat Now that we have the consumer inflation number for August, let’s take a look at real wages and income for ordinary workers. In the jobs report last Friday, we learned that both average hourly earnings and aggregate payrolls for nonsupervisory workers increased 0.4% in August. Yesterday we learned that consumer inflation […]

– by New Deal democrat The Fed is really facing a no-win situation. Between the recent employment reports, the QCEW, and even this morning’s jobless claims report, the jobs market has clearly been weakening, and may be on the very cusp of contraction, implicating the Fed’s dual mandate to strive for full employment. But this morning’s […]

– by New Deal democrat I’ll post about the CPI later this morning. But unusually, the biggest news of the morning was initial jobless claims, which spiked to 263,000, an increase of 27,000 from the previous week. The four week moving average increased 9,750 to 240,500. Meanwhile, with the typical one week delay, continuing claims were […]