February JOLTS report showed a pandemic still in control Yesterday morning’s JOLTS report for February showed that the pandemic was still in control of the numbers.This report has only a 20 year history, and so includes only two prior recoveries. In those recoveries: first, layoffs declined second, hiring rose third, job openings rose and voluntary quits increased, […]
Coronavirus dashboard for April 5: the problematic cases of Chile . . . and Michigan As you probably already know, the news on the vaccination front continues to be good, as the US is now administering on average over 3 million doses a day – and still climbing. At this rate of improvement, every adult […]
I bookmarked a prediction about the coronavirus by supply-sider Scott Grannis one year ago … As I mention from time to time, I read a number of economic observers with whose opinions I usually strongly disagree, partly because it is good to consider other points of view, and partly because some compile excellent and interesting […]
American plutocracy in two simple graphs; plus, when will wage growth bottom? The JOLTS report for February comes out later this morning; I may post on it later or tomorrow. In the meantime, here are updates on several graphs I used to run during the last expansion in order to examine how shared out (or […]
Blockbuster March jobs report, but still a long way to go –HEADLINES: +916,000 million jobs added. The alternate, and more volatile measure in the household report indicated a gain of 609,000 jobs, which factors into the unemployment and underemployment rates below. U3 unemployment rate declined 0.2% to 6.0%, compared with the January 2020 low of […]
New jobless claims rise slightly, expect a big payrolls gain tomorrow New jobless claims are likely to the most important weekly economic data for the next 3 to 6 months. They are going to tell us whether, as the number of those vaccinated continues to increase, there will be a veritable surge in renewed commercial […]
This may be the most important housing chart of springtime 2021 My longform housing market analysis is almost complete, and will probably get posted later today or tomorrow at Seeking Alpha. I’ll post a link here once that is done. In the meantime, consider the following. The Case Shiller national house price index had another […]
Coronavirus dashboard for March 28: good news … < sigh > … and bad news According to the CDC, there have been 30.3 Million *confirmed* cases of COVID-19 in the US, and 550,000 deaths.The true number of actual infections is probably much higher. On the good news front, the CDC says that 36.2% of the […]
– by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. For the first time since I started tracking this data, literally every single one of the coincident indicators is positive. We are starting to experience a boom in economic growth that I expect to continue throughout most if not all of this […]
February personal income and spending decline: the back end of January stimulus payments Last month I wrote that the: “report on January personal income and spending shows just how important the stimulus packages enacted by the federal government both last spring and last month have been to sustaining the economy.” The truth of that was […]