Except for the drop in the workweek and aggregrate hours worked the February employment report was almost a duplicate of the January employment report. In both January and February the payroll survey reported a slight drop in employment and the household survey showed a modest increase in employment. Essentially both reports are showing changes so […]
The CPI report was encouraging. The total CPI rose 0.2% and the year over year increase is only 2.6%. Although real averge hourly earnings fell, real weekly earnings were unchanged. The core CPI actually fell for the first time since 1982, bring the year over year change in the core CPI to 1.6%. The 6 […]
January industrial production rose 0.9%, with the gains with gains across almost all components. Industrial production has now risen for seven months and is 5.5% above its bottom. This implies that so far industrial production has been rising at a 9.4% annual rate. Compared to previous industrial production recoveries this appears to be about a […]
Discussion point: Is it time for the Fed to start contracting its’ balance sheet and otherwise withdrawing the special financing it provided while it was faced with the zero interest rate boundand preparing to soon raise fed funds. My fed policy index says the zero bound should no longer apply and that it is time […]
With the unemployment rate falling from 10.0 to 9.7 the employment report implies that the economy is in a transition phase.The period of widespread layoff and job cuts is over. So if you still have a job the odds ofyour losing it have roughly returned to normal. This change is reflected in the improvement inpersonal […]
By Spencer The BLS just wished the Obama administration a very merry Christmas with a very encouraging employment report. It was still a report that things are worsening at a lesser rate as far as employment was concerned, but other employment reports were positive. The unemployment rate fell to 10.0% as payroll employment was essentially […]
By Spencer With Christmas season upon us and a great deal of attention being focused on the retailers reports of same store sales I thought it would be a good time to report on one of my pet peeves. I see people time and time again taking the retailers same store sales data and deflating […]
By Spencer The weekly initial unemployment claims are widely reported and various charts show how they have been falling since the peak. But it is hard to compare the drop in claims this cycle compared to after other severe recessions in the standard charts showing claims over time. So to make such comparisons easier I […]
By Spencer Industrial production only increased 0.1% in October, from a previosly estimated 98.5 to 98.6.But I suspect this number was biased downward and will be revised higher. As the chart shows, this changes the impression the previous reports had given that this was a normal to strong recovery in industrial output to one that […]
Good night Chesty, wherever you are.