Another strong month for real retail sales growth; to cope, employers are going to have to sweeten the pot to add employees Real retail sales, perhaps my favorite monthly economic indicator since they tell us so much about average consumer behavior, and are also a good short leading indicator for jobs, were reported this morning […]
Jobless claims: a renewed downward trend? Jobless claims declined 36,000 this week to 293,000, another pandemic low. The 4 week average also declined 10,500 to 334,500, also another pandemic low: With the exception of the last few years of the last expansion, this level of weekly initial claims would be very low for any point […]
The same as the American Rescue Plan Act and the Improving Medicare Coverage Act, no one is talking of the detail within the Build Back Better Agenda bill. This makes it very vulnerable to pseudo Senators like Krysten Sinema and Joe Manchin who are holding out for what ever reasons or just for spite. It […]
Continuing accelerated consumer inflation points to sharp slowdown, but no recession imminent Inflation, along with the expiration of the emergency pandemic payments, is one of the two big threats to this expansion. This morning’s report on consumer inflation for September, at 0.4%, was certainly elevated compared with its typical pre-pandemic reading of 0.2%/month, but on […]
August JOLTS report: progress towards a new jobs equilibrium? This morning’s JOLTS report covers August, which you may recall featured a disappointing jobs report (since revised somewhat higher ), during which the Delta wave was growing to its worst levels, and two months after a number of GOP-controlled States terminated enhanced unemployment benefits, on the […]
Bad Reporting On Latest Sveriges Riksbank Prize In Memory Of Nobel So the recipients are half of it to David Card for his 1994 study with the late Alan Krueger, who committed suicide not too long ago, on minimum wages, and how raising them might actually sometimes increase employment. The other half was split between […]
by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for October 3 – 7 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. Although I have read a few pieces this past week about deep downgrades to Q3 GDP estimates, and other problems with sales, the fact remains that the high-frequency indicators are almost all positive, […]
Blogger RJS, Marketwatch 666, September jobs report September Summary Major agency reports released this past week included the the Employment Situation Summary for September from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the August report on our International Trade from the Commerce Dept, and the Full Report on Manufacturers’ Shipments, Inventories and Orders for August, and the August report on Wholesale Trade, Sales […]
The Passing Of Peter Flaschel And The Bielefeld School Of Macroeconomics German economist Peter Flaschel died yesterday at age 78. I am not sure precisely of what, although it was not Covid-19. He had been in declining health for some years, with a heart problem at least. Roberto Veneziani, from whom I learned the news, […]
September jobs report: once again, two very different surveys net to a “relatively” disappointing gain As I previously indicated, two items I was particularly watching for in this morning’s report (Oct. 7) were (1) manufacturing hours and payrolls – to see if that white-hot sector was holding up in the face of supply bottlenecks, and […]