There seems to be some confusion about the impact of Census employment of temporary and intermittent employment for the 2020 Census. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has a table showing the monthly  employment for Special Census workers. You can find it at: BLS – Special Census Workers The table also has the data from the […]

“Cigna gets major boost from Express Scripts in Q2,” Robert King, FierceHealthcare, August 1, 2019 And some claim PBMs do not matter in the cost of healthcare? Cigna healthcare insurance generated ~ $38 billion in revenue the second quarter 2019 and a major increase due mostly to a merger with pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) Express […]

(Dan here….some sharp humor for Sunday) I made something in honor of #sharpiegate. Enjoy. pic.twitter.com/vTm6KPaFAt — Sam Spiegel, Ph.D. 🪧 (@UNSEATpac) September 5, 2019

Trump: When Reality TV Becomes Reality The New York Times has an excellent dissection today of the Trump presidency as a reality TV show that has managed to set up shop at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, written by its chief TV critic, James Poniewozik.  His op-ed digs down into the props and story line of “The Apprentice” and […]

For seven years from 2012 to 2018 the monthly payroll employment showed a solid trend of around 200,000 gains each and every month.  If it was much above or below this trend, analysts found some excuse to explain the difference and expected the off-trend observation to be quickly reversed.  So far this year most analysts […]

by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for September 2 – 6 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. The nowcast and the long term forecast have been pretty stable, but the short term forecast has been volatile recently – and the monthly series (slightly negative) vs. the weekly data (more positive) […]

Is Doing Environmental Economics Especially Depressing? We have now learned that on Aug. 27 last week Matin Weitzman hanged himself, leaving a note citing his failure to share in last year’s Nobel Prize as well as his apparently declining mental acuity.  That prize he did not share included William Nordhaus as a recipient for his […]

August jobs report: for once, the underwhelming headline masked very good internals HEADLINES: +130,000 jobs added (+105,000 ex-Census) U3 unemployment rate unchanged at 3.7% U6 underemployment rate rose 0.2% to 7.2% Leading employment indicators of a slowdown or recession   I am highlighting these because many leading indicators overall strongly suggest that an employment slowdown […]

by Joseph Joyce Is Inflation a Global Phenomenon? The persistence of inflation at relatively low rates despite years of monetary stimulus has led to wide-ranging investigations into its determinants. Traditionally the rate of inflation has been linked via a Phillips curve relationship to domestic factors, such as slack in the labor market. But is there […]