The consumer is and has been the driver of the U.S. economy for decades. What they do in an economy like ours is paramount. Their economic health is critical. How we determine their health is through the job report, consumer sentiment reports, and many other statistics released every month. However, what is most important? I […]
September CPI and PPI showed inflation well contained with CPI (Consumer Price Index) coming in at .2% as expected. Down from .4% the month before. The PPI (Producer Price Index) came in at .4% twice the expected amount and up from .3% the month before. Being in a recession, as the U.S. economy currently finds […]
This week jobless claims fell again but from 849,000 to 840,000, still a slowing recovery. There has been a steady and sometimes dramatic fall in the number of people filing for benefits since the economy started to re-open. Now, however, the improvement in the numbers has slowed significantly. The previous stimulus package went a long […]
There are two parts of the ISM (Institute of Supply Management) report usually released a day or two apart. There is a report on the manufacturing sector in our economy and one in the services sector. Our economy is dominated by services so this sector is more impactful. For September, the number was 57.8% from […]
With COVID still spreading across the U.S. hindering many efforts to reopen the economy the September job numbers are still very important. You can see that they are improving but that improvement is slowing. Nonfarm payrolls rose by 661,000, and while that number is good, the expectation was for 800,000, and the month before it […]
Now the hard work begins, the weekly jobless claims that have been falling for weeks settled down to 870,000 last week from 866,000. The expectation was for a drop to 850,000. Anywhere in the range of these numbers should be considered poor. The goal is to get them back below 300,000, pre-COVID/full employment days. To […]
The Chicago Fed’s National Activity Index is a monthly report that is not commonly known. For August it came in at .79 from a revised July report of 2.54. The index’s three-month average fell to 3.05 from 4.23 in July. This index tries to track the national economy. A reading of zero says that it […]
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) relaxed coronavirus screening guidelines for international travelers entering the U.S. this week. However, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has stated it will take three years for world airline travel to return to pre-COVID levels. In 2019 airlines in the U.S. make $17 billion dollars and this […]
For August retail rose again, .6%, and if you remove the volatile auto sector it was up .7%. This makes for several months in a row where consumers opened their wallets. This has driven the economy up from a very low level despite continued COVID rolling shutdowns, and partial opening. The consumer in the U.S. […]
This morning the August official jobs report was released. There were 1.37 million jobs produced, down from last month’s 1.73 million. It was expected to fall as workers return and states continue the process of reopening. The unemployment rate fell more than expected to 8.4% from 10.2%. The surprise was that the average hourly earnings […]