wages

Macro: Employment Cost Index

By |2023-10-31T10:24:06-04:00October 31st, 2023|Economy|

Just confirming, wage growth is running around 4.5%. This is still elevated relative to history and not consistent with an inflation target of 2%. But the growth is coming down. Government wages actually had an uptick in the 3rd qtr. I would not expect that to continue.   Disclaimer: This information is presented for informational purposes only and does not [...]

Macro: Personal Income and Outlays

By |2023-10-28T18:45:57-04:00October 28th, 2023|Economy|

The growth rate of income and consumption are at healthy levels. But there are some aspects of the growth I'd like to point out. Though we have healthy rates of growth, the concern is that both incomes and consumption are slowing. I know we had excess savings from government transfers to the private sector. But we also had excess spending [...]

May Payrolls (and more) Confirm Slowdown (and more)

By |2022-06-03T17:59:03-04:00June 3rd, 2022|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

May 2022’s payroll estimates weren’t quite the level of downshift President Phillips had warned about, though that’s increasingly likely just a matter of time. In fact, despite the headline Establishment Survey monthly change being slightly better than expected, it and even more so the other employment data all still show an unmistakable slowdown in the labor market. What’s left open [...]

Neither Confusing Nor Surprising: Q1’s Worst Productivity Ever, April Decline In Employed

By |2022-05-09T20:01:38-04:00May 9th, 2022|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Maybe last Friday’s pretty awful payroll report shouldn’t have been surprising; though, to be fair, just calling it awful will be surprising to most people. Confusion surrounds the figures for good reason, though there truly is no reason for the misunderstanding itself. Apart from Economists and “central bankers” who’d rather everyone look elsewhere for the real problem. The Establishment Survey [...]

Far From Stellar, Employment Likely Went Negative In April

By |2022-05-06T18:04:27-04:00May 6th, 2022|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

It appears as if most reactions to today’s April 2022 payroll were quite positive, maybe enthusiastic when they should not have been. Though the Establishment Survey - the CES headline number most people pay attention to - gained 428,000 over March’s tally, it was the “other” one which crashed down like last week’s negative GDP thud.From the CES view, you [...]

For The Fed, None Of These Details Will Matter

By |2022-03-04T18:20:16-05:00March 4th, 2022|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Most people have the impression that these various payroll and employment reports just go into the raw data and count up the number of payrolls and how many Americans are employed. Perhaps the BLS taps the IRS database as fellow feds, or ADP as a private company in the same data business of employment just tallies how many payrolls it [...]

Before Nodding Along w/FOMC’s Hawks On Inflation, First Grab Yourself A Beveridge

By |2022-01-05T17:38:23-05:00January 5th, 2022|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

The Beveridge Curve was a useful guide for checking the intuitive relationship between the economic demand for labor and the actual use of it. Downward sloping, what it implies is that as more companies demand more labor the less unemployment there should be. No duh, right?Because of this fundamental relationship, we might also use the Beveridge Curve in order to [...]

As The Fed Tapers: What If More Rapid (published) Wage Increases Are Actually Evidence of *Deflationary* Conditions?

By |2022-01-03T20:16:51-05:00January 3rd, 2022|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Since the Federal Reserve is not in the money business, their recent hawkish shift toward an increasingly anti-inflationary stance is a twisted and convoluted case of subjective interpretation. Inflation is money and if the Fed was a central bank the issue of consumer prices wouldn’t necessarily be simple, it would, however, be much simpler: is there or isn’t there too [...]

An Eye On GDI May Tell Us Why

By |2021-08-26T19:46:12-04:00August 26th, 2021|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

The second estimate for second quarter 2021 GDP didn’t change much, or anything. However, coincident with this “expenditure side” data release the BEA also completed its full preliminary assessments of the “income side.” GDI, in other words.What’s interesting on this other side of the output ledger is something called Net Operating Surplus (NOS). And it is NOS which frustratingly takes [...]

No Inflation In These Payrolls

By |2021-07-02T17:18:26-04:00July 2nd, 2021|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Payrolls for the month of June were a mixed bag, in that the payroll data was better than expected at the same time nothing else was. After a couple months of ho-hum gains for the Establishment Survey, government hiring (mostly) boosted the latest monthly figure to +853,000. This brings the 6-month average up to +543,000, which is either really good [...]

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