EJ Antoni writes:
Today’s employment data showed further gains in earnings, but cumulative price increases have still far outpaced earnings growth over the last 4 years.
According to the Household Budget Index, it’s even worse when just considering prices for things you have to buy, i.e., food, housing, etc.
Reader Michael writes:
…high income wage growth has grown much faster than medium and low income wage growth patterns.
A comparison between CPI, chained CPI, PCE price index, and HICP deflation:
Charles Payne joins the recession camp.
Reader Moonmac argues the case that we are in a recession, in a rejoinder my paper “Recession since 2022? A Critique“:
McService Job Nation disagrees even though they’re employed. Gainfully is a different matter.
ADP surprised on the upside (143K vs 124K consensus):
Wisconsin GDP grew at 4.2% SAAR in Q2. The 2023Q4 figure was raised 2.7% by the annual update (the corresponding figure for US GDP was 1.2%).
With latest available data:
In the past few years, a persistently low level of consumer sentiment, as measured by the University of Michigan, Conference Board, or Gallup surveys, relative to conventional economic measures has puzzled analysts, including this one [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]. This puzzle is illustrated by the evolution of the U. Michigan series (FRED series UMCSENT), and the fitted values using 2011M01-2024M08 data on unemployment and year-on-year inflation.
On the rise: