Industrial production at consensus, while manufacturing production and retail sales above. For conjunctural analysis, industrial production is what NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee pays more attention to.
Was Q2 Employment Growth a Lot Slower than CES Estimate?
Maybe. From Englander/Hewin at Standard Charter (gated):
“We had to destroy the village in order to save it.”
I’m reminded of that statement (perhaps apocryphal) when I think of Senator Johnson’s views on Social Security. From WPR:
January Inflation
Year-on-year headline and core inflation both down, but both slightly above consensus (with headline at 6.4% vs. 6.2% Bloomberg consensus). (Month-on-month both at consensus, given rounding). Other measures provide ambiguous signals.
The Wisconsin Economic Outlook and the Impact of Recent Policies
Last Thursday, I talked on WPR’s Central Time about the national economy and Wisconsin’s outlook given President Biden’s policies. I noted that the macro outlook had improved substantially since last December, as the economy proved more resilient than expected, and inflation decelerated more than anticipated. That was true nationally, as well as locally.
Econbrowser has moved to a new server
This weekend we moved the hosting for Econbrowser to a new server. This should not affect how anyone accesses or experiences the content of the site. The one consequence is that comments that were entered Saturday night or Sunday morning would have been lost. If this is the case for you, please re-enter your comment now. If you experience any other problems, please let us know.
Forecasters Up Projections of GDP, Employment
The Survey of Professional Forecasters February survey was released on Friday. The median outlook has improved considerably since early January.
Sentiment and Misery (and Maybe Partisanship)
The University of Michigan’s February consumer sentiment index (preliminary) is out today. Here’s the picture (series inverted so down is improvement) and the “misery index”, the sum of unemployment and y/y CPI inflation.
Weekly Macro Indicators thru 2/4/2023 and Monthly GDP
Weekly indicators from Lewis-Mertens-Stock (NY Fed) Weekly Economic Indicators, and Baumeister, Leiva-Leon and Sims WECI and Woloszko (OECD) Weekly Tracker through 2/4/2023, released today, compared against monthly GDP.
Debt Held by the Public as Share of GDP
From Treasury, and CBO.