April personal income and consumption figures were released today, along with real manufacturing and trade industry sales. Here’s a depiction of these figures in the context of key macro indicators followed by the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee:
Inflation Squeeze on Wages?
Relative compression vis a vis recent past (not controlling for composition), but still up since the onset of the pandemic.
Wisconsin’s Recovery: Employment, Coincident Index, GDP, Personal Income
In progress, but incomplete.
Steel Tariffs and Iron/Steel Prices
The Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum were a bad idea during the Trump administration. They’re still a bad idea.
A Logged Look at Bitcoin
If you believe the world is in base e, then this is a better picture of the Bitcoin’s progress.
Firm Inflation Expectations – a New Survey
From a new working paper by Candia, Coibion and Gorodnichenko:
Enhanced Unemployment Benefits in Wisconsin and Disincentives
From WPR, “Top Wisconsin Republicans Call For Ending Enhanced Unemployment Benefits”:
Two of the Legislature’s top Republicans say they’ll pass a bill that would cut off federal unemployment insurance benefits that were added during the COVID-19 pandemic, saying they’re no longer needed and they’re making it harder for businesses to find workers.
Wisconsin Employment in April
Wisconsin nonfarm payroll employment has stabilized at a level down 4.7% relative to NBER peak in 2020M02, vs. 5.4% for the nation overall (according to figures released by DWD yesterday).
More Nonsense
A Graphical Framework for Thinking about Inflation Surprises
From the my EconoFact article “Rising Inflation?“, which begins:
There are concerns about inflation rising, and perhaps even accelerating, fueled by an overheating economy as a consequence of the large fiscal stimulus, the Federal Reserve’s commitment to keeping interest rates low for an extended period, and pent-up demand for consumption that was foregone during the pandemic. The last bout of high and rising inflation, in the 1970s, was during a time of economic distress and only ended with a painful recession engineered by the Federal Reserve in the early 1980s. Are we in for a similar episode today? While inflation has been high in the past few months, at least compared to its level since the Great Recession that began in 2008, several factors suggest that we should not be concerned about sustained and accelerating inflation – at least not yet.