Update 396 — The Contrast is Striking:Workers Tell Tale of Two Labor Markets For those on the lookout for harbingers of recession — today’s New York and Atlanta Fed projections for startlingly low 4Q19 growth being the latest — the labor market presents a unique challenge. Unemployment is neither a leading nor lagging indicator. It spikes …
Update 380 — Spotlight on Manufacturing: Trump, Uncertainty Make America Wait Again The NY Times last week quoted Sheri Menelli, co-owner of RJM Music, seller of Chinese LCD screen imports based in Vista, CA: “We keep hearing on TV that China is paying for the tariffs… I can tell you that right now, I’m paying …
Update 364 — What’s the Gig Idea, Anyway?Labor Mobility: an Independence Day Inquiry Labor mobility, the willingness and ability of workers to move — geographically, or just from firm to firm — seems aided by technology and made more promising by workers’ increasing readiness to change jobs and on short notice, with “job” coming to mean project …
Update 335 — The Labor Participation Rate: After the Shouting, What Have We Learned? We tear ourselves away from the House floor debate on H.R. 1 — the anti-corruption political reform package scheduled for a vote on final passage at 11 a.m. on Friday — to provide a labor market update focused on the labor …
Update 322 — Bear or Bull: What’s the Beef? What Market Volatility Means for Real Economy Markets are notoriously difficult to read, let alone predict. And market performance correlates to growth and other macroeconomic factors in an opaque way. But the increasingly erratic capital markets are arresting attention and arousing concerns. Which of these real …
Bear or Bull Market: What’s the Beef? (January 11) Read More »
Update 314 — An Economy Shifting Gears: What do Amazon and the GM Layoffs Portend? Major tidal shifts and cross-currents underlying the changing American industrial landscape have been on full display in recent weeks. Last month, Amazon announced it was going to base its second headquarters out of both New York and Virginia, promising to …
What do Amazon and the GM Layoffs Portend? (November 27) Read More »
Update 269: In the Tax Cuts’ Wake: Pensioners, Workers to Pay the Piper Whether the GOP will campaign on last year’s tax cut is a central question of the midterm season. American taxpayers aren’t as enamored by this as much as similar cuts in the past. The sense has taken root, stoked by Paul Ryan …
Update 268 — State of the Labor Market(s); Workers Seeing Red in Republican States Sometimes you can see where starving the beast cuts to the bone. Two months ago, teachers in West Virginia began a statewide strike that would last for weeks. It would pay off, winning gains for educators who have endured some of …
Update 262 — Peering over the Fiscal Cliff: Trillion-Dollar Deficits Far as the Eye Can See Earlier this week, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected that the federal government’s annual budget deficit will reach $1 trillion next fiscal year. Under current CBO expectations, the national debt will exceed $33 trillion by fiscal 2028, up from …
Update 260 — Unpacking the 2017 Tax Cut: A Potpourri of Unintended Consequences For millions of Americans, April is the cruelest month because it requires time spent with the federal income tax code. This year (or tax year 2017) may top them all for annoyance, confusion, and surprises. And for billable hours for accountants and …
