The February United States jobs report came out this morning, and it is contains a glimmer of hope. This does not mean the recovery is strong yet. One month’s worth of data is nothing to base a trend on. There were 2 things of note that happened in February. Job gains occurred in the construction… Read more

At CNN’s request, California Lutheran University released its February jobs forecast today. The actual data will come out Friday. The weakness in jobs persists: the federal government’s net hiring is expected to be close to zero and state/local government’s net hiring is expected to be negative due to a lack of revenues, non-decreasing expenditures, and… Read more

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released their Employment Situation report for January today. The household survey data indicate a fall in the unemployment rate, however, this appears to be as much due to updated population controls as much as any other factor. As well, we have to wonder if declines in labor force indicate that… Read more

The recent GDP release for 2010 quarter 4 got me to thinking about consumption and investment. Consumption growth was very strong, especially considering the still high level of mortgage and revolving credit debt in the United States economy. I show three charts below: real consumption, real business fixed investment, and consumption’s percent share of GDP.… Read more

Mary Hanley and Dan Hamilton The January 25, 2011 DataQuick press release shows that both foreclosures and notices of defaults have fallen almost everywhere in California. Statewide foreclosures have fallen 21.9% from last quarter and more than 30% from the fourth quarter of 2009. The large drop in foreclosures may indicate lenders’ hesitancy to take… Read more

The BEA released their first estimate of United States 2010 quarter 4 GDP this morning. The economy grew at 3.2 percent in the fourth quarter which is an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 2.6 percent. The acceleration in growth was primarily driven by consumption growth, fixed investment, and declines in imports. Imports are a subtraction… Read more

I heard John Taylor, a respected Macroeconomist with an extensive academic research record and lots of actual public policy experience, speak on Friday. The full text of Professor Taylor’s speech is here. Flanked by a large number of distinguished economists, he spoke about monetary and fiscal policy, making a distinction between rules-based policy and discretion-based… Read more

Written January 6, 2011 The Allied Social Science Associations meetings are currently being held in Denver. These meetings are the largest set of Economics meetings on the planet. At 2:30pm today, I had 65 different sessions to choose from! And there are a similar plethora of sessions to choose from at nine different time-slots, three… Read more

Recent Retail Sales data, October and November, have been relatively strong for an economy that is barely recovering from the Great Recession. Recent personal consumption expenditures, the national account data that is much broader than Retail Sales, surprised me with a strong growth rate of 2.8 percent per annum during quarter 3. I have blogged… Read more

The Federal Reserve released its third quarter Flow of Funds report, which includes measures of debt accumulation and household sector wealth. This data is fundamental to the applied New Classical macroeconomist as wealth is believed to be a key driver of consumption. United States households continued to rebuild their balance sheets during the third quarter.… Read more