Growth

Michael M. Rosen reviews Michael Best’s ‘How Growth Really Happens’ and asks what we can learn from past economic booms.

The American economy has taken the shape of an iceberg. The visible part glistens in the reflected sunlight of Donald Trump. Beneath the surface lurks a structure that might not long be capable of supporting the glistening tip.

Is a slow-growth future inevitable for America? More than ever, that’s the conclusion of economists, and it's a recurring theme of some presidential candidates. The irony is that the U.S. economy has been leading the world for a century in terms of total GDP, income per capita, and entrepreneurial…

Most conservatives believe Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have wrong solutions to the stagnation in wages and job creation that has marked the American economy since 2000. But Trump and Sanders have proven better vote-getters than conservative candidates because, politically speaking, having wrong…

Lift-off. That’s the conclusion to which observers jumped when the government announced on Friday that the economy added 271,000 jobs in October. And that the August and September figures have been revised upward by 12,000. And that the unemployment rate fell to 5 percent. And that discouraged…

Greg Mankiw, professor of economics at Harvard, has posed an interesting question on his blog.

Strange as it may seem, Barack Obama has much in common with the storied matchmaker of Jewish legend. This Polish entrepreneur announced to the poverty-stricken rabbi of a poverty-stricken Polish town that she had found a match for his even more poverty stricken, unattractive son – no less than the…

Two weekends ago, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City held its annual monetary conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The left flew in hundreds of protesters donning green T-shirts that demanded “Higher Wages for America” and chanting, “We’re Fed Up.” The crowd was an assortment of college kids…

Waukesha

Hillary Clinton outlined her economic agenda today at the New School in Manhattan, and attacked Uber. The ridesharing service did not reply to Clinton directly, but the company did post a story on its blog about how the service helps “senior mobility.” Clinton, a grandmother, is 67 years old.

First time claims for unemployment spiked last week.  As Bloomberg reports:

Rebecca Shabad of The Hill reports:

Parades, fireworks, patriotic songs, 150 million hot dogs consumed, 41 million car trips of more than 50 miles -- and heightened security in reaction to Islamist terrorist threats to disrupt our celebration with murder and mayhem as part of their celebration of their holy month of Ramadan. That’s…

Bloomberg reports that:

The subject of debt – how much and how tolerable – slipped into the shadows for a time. But yesterday, it reappeared. As Rebecca Shabad of the Hill reports:

The White House is celebrating the most recent jobs numbers. 

The latest jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the unemployment rate ticking up to 5.5 percent and that the economy added 280,000 jobs:

Bloomberg reports that:

That negative 1st quarter GDP has been widely passed off as the effect of a particularly severe winter.  Things, we were assured, were not that bad and would be getting better as the weather warmed.  Well, not so fast.  The Commerce Department came out this morning with a report on factory orders…

Michelle Jamrisko at Bloomberg writes:

After yesterday’s disappointing GDP number (it grew by a meager .2% in the last quarter) we got this from Jason Furman, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisors:

Speaking Tuesday at the 45th Annual Washington Conference of the Council of the Americas, Secretary of State John Kerry said that "countries are far more likely to advance economically and socially when citizens have faith in their governments and are able to rely on them for justice and equal…

From CNBC, discouraging news that:

Bloomberg reports that:

Bloomberg reports that:

Water, Water Everywhere

Bloomberg reports that:

First time claims fell, as Reuters reports, by:

Sometimes, anecdote is more revealing than data. A few days’ gleanings:

Kate Davidson of the Wall Street Journal reports that:

The recovery may be slowing and the end of the Fed’s QE efforts receding further into the future.

The Obama administration’s line on the economy appears to be that it has finally turned the corner and things are truly humming.  And maybe so.  But there are signs of trouble amid all the good cheer.

President Obama can’t run again, as he noted in the State of the Union last month, but he sought to use his address to set the tone for the 2016 campaign. His repeated references to “middle-class economics” were tactful code, speaking in front of a Republican-controlled Congress, for that perennial…

We should “stop thinking about the economy as being in a perpetual crisis” commented Charles Plosser, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, after the government announced on Friday that the private sector added 267,000 jobs in January, and that upward revisions to November and…

The first number in a week that will produce many of them, culminating with monthly non-farm payrolls, is not promising for the recovery.  As Bloomberg reports:

Listen to the president, his staff, and his supporters and you might be ready to believe that the economy is on a rocket ride to prosperity.  More jobs, lower gas prices, increased consumer spending.  So now, at last, we can afford to do away with sequestration and other implements of austerity.…

Predictions of a robustly growing economy may prove as evanescent as yesterday’s winter storm warnings.  As Michelle Jamrisko of Bloomberg reports:

The White House launched a new campaign this week to build support for President Obama's executive action on immigration. Although the campaign is to feature state-by-state advantages weekly over the new few months, one of the purported nationwide benefits of the president's actions is what amounts…

Bloomberg is reporting that:

 Lucia Mutikani of Reuters writes:

President Obama is in a good mood. He believes the country, under his leadership, is heading in the right direction.

It was a good year for jobs. As Bloomberg notes:

Had enough good economic news to see you through the holidays? Good. But if you plan to ask, “Please, sir, I want some more” you might be in store for your own Oliver Twist moment. Here’s why:

The Wall Street Journal reports that first time unemployment claims:

The economic news has been getting better, especially regarding the price of oil. Which the consumer sees as what he forks over at the pump. And that, as we all know, is one price the trend of which we follow every day.  

An estimated 90 million of us will drive 50 miles or more during this holiday season, and recent years’ gnashings of teeth at the pump are being replaced with smiles. The price of gasoline is down 36 percent since April, to a national average of around $2.40 per gallon, with some cities reporting…

The economy added more than 320,000 jobs last month. Against a forecast of 230,000. The unemployment rate holds at 5.8 percent, indicating that many who had previously given up are again seeking employment.

“Give me your tired, your poor … your huddled masses … wretched refuse … the homeless,” implores the Lady in New York harbor. Little can she know that 11.4 million of these “tempest-tost” souls are already here, having arrived illegally, most from Mexico and points south. Some 4-5 million of those…

Some 140 million bargain-hunting customers will descend on retailers on Thanksgiving Day, so-called Black Friday, and throughout next weekend -- or at least those who haven’t shopped already or by early next week will head for the shops. Not so long ago most stores remained closed  on Thanksgiving…

The headline over this Government Executive article reads:

Recent news on the economy has been generally encouraging so it is possible that this week’s first time claims number could be a one-off.  As Shobhana Chandra of Bloomberg reports,

The monthly BLS report on unemployment comes in under expectations which were for some 235,000 news jobs.  So the 214,000 is a downside miss.  However, the new benchmark for “good, not great” seems to be a monthly increase in of 200,000.  And the economy has hit that number for nine consecutive…

Lorraine Woellert of Bloomberg reports:

On Tuesday those of us who have not already availed ourselves of postal ballots or early voting will troop to the polls to elect all 435 members of the House of Representatives, 36 of the 100 senators, 36 governors, and a host of politicians vying for local office. These old-fashioned voters will…

News on the economy had been promising these last few days, especially the GDP increase in the last quarter.  Today comes a not-so-good report on consumer spending.  As Victoria Stilwell reports at Bloomberg:

The indicators for the economy are looking good.  For those who view the world through a political prism, this news may be coming too late to help the president and his party in the mid-terms.  And for those whose view is long and wide, the skies are not entirely blue.  There is the matter of labor…

The number for September orders of durable goods is one of three that were anticipated as indicators of where the economy is headed … or if it is merely treading water. (Housing prices and consumer confidence are the others.) Expectations were for a modest increase in durables after a bad number…

The president insists that his programs have done great things for the economy and that, while he is not on the ballot in next week’s elections, his policies are. Well, as Mike Dorning of Bloomberg reports:

Hillary Clinton, doing her no-bull, forceful leader number, tells an audience:

Oh, woe! Ebola has come to America and 150 people from infected countries are landing here every day. ISIS is battering the Kurds, to whom we have not sent the weapons we promised, and will chase the Iraqi army out of Baghdad as soon as they finish taking over Kobani. Europe is headed into still…

Vice President Joe Biden talked about the trouble the middle class is having during the Barack Obama presidency at an event earlier today in Philadelphia:

First time claims came in on the low side. Unexpectedly so.  Which seems, paradoxically, predictable. 

At a Hollywood fundraiser last night in Gwyneth Paltrow's backyard, President Obama explained that the rich are getting richer. "Most of the gains in our economy go to the folks who are in this lovely yard," Obama said.

If James Carville is still remotely right that “It’s the economy, stupid,” then it’s no wonder that it has been tough sledding for Senate incumbents this fall.  Members of the Senate class that’s up for reelection this year were, of course, elected (or reelected) in November 2008 and began their…

It is a global economy and Europe is sneezing.  As the FT report:

The U.S. economy added 248,000 jobs in September, and the unemployment rate dropped to 5.9 percent. But the labor force participation rate continued to fall, average hourly earnings seem frozen, and over 13 percent of workers are either out of work, involuntarily working part time or too…

Coming in ahead of the unemployment figure for September, which will be released on Friday, and tomorrow’s weekly first-time-claims number, the ADP jobs report might be some sort of harbinger. In the case of today’s number, a happy one, as Paul Davidson of USA Today reports:

This is the conclusion, as Pedro Nicolaci Da Costa of the Wall Street Journal  reports, reached by:

A new chart from the minority side of the Senate Budget Committee shows a startling fact: Almost 1 in 4 Americans between the ages of 25-54 (or prime working years) are not working. 

First time claims are looking good.  As Jeffry Bartash at Maket Watch reports:

If you know how many months there are in a “considerable time,” you will know exactly when Janet Yellen and her colleagues on the Federal Reserve Board’s monetary policy committee plan to begin raising interest rates. If not, you can add your guess to those of professional Fed watchers who are…

Ben Casselman and Reuben Fischer-Baum of 538 have gone inside the numbers (as they say) of the economic recovery and their findings are not comforting.

First, the good news. Initial unemployment claims, which were expected to come in at 305,000, came in at 280,000 good deal less than that. More people working might mean that, in time, wages will rise and families that have never seen their financial situations improve since the Great Recession,…

Regarding the economy, we have come to expect the unexpected which is, it sometimes seems, the only thing one can count on.  For instance, Shobhana Chandra of Bloomberg is reporting today that:

The administration continues to advance its arguments about the economy, with the president even tacking on to the end of his somber speech about new military action in the Middle East, a digression about how well things are going with jobs, manufacturing, and etc.

Jeanna Smialek of Bloomberg reports that:

Analysts hoping to rebut the purveyors of gloom who are arguing that America is in long-term decline were looking to Friday’s job report for comfort. They got none. Instead of continuing to create about 200,000 each month, the economy produced a mere 142,000 new payroll jobs, and only 134,000 in…

The mood before this morning’s jobs report landed with a thud was one of high, almost touching optimism.  For example, there was this from Matt Phillips at Quartz:

The eagerly anticipated jobs report comes in at less than 3/4s of the anticipated 200,000-plus.  As Victoria Stilwell of Bloomberg reports:

Recent talk about the economy (especially from within the administration) has been upbeat. So the employment (jobs) number for August, which will be released tomorrow, will be looked at closely since that is the measure of economic health and progress that most people – and, hence, all politicians…

Even after yesterday’s promising first time claims and GDP numbers, the state of the economy – especially on the jobs, employment, wages side – remains uncertain and troubling as we enter the Labor Day weekend.  As Mark Gimein of Bloomberg reports:

Jeanna Smialek and Shobhana Chandra of Bloomberg reports that:

Slow growth is bad for everyone.  Including the government, which depends (sort of) on tax revenues to do its job.  Now, as Kasia Klimasinska of Bloomberg reports:

First time claims were expected to be come in at 303,000.  The actual number was 298,000.  As Shobhana Chandra of Bloomberg reports:

If the economic recovery is dismissed as a chimera by half the population, there is a reason. As Aki Ito, Ian Katz, and Ilan Kolet of Bloomberg report:

At long last we are emerging from the blind alleys down which the debate about income inequality seems to have wandered. The first such dead end was marked “fairness.” The top tenth of one percent of earners feel the tax system unfairly expropriates too large a portion of their incomes, bloated…

Michelle Jamrisko of Bloomberg reports that:

Optimists have been hoping for robust GDP growth in the 3rd quarter and had pegged their hopes on improved consumer performance.  As is often cited, consumer spending accounts for some 70 percent of GDP.  It now seems that last month it did not match expectations.  As Lorraine Woellert…

Bank of America likes to top rival J.P. Morgan Chase in as many ways as possible. Except one. The $16-to-$17 billion check it is about to write to cover the fine for sins committed before the financial crisis tops the previous record of $13 billion paid by J.P. Morgan Chase just nine months ago.…

At last, some good news about the U.S. economy. Sort of. The government’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) reckons the economy grew at an annual rate of 4 percent in the second quarter of the year (data subject to revision). If that rate continues, five years of a lackadaisical recovery would be…

The 302,000 is a so, so number.  But close to what was expected – 300,000.  And not as good as last week’s 284,000.  But as Bloomberg reports, the monthly average is encouraging.

After contracting in the 1st quarter, 2nd quarter GDP grew by an unexpectedly robust 4.0 percent.  As CNBC reports: Gross domestic product expanded at a 4.0 percent annual rate as activity picked up broadly after shrinking at a revised 2.1 percent pace in the first quarter, the Commerce Department…

Celebrating a fourth birthday and growing nicely. That’s the story of the Dodd-Frank law, designed to end a “too big to fail” banking system that forced taxpayers to bail out bankers who took not only their own banks but the entire financial system to the verge of collapse, and brought on a record…

The discussion over economic inequality in the United States seems to have captured the public imagination, at least on the political left.  President Obama has called it “the defining challenge of our time,” and Secretary Clinton has deemed it “a cancer.” Given the shorthand manner in which…

From Gallup, we learn that:

All good things must come to an end. And bad things, too, if you believe that the Federal Reserve Board’s bond buying program was a mistake. The minutes of its June 17-18 monetary policy committee meeting, published a few days ago, reveal that these purchases, largely credited with keeping…

Initial claims came in at 304,000, slightly less than expected (315,000) and low enough to keep the low flame of optimism burning after last weeks good jobs number.

After celebrating our Declaration of Independence from the British oppressor, we will return to work Monday having consumed 155 million hot dogs and, for some 41 million of us, bucked traffic jams, long security lines at airports, or storm-induced flight delays in order to visit family or whatever…

In the first quarter of 2014, GDP in the U.S. plunged at a 2.9% annual rate, and productivity—the inflation-adjusted business output per hour worked—declined at a 3.5% annual rate. This is the worst productivity statistic since 1990. And productivity since 2005 has declined by more than 8% relative…

The final accounting on the 1st quarter for the economy is in and it is not pretty.  As Jeanna Smialek of Bloomberg reports:

And we thought the bad old days of oil shocks were over. Embargoes, price spikes, gasoline lines in America, a sweater-bedecked president ordering the end of hot water in many facilities, collapsing retail sales as high gasoline and energy prices hit stores as much as a big tax increase would,…

Weekly first time unemployment claims came in almost exactly as expected (which, in itself, is sort of unexpected) at 312,000.  One thousand less than economists were predicting and 6,000 less than last week.  Which amounts to something like treading water.  We aren’t drowning, but we aren’t…

The economy isn’t going anywhere.  Not anytime soon, according to the IMF.  As Anna Yukhananov of Reuters reports:

Until Eve’s encounter with the serpent, Adam did not spend a lot of time looking for work. Didn’t have to. Expelled from Eden and cursed with the necessity of earning his bread “in the sweat of his face,” he found work. Had to. Therein lies a partial, but only partial, explanation for one of the…

It is mandatory for economists to point out that one data point does not make a trend. We then all-too-often fill space with, er, a discussion of one data point, most usually the monthly report on job creation. Not being one to defy convention, I will report that Friday’s jobs report was a yawner.…

Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 217,000 in May, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 6.3 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Which means that there are now more people working than there were before the recession and, for that matter, than ever before in…

More people filed for unemployment last week than had the week before … But the average for the month of May was lower than it has been since 2007.  And, for lagniappe, there is the fact that the number that came in almost hit “expectations” dead center.

Another discouraging report on the economy and it will be hard to write this one off to the weather. As Kathleen Madigan of the Wall Street Journal reports:

Little ado about not very much. Markets yawned when the government revised its initial estimate of economic growth in the first quarter from a slight positive, +0.1 percent, to a non-trivial negative of -1.0 percent. There are several reasons that the first shrinkage of the economy in three years…

The Commerce Department released revise first-quarter GDP numbers this morning. They were expected to show that the economy had actually shrunk a bit,  instead of expanding by 0.1 percent as the initial report showed.  The contraction was predicted to be somewhere around .5 percent.  And while this…

The fracking euphoria had to end. For three reasons. First, the claims for its benefits were wildly exaggerated, ensuring eventual disappointment as even a cheerful reality could not meet the imaginings of the pro-fossil-fuel gang. Second, environmental groups were not going to sit idly by, their…

More evidence that the legs of the long economic recovery may be getting less wobbly.  First-time jobless claims fell, last week, to a seven-year low and beat, on the downside, economists’ predictions by a large margin.  (One sometimes thinks that the economists ought to pick a figure and stick…

But just how bad was the first quarter for the American economy?  Commerce Department GDP came in at .1 percent growth, which is treading water, but barely.  Speculation had the revised figures showing that the economy actually contracted and now, as Ben Leubsdorf of the Wall Street…

Hedge fund manager Barry Rosenstein is not a man to be fazed by the recent rise in mortgage interest rates. Nor is he one to worry that the housing market might be softening, loping the odd million off the $147 million he shelled out for an 18-acre beachfront home in the Hamptons, on New York’s…

President Romney, as Marina Koren of the National Journal reports, appeared today on the television show Morning Joe and said:

A new Brookings Institution report indicates that businesses are shuttering their doors more quickly than new ones are popping up.

The economy grew in the first quarter at “point one percent,” announced Mitch McConnell, and then repeated it by way of introduction to an attack on President Obama’s economic policies. Whether seeming to revel in the misery of a slow recovery that has kept unemployment high and wages low simply…

Non-farm payrolls beat expectations. Quite handsomely. As Michelle Jamrisko of Bloomberg reports:

First time claims rose to 344,000 last week, highest in nine weeks. Economists were expecting 320,000. Yesterday, stalled GDP growth in the 1st quarter was widely blamed on the weather. This big, disappointing miss is being explained, according to Michelle Jamrisko of Bloomberg, as having something…

The numbers on 1st quarter GDP are, in a word, dismal.  An economy that had been limping along came nearly to a standstill. As Jeanna Smialek of Bloomberg reports:

The weekly and closely-watched number of first time jobless claims rose last week by 24,000 to 329,000. Economists had expected the number to come in at 315,000.

A few weeks ago I suggested that we now know when Federal Reserve Board chair Janet Yellen will raise interest rates: never. Her first formal monetary policy speech can be read to support that view, or at least that “normal” interest rates are what the Economist describes as “a distant prospect.”…

First time jobelss claims held steady, this week, at 304,000. That would be less than than the “expected” 315,000 but more than last week’s 302,000.

Is it finally spring in the world of employment?  If one is looking for encouraging signs, this week’s first-time claims number is very encouraging.  Down from slightly over 330,000 last week to 300,000.  Lowest number since May 2007 and the greatest weekly drop since January 2006.

“In the end, history is not kind to those who would deny Americans their basic economic security.  Nobody remembers well those who stand in the way of America’s progress or our people. And that’s what the Affordable Care Act represents.” President Obama, who made that statement last week, has never…

We now know the approximate date when Federal Reserve Board chair Janet Yellen will feel comfortable ending the Fed’s near-zero interest rate policy: never. Those who were led to believe by her first press conference that she has shed her dove’s feathers for those of an inflation hawk, circling…

The monthly jobs report is in and the sound one hears all around Washington is that of spin machines running through the gears.

 In the midst of the Obama administration's latest push to increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has released an analysis showing the the percentage of hourly workers earning at or below the minimum wage is down to 4.3 percent, or 3.3…

A new study by American Health Policy Institute finds that the president's signature legislation, Obamacare, will cost large employers "$4,800 to $5,900 per employee." The study, called “The Cost of the Affordable Care Act to Large Employers,” is available here. 

Ben Casselman at 538, on unemployment and underemployment, starting from this point.

A new report from the minority side of the Senate Budget Committee finds that "Economic Growth In 2013 Just Half Of What The President Said His Policies Would Deliver." Here's a chart, showing the committee's findings:

As Bloomberg is reporting:

We now know a lot more about the probable course of the economy than we did a few months ago, and are likely to learn even more in the next few weeks when the jobs report is released on April 4.

Long-term unemployment, in some cases, does not even show up in the jobless figures released monthly by the Labor Department and eagerly anticipated by the political spinners standing by to mold them into partisan shape. Many of those whose unemployment has been prolonged simply give up; something…

Feelings about the economy are not especially buoyant on this first day of spring.  First time claims held their own but, as Katherine Peralta of Bloomberg reports:

President Obama might have been economical with the truth when he promised Americans they could keep their doctors when Obamacare takes effect, but he is proving a man of his word when it comes to the exercise of presidential power as he defines it. “I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone,” he told…

Expectations unexpectedly fell with is something many have come to expect … if you know what we mean.

Five years ago this Sunday share prices hit a 13-year low: the S&P index of 500 shares fell to 676.53. Today it stands at 1,878.04, an increase of about 170 percent. Five years ago Sunday the unemployment rate stood at 8.7 percent, and was to reach 10 percent in a few months. Today, the…

Non-farm payrolls surprised to the upside in February with 175,000 jobs added.  The number was “unexpectedly” high with forecasts running in the 150,000 range and some going much lower.  

The Labor Department report on first time unemployment claims came in slightly below expectations:  323,000 against an expected 336,000 and the best figure in three months.

The administration has produced a budget that includes various predictions not least of which concerns GDP growth. The White House, as Jeffry Bartash of Marketwatch reports, is looking for sunny days ahead and:

Here's a rather harsh assessment of the last four years under the Obama administration's economic policies:

Rodrigo Campos at Reuters reports that:

A recently released Department of Agriculture (USDA) report on the "Food Assistance Landscape" for the fiscal year 2013 shows that for the second year in a row, participation in the federal government's SNAP (food stamps) program has increased despite a corresponding drop in the unemployment rate,…

What we have been told is a “recovery” has a way of throwing off false trails.  We were told to expect a robust performance, this year, from the housing sector yet, yesterday, for example, we learn that home-builder confidence has not merely fallen, but cratered.   As Reuters reports:

And it is playing hob with the expectations of economists, as Jeanna Smialek at Bloomberg reports:

Braving the weather, the BLS has released the weekly first-time claims numbers. They were off, a bit, on the high side. The “expected” figure: 330,000.

When economic forecasts prove wrong, it is customary to blame the weather. So cold that consumers stayed home, or so hot that consumers, well, stayed home. So cold that outdoor construction was unexpectedly low, unless of course unusually high temperatures made such work impossible lest heat stroke…

The monthly employment numbers are out and even the New York Times is dismayed.  The economy added 113,000 jobs in January, which was (all together now) unexpectedly short of the 180,000 economists were predicting.  This news:

President Obama surely deserves to relax this weekend and enjoy the Super Bowl after an arduous week in which he prepared and delivered his fifth State of the Union message, one the White House admits set forth a rather limited agenda, and then took to the hustings for stops in four states on the…

As expected, first time claims rose “unexpectedly," last week.  As Jeanna Smialek of Bloomberg reports:

In a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Canada's foreign minister, John Baird put things plainly:

Jason Furman works at the White House as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. Today he is painting lipstick, blush, eye shadow, and anything else that is lying around handy to the December jobs report which, he spins this way:

Big surprise and nobody called it.  Here we were, in the midst of all these signs and indicators pointing to an economy that was warming up for takeoff, a recovery that had finally taken hold, an end to the need for stimulus via the Fed.  And what happened is, as reported on CNN/Money:

The latest jobs numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics:

Herewith some thoughts about the outlook for this year. Thoughts, not forecasts, for which I have neither the skill nor the courage. I offer these thoughts in deference to the understandable demand for look-aheads. Human beings are always hunting for certainty, attempting to reduce randomness,…

There is reason to look back on the year about to end with some satisfaction – not joy, but satisfaction. The until-now deeply troubled industrial sector last month topped its December 2007 pre-recession peak for the first time, and is over 20 percent above its June 2009 low. Autos led the way:…

Years ago, when Americans began visiting Europe in significant numbers, they invariably returned with trophies ranging from cashmere sweaters (Britain), silk scarves (France), several inches on their waistlines (Italy), and assorted knick knacks. And with stories of the sullen London shop staffs…

First time claims came in higher than expected. Which is very nearly a sure thing. Not that the number of claims will increase. Or decrease. Just that whatever they do, it will be “unexpected."

Initial jobless claims rose 68,000 to 368,000 as per this morning’s figures. This:

“Everything’s coming up roses,” a mother reassures her daughter in Gypsy, the 1959 musical chronicling the rise of burlesque dancer Gypsy Rose Lee. Were lyricist Stephen Sondheim surveying the American economy, he might want to extend the reassurance to the rest of us. For it does seem as if, at…

The latest employment data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics:

We’ve grown accustomed to waiting for news on the economy that would signal a return to movement and growth.  And, mostly, there is a forlorn quality to the waiting with most of the news indicating a continuing stalemate.  Latest reports from the retail front are not reassuring.  As Matt Townsend…

The headline on the Washington Post story by Jim Tankersley and Scott Clement reads:

Go into almost any shop and hear Christmas carols and read signs trumpeting enormous discounts. Unusual, since the scramble for discounts traditionally begins after, not before, the first turkey has made the ultimate sacrifice to celebrants of Thanksgiving. By the end of next week, 45 million…

Cotten Timberlake of Bloomberg reports that the big retailers are:

The nomination of Janet Yellen to chair the Federal ­Reserve has come down to this: a referendum on quantitative easing and zero interest rates. The money-printing program that Ben Bernanke started five years ago this month remains Yellen’s answer for how the economy will get back on solid ground.…

Washington, D.C. is booming. That's in large part because of a massive growth in lobbying expenditures and federal contracts.

That’s the way globalization ends, not with one large headline, but with several changes in the direction of policy, caused by events seemingly unrelated to the policy changes they produce. That’s bad news for those who believe that freer trade and an increase in the international flow of capital…

Some attribute the recent spate of less-than-encouraging news about the U.S. economy to the  government shutdown, the battle over the debt ceiling, and to the reprise due in a relatively few weeks. They point to the decline in consumer confidence during and immediately after the shutdown: the…

Some good news about the economy might make what promises to be the unending glitches of Obamacare easier to endure. But the latest is not encouraging, with Bloomberg reporting:

“The thrill is gone,” famously warbled B.B. King among others. And so it is for watchers of the U.S. economic scene. The eighteenth partial government shutdown is over, World War II veterans can legally visit the monument to their bravery, hikers can trek through national parks, and the National…

The AP reports this troubling news:

The first-time claims number comes in as … well, not so good.  This is typical if not predictable.  As Reuters reports:

The economy is, as always, what we think about, even when we are talking, almost entirely, about something else.  As, for instance, the troubles with the Affordable Care Act.  When things are going well, economic growth is robust, people are making more money, employers are hiring … then, all…

The government re-opened, and there was no default. No surprise. This was the 18th shutdown since 1976, when the current budget procedure was established. The five shutdowns under Jimmy Carter were mostly over major policy issues such as abortion (he was for it) and the construction of a…

Janet Yellen, dubbed “Ms. QE Infinity” by some wags because of her support for printing money to create jobs, and her willingness to pierce the Fed’s long-held 2 percent annual inflation ceiling, will have more to worry about than monetary policy when she steps into Ben Bernanke’s ample shoes on…

It’s not that anyone here in Washington begrudges Britain, and to some extent Spain, their fledgling recoveries. But President Obama and other proponents of more government spending aren’t delighted that those nations’ austerity programs seem to be paying off in renewed growth rather than in the…

Monday will be an important day here in America. It is Labor Day, the day on which many of us say goodbye to summer – the last holiday from work until we carve our turkeys on Thanksgiving Day at the end of November. Barbeques will be fired up, beer kegs tapped, the all-too-short leases on beach…

President Obama likes to talk about income inequality, but what matters far more is the actual income of the typical American.  And how has the typical American household income fared on Obama's watch?  Well, the economic "recovery" has now spanned an Olympiad, and during that time the typical…

Spare a bit of sympathy for the Federal Reserve Board’s monetary policy gurus. They have said they will begin to “taper” their purchases of bonds and mortgages when the unemployment rate falls to 6.5 percent. So July’s dip from 7.5 to 7.4 percent, the lowest rate since December 2008, should edge…

Wednesday, Alan Krueger, chairman of the White House's Council of Economic Advisers, wrote on the White House blog about revisions to economic statistics by the Bureau of Economic Analysis going all the way back to 1929.  Krueger largely interpreted the news as good, noting that the revisions…

Another presidential “pivot.” Having “pivoted” from Europe to Asia, Barack Obama’s White House has announced another pivot. This one, according to Politico, “to re-focus his oft-meandering message back on the economy.” It seems that voters are less interested in Obama’s drive for gun control (he…

In an economic speech today, President Obama will say that "We’ve come a long way since I first took office.  As a country, we’re older and we’re wiser." But more work remains. 

About the economy. As CNN is reporting:

Republicans forged ahead in their effort to transform North Carolina into a reliably red state, with Gov. Pat McCrory and top legislature leaders agreeing Monday on a tax cut plan to boost economic growth and job creation.

Here’s a TTIP for you. No, that’s not a typo missed by our ever-vigilant editors. It stands for Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, what British prime minister David Cameron calls a “once-in-a-generation prize” that can create two million jobs on both sides of the Atlantic, and Sir…

It is perhaps the best known of all of Mark Twain’s quotes – “There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.” It would be hard to find a better illustration of that line than the misuse of unemployment statistics in Twain’s home state of Missouri.

The weekly news on initial claims – up 16,000 to a two-month high of 360,000 – is one part of the economic picture and may be a short term glitch.  Still, the overall employment picture is not reassuring.  Such jobs as are available tend to be part time.  Far too many people have simply dropped out…

Investors worry more about China’s slowdown than about Federal Reserve Board chairman Ben Bernanke’s “taper,” according to a recent informal poll. Goldman Sachs expects the Chinese economy to grow by 7.4 percent this year. That’s way down from 10.4 percent in 2010, 9.3 percent in 2011 and 7.8…

The bad news is that there is good news. At least, that’s how many skittish investors in shares and bonds see the increasingly cheery view of the Federal Reserve Board’s monetary policy gurus who concluded last week that downside risk to the economy has diminished since the Fall, and guessed that…

At the conclusion of a lunch at the British embassy here in Washington, Britain’s ambassador, Sir Peter Westmacott, asked each of the four scribbler-economists he had invited to give his forecasts for the year. I usually decline to participate in this sport, but after hearing the unoptimistic views…

Governments everywhere are on the prowl for more revenues. French president François Hollande wants to tax incomes in excess of €1 million at a 75 percent rate. Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne, has jacked up VAT. Southern Europe’s finance ministers have come up with the novel…

From the Economist:

A funny thing happened to our dysfunctional government. It functioned, unwittingly perhaps, but function it did. President Obama forced Republicans, unwilling to risk the political consequences of taking America over the fiscal cliff, to accept a $180 billion tax increase. Republicans returned the…

Today's big number is non-farm payrolls. And, thus, the unemployment rate for the previous month. The economists surveyed by Reuters called for 145,000 jobs and an unemployment rate at 7.6 percent.

The U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 2.5 percent in the first quarter, well ahead of the paltry 0.4 percent in the final quarter of 2012. Consumer spending led the way, increasing at a rate of 3.2 percent. But leave the champagne on ice for now. Consumer outlays were boosted by involuntary…

Economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal were predicting that we would learn, this morning, that Gross Domestic Product had grown by 3.2 percent in the last quarter. Sorry about that; the economy said as the number came in at 2.5 percent.  

The economy can't quite seem to gets its feet under it.  As soon as it shows signs of steadying itself and begins to move forward, its legs go wobbly and we get things like this, from Lorraine Woellert at Bloomberg: