06/5/20

The Trump Recovery

The May Jobs Report contained some staggering, incredible, unexpected data.

 1. Jobs in the USA in May surged by 2,500,000 after having declined by 20,700,000 in April.

Economists had been expecting a loss of 8,000,000 jobs. Instead, net new jobs were 2,500,000 meaning the economists were off by more than 10,000,000 jobs.

 2. Unemployment dropped from 14.7% to 13.3% whilst the economists were looking for a 19% unemployment rate.

This is the beginning of a substantial recovery and the economy is only starting to re-open. It is a Hell of a start.

I place extra emphasis on the unemployment number falling below 10% as it kills all comparisons to the Great Depression and small improvements will have huge impact. We would also be within 6% of the pre-COVID19 numbers. Keep you eye on this baby.

Continue reading

05/12/16

Recovery? Won’t Get Fooled Again

Recovery. Talking recovery today.

Big Red Car here. I’m vexed. People think that the economy is doing fine or, worse, that it is headed in the right direction. It is not.

Let me tell you why. First, say: STRUCTURAL CHANGES to the ugly face of employment.

There are four things we need to look at: total unemployment, unemployment for 25-54 year olds, the Labor Force Participation Rate for the same 25-54 year olds, and Employment-to-Population ratio for the same 25-54 year olds.

So, the hypothesis of this post is this — while America has been engaged in the weakest recession recovery dynamic in the history of the United States, the job market and the structure of our employment force has changed STRUCTURALLY.

A historic example of something like this was the wholesale introduction of women into the work force in the early 1980s. It changed things. Forever.

Continue reading