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The State of the Economy Thread - “Falling inflation, rising growth give U.S. the world’s best recovery”


PleaseBlitz

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48 minutes ago, The Evil Genius said:

Schadenfreude in seeing the MAGA Ma and Pa Trumpets getting reamed today. 

 

Can we start a trend on X and Truth Social telling people to dump their life savings into this stock now because it's only going to go up up up while the Biden Economy will wipe everyone else out?

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Yet another "surprisingly good" jobs report.  Who is setting expectations, George Carlin?

 

Employers added 303,000 jobs in March, soaring past expectations

The unemployment rate fell to 3.8 percent.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/04/05/jobs-march-unemployment-rate/

 

Quote

The U.S. labor market added 303,000 jobs in March, soaring past expectations, reflecting renewed strength in the labor market that continues to prop up the broader economy.

 

The unemployment rate fell to 3.8 percent last month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.

 

The jobs market is charging ahead in 2024, churning out more jobs per month on average than before the pandemic, after gradual cooling for much of past year in response to higher interest rates.

 

Service-related industries such as health care, government and leisure and hospitality have been buoying the greater economy and contributing to a long stretch of low unemployment that has benefited workers. Although some rate sensitive industries have been waiting for the Fed to cut interest rates this year, before they full resume hiring.

 

Americans are spending big on vacations, dining out, and entertainment. And that demand is driving employers to hire in those sectors. Hourly wages have been beating inflation since last May, after years of falling behind.

 

Hiring in the leisure and hospitality sector is vastly outpacing the overall labor market. Employers made the most hires on record in arts, entertainment, and recreation in February, according to a separate report by the Labor Department released Tuesday.

 

More than 53,000 restaurants opened last year, up 10 percent from 2022 and exceeding pre-pandemic levels, according to data from online review site Yelp. That’s helped boost hiring across the board, in entry-level positions as well as managerial roles.

 

Restaurateurs say it is finally becoming easier to find employees, after years of worker shortages, relieving the pressure to raise wages. A major pickup in immigration has also helped fill many long-standing openings, with 3.3 million immigrants arriving in 2023, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

 

"Americans are spending big on vacations, dining out, and entertainment."  This is at odds with the pervasive narrative that everything is too expensive and people can't make ends meet because of inflation. 

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7 hours ago, PleaseBlitz said:

Yet another "surprisingly good" jobs report.  Who is setting expectations, George Carlin?

 

Employers added 303,000 jobs in March, soaring past expectations

The unemployment rate fell to 3.8 percent.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/04/05/jobs-march-unemployment-rate/

 

 

"Americans are spending big on vacations, dining out, and entertainment."  This is at odds with the pervasive narrative that everything is too expensive and people can't make ends meet because of inflation. 

I’d like to see standard government reports on consumer debt spending. So we can compare over time. For example, I’ve read that outstanding credit card balances are shooting up. Then the following conclusion is that Americans are going into debt to keep up with inflation. I’d imagine there’s something to that. But I also can see a scenario where borrowers are scrapping HELOCs due to rates and putting home improvements on zero percent credit cards. 

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4 hours ago, Ball Security said:

I’d like to see standard government reports on consumer debt spending. So we can compare over time. For example, I’ve read that outstanding credit card balances are shooting up. Then the following conclusion is that Americans are going into debt to keep up with inflation. I’d imagine there’s something to that. But I also can see a scenario where borrowers are scrapping HELOCs due to rates and putting home improvements on zero percent credit cards. 

 

https://www.newyorkfed.org/microeconomics

 

New York Fed publishes regular report on household debts and credit.  Most recent quarterly report was February (and FWIW, it does look like HELOC balances are dropping while CC balances are rising) https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/interactives/householdcredit/data/pdf/HHDC_2023Q4

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6 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said:

I would imagine consumer debt spending is way down due to interest rates, but “down” will largely depend on the timeframe you want to make comparisons. 

You definitely hear in the media that credit card balances are rising. But, as you mention timeframes, this is coming in after credit card balances dropped in late 2020 and 2021 with COVID stimulus. I’ll try to find some time to dig into @bearrock’s link. 

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Debt, including credit card debit, are at all time highs for the time they've been measured.  Not just high compared to the Covid era.

 

https://www.statista.com/chart/19955/household-debt-balance-in-the-united-states/

https://www.statista.com/chart/19955/household-debt-balance-in-the-united-states/

 

The numbers don't take into account balances being carried on credit cards vs. somebody that charged a lot on their credit card and so until the next payment has a large "debt" but will pay it off on time.  But delinquency rates are staying pretty low, which is good and suggest that people are charging things that they are able to buy.

 

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DRCCLACBS

 

And household debt service payments as a percent of disposal income are pretty low compared to where they've been historically and staying pretty flat back to where they were pre-Covid (after a Covid dip).

 

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TDSP

 

Which also suggest that people are charging things and then paying the bill rather than be charged interest 

 

Though things like 401K savings are also going down.  Some are interpreting the totality of the data to indicate that post-Covid people are spending more, charging on credit cards, and paying those bills on time but at the cost of saving for retirement.

 

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/more-americans-reducing-retirement-savings-194421157.html

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3 hours ago, PeterMP said:

Debt, including credit card debit, are at all time highs for the time they've been measured.  Not just high compared to the Covid era.


Thanks for posting, this is super interesting (have I mentioned im a huge nerd). 
 

The obvious thing that jumps out is that of the $17 trillion in total debt, $12 trillion is mortgages, dwarfing everything else. It makes sense, especially since so many people are holding onto their 3% mortgages from 2021. 
 

Credit cards were flat and represent just under $1 trillion. Student debt is $1.6 trillion. I kinda thought CCs and student loan would be about even since far less people have student loans, so that’s interesting. 
 

It also says total debt has increased $3 trillion since the pandemic started but doesn’t explain why. I gotta think its mortgage debt from when rates were at rock bottom, but that’s just a guess. 

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2 hours ago, TradeTheBeal! said:

Tesla Uber-clowns playing bumper cars is wearing us out.

 

 

 

This helps with understanding this more from a granular perspective...the prices of everything isn't going up, some have gone down, but some **** is noticeably dragging the overall metrics in the wrong direction.

 

This should in theory help with having a more targeted approach to what's driving these latest numbers.  I'm not seeing much on that list that can be resolved with trade deals or tarrifs (car repairs maybe from parts not made in the US, maybe that's impacting car insurance?). 

 

Happy to see Rent on the list because it's a national problem that needs serious attention from a national solution standpoint.  it's not enough some cities have pulled back on the chaos airbnb has been causing, congress needs to get involved with a multi-prong approach because it's a perfect example of something that is eating into everything we get right. 

 

Rent increases are clearly outpacing wage increases for many people in the country, something a good jobs report alone won't help with.

Edited by Renegade7
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