The stock market cheerleaders/Fed rate cut cheerleaders at CNBC, but I repeat myself, lied by omission about wholesale price increases yesterday, but CNN told the truth

 CNBC: Wholesale prices rose 0.2% in October, in line with expectations

Wholesale prices nudged higher in October, though largely in line with expectations and mostly consistent with the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates again in December, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday.

The producer price index, which measures what producers get for their products, increased a seasonally adjusted 0.2% for the month, up one-tenth of a percentage point from September though matching the Dow Jones consensus forecast. On a 12-month basis, headline wholesale inflation was at 2.4%.

Excluding food and energy, core PPI rose 0.3%, also one-tenth more than September and also matching expectations. The 12-month rate was at 3.1%.

"Largely in line" and "mostly consistent" lol. Both 12-month measures were higher than the consensus expected, which was 2.3% for headline and 3% for core. The year over year measures are the most important anyway, especially core.

Why lie about it?

 

 

CNN: Wholesale inflation heated up again last month, reversing recent progress

US wholesale inflation picked up more than expected in October, indicating that some price pressures persist at the producer level.

The Producer Price Index, a measurement of average price changes seen by producers and manufacturers, rose 0.2% on a monthly basis and 2.4% for the 12 months ended in October, marking an acceleration from September, when prices ticked up 0.1% for the month and grew 1.9% annually, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data released Thursday. ...

FactSet consensus forecasts called for a 0.2% monthly gain and for the annual rate to heat up to 2.3%.

Excluding food and energy prices, which tend to be volatile, core PPI rose 0.3% on a monthly basis, marking an acceleration from 0.2% in September. Annually, core PPI heated up from 2.9% to 3.1%, the largest increase since June. Economists projected a 0.2% monthly gain and a 3% annual rate. 

Obviously not all prediction models were the same. FactSet projected a 0.2% monthly gain for core vs. 0.3% for core shown above by FXStreet.

But again, the year over year is up MORE THAN EXPECTED for BOTH measures in most models. CNN mentions it, CNBC does not.

You can clearly observe that overall, headline wholesale prices year over year have been trending higher since June 2023. That bottom came out in July 2023, when the Fed last hiked the interest rate in the current cycle and then paused for good.

That was a big mistake.

The rise in wholesale prices since then is as good an indicator as any that higher inflation is deeply embedded in the economy and that the Fed stopped hiking too soon. Arguably core prices sent the same signal, but not starting until after December 2023.

Paying attention to core could explain the Fed's mistake, but for the fact that if the Fed were truly listening to this information, it wouldn't have then cut by 50 basis points in September 2024. I mean, c'mon man.

Jay Powell represents the interests of the bankers and Wall Street, for whom inflation is a good thing because it is the screen behind which the pipeline from prices to profits gets juiced.

He does not represent the people.

Who appointed that guy anyway?!

 

   

 

This conservative outrage machine story yesterday and today about Commerce Secretary Raimondo has got to be the dumbest one I've heard in a long time

 She was asked an ignorant question.

Why would the Commerce Secretary have something timely to say about employment revisions released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics at the Labor Department?

It's not her area. I wouldn't expect her to know anything about it, and if I had a brain I wouldn't bother asking her.

Commerce and Labor are two separate cabinet level departments and have been since 1913.

I don't expect the Commerce Secretary to have the latest labor information anymore than I expect the Labor Secretary to be able to respond to the latest GDP report produced by the BEA at the Commerce Dept.

But all the ignorami on the right, but I repeat myself, are up in arms over this. It's embarrassing.

What's really going on here is outrage over the size of the revision, which is the largest since 2009.

Republicans want to say Biden and Harris have been lying about the jobs numbers for a year to make themselves look better.

That's a crock. The initial benchmark revisions occur every year around this time, and their size should be no surprise since the Employment Situation Summary every month contains revisions upon revisions upon revisions of prior months. This happens all the time, and if you know you know that this year the numbers have been particularly susceptible of large revisions, criticism, and expressed suspicions from the FOMC members on down.

But total nonfarm payrolls have always been this way. They are quick and dirty on any day. I gave up following them in favor of other measures precisely because it involves securing jello on a galley plate in high seas, and I have better things to do.

Full time employment, measured with other data, around 50% of population under Joe Biden hasn't been great, and it hasn't been awful either. In my arrogant opinion, following total nonfarm and its endless stream of revisions is a fool's errand.

Even more foolish to get upset about it when plenty of other indicators show that employment up until this summer has been "secularly tight", as one economist likes to put it. Continued claims for unemployment have been steady as she goes since late 2021.

The slight recent elevation in these claims numbers is consistent with a softening of employment, which I have noted elsewhere in regard to full time jobs.

The bloom is off the rose it seems, but the preliminary total nonfarm benchmark revision down 819,000 is a problem with that model, not a sign of a sudden problem with employment. 

 

Inflation more durable than policymakers had anticipated, Joe Biden most hurt

 This week provided a reminder that inflation isn’t going away anytime soon :

The bad news began Monday when a New York Federal Reserve survey showed the consumer expectations over the longer term had accelerated in February. It continued Tuesday with news that consumer prices rose 3.2% from a year ago, and then culminated Thursday with a release indicating that pipeline pressures at the wholesale level also are heating up. ...

The latest jolt on inflation came Thursday when the Labor Department reported that the producer price index, a forward-looking measure of pipeline inflation at the wholesale level, showed a 0.6% increase in February. That was double the Dow Jones estimate and pushed the 12-month level up 1.6%, the biggest move since September 2023.

 

The inflation adjusted average price of ground beef in the United States

 In January 1984, ground beef was $1.29/pound.

Adjusted for inflation to August 2023, it should be $3.89/pound, according to the inflation calculator at bls.gov.

Ground beef is actually $5.08/pound, 30.5% higher.

 

The inflation adjusted average price of white potatoes in the United States

 In March 1986, potatoes were $0.21/pound.

Adjusted for inflation to August 2023, they should be $0.59/pound, according to the inflation calculator at bls.gov.

They are actually $1.09, 85% higher.

 

The unemployment rate rose to 3.8%, but not because people lost jobs

 The unemployment rate rose to 3.786% from 3.495% on a bigger 736k increase to the size of the labor force than to the employment level, not because people lost jobs.

The employment level actually made a new high in August 2023, but up a smaller 222k. 

The unemployment rate went up in August because record new high employment in August, 161.484m, is a smaller percentage of a new larger labor force in August, 167.839m than was the case in July: 96.2% in August vs. 96.5% in July = 3.8% and 3.5% unemployed respectively. 

And do not mix the limited Establishment Survey (122,000 businesses and agencies) total nonfarm jobs oranges (156.419m) with the unemployment rate Household Survey (60,000 households) whole universe of jobs apples and try to make them agree. They don't, and never will.

The Establishment Survey went up 187k in August, but the unemployment rate is not derived from that survey. 

 

 

Trump gave 2.3 million foreigners US jobs in fiscal 2017 and 1.8 million in 2018 while 22.7 million able-bodied Americans 25-54 weren't even in the labor force in 2018

2018 USCIS Statistical Annual Report

Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey

Rush Limbaugh doesn't know what he's talking about when he says there are more job openings than workers

Total nonfarm job openings: 7,581,000

A: Unemployment level: 6,235,000

B: Not in labor force want a job now: 5,222,000

C: Not in labor force age 25-54: 22,015,000

A is the official unemployment level. To be counted in it you have to be counted in the labor force.

B is the number of people in addition to the unemployed who are unemployed but aren't counted as such because they are not in the labor force. These are the people unemployed longer than one year who say they still want a job when they are surveyed.

C is all the people of prime working age who aren't in the labor force and aren't counted as unemployed. Some of B are included in this number. This group averaged 21.3 million in both 2006 and 2007, before the shit hit the fan, and got as high as almost 24 million in 2015. It averaged 22.7 million last year. The data goes back only to 1982 but shows that in the 1980s and some of the 1990s that this group shrank during jobs recoveries just as it is shrinking now. There is lots of potential labor here sitting on the sidelines.

In any event, A + B means at least 11.5 million jobless with 7.6 million openings.

Advantage: employers.

P. S. I have seen the very same jobs with the very same companies advertized for years on end. How do they never get filled, hm?

Feminist actress Pat Arquette obviously never read an Employment Situation Summary from the BLS

Here:

"We have 60% of our families now with female breadwinners".

In December 2016 women who maintained families numbered 9.998 million out of 71.43 million women aged 16 and over employed (not seasonally adjusted), or about 8% of all US households, 14% of the women employed, and 6.5% of the total employed.

Steve Liesman tries to be charitable to Trump on 96 million wanting a job, but comes up short 5.9m

From the story here:

Trump said that there "are 96 million wanting a job and they can't get (one). You know that story. The real number. That's the real number."

It is unfortunately very far from the real number. There are in fact 96 million Americans age 16 and older who are not in the labor force. Of this, just 5.4 million, or 91 million fewer than the number cited by Trump, say they want a job. The rest are retired, sick, disabled, running their households or going to school. (This number is 256,000 fewer than last year and 1.7 million fewer than the all-time high for the series in 2013.)

... A more charitable explanation for Trump would expand the number to include those people who are working part time because they can't find full-time work, all the unemployed and those marginally attached to the workforce. This broader measure of slack in the economy, known as the U6, is about 14.7 million. It's the lowest since May 2008, and has come down by nearly 12 million since the worst of the job market effects of the financial crisis in 2010. And remember, many of these folks have work, though it's part time.

This isn't charitable enough because Liesman never adds the 5.4 million to the 14.7 million. He must know you can't do this because that would involve double counting. The monthly Employment Situation Summary always includes the "marginally attached" in the expanded figures, people who are not in the labor force, but they are a subset of the 5.4 million.

But this can easily be remedied, and one wonders why the BLS doesn't do this.

Here's the data, with links.

Not in the labor force, not seasonally adjusted, is 95.8 million.

Not in the labor force, want a job now, not seasonally adjusted, is 5.45 million (peak was 7.2 million in May 2013).

The unemployed represent another 7.5 million from the monthly Employment Situation Summary. Those who work part-time but would rather have full-time represent 5.6 million more in the same report. But both of those groups are in the labor force, a total of 13.1 million.

To those 13.1 million simply add the 5.4 million from not in the labor force above and you get 18.5 million unemployed.

To get that expressed as a percentage you have to add the 5.4 million in to the civilian labor force because they want a job now, here, because the unemployment rate is the unemployed as a percentage of the labor force, which by the addition is now larger, 164.4 million.

So that yields a real unemployment rate of 11.3%. The U6RATE comes up quite short of this, at 9.2%. Meanwhile most people think everything's great because the headline rate is only 4.7% (7.5 million unemployed as a percentage of 159.6 million in the labor force).

There are not 96 million unemployed as Trump laughably says, but neither are there the 12.6 million Liesman ends up with, either.

18.5 million are unemployed in December 2016, at a rate of 11.3%.

Bill Cunningham repeating stupid: "95 million Americans can't find work"

Last night in the first hour of the show.

"Not in the labor force" explained.

They aren't LOOKING for work. They are your retired parents. They are your kids in high school, college and graduate school. They are your stay at home mothers and fathers. They are the sick and the disabled.

Carrying the water for Democrats, the NY Times lies about "healthy job growth": Additions are more than 20% behind the 2015 rate

In "Last Economic Snapshot Before the Election Shows Healthy Job Growth".

The Bureau of Labor Statistics states up front in this latest economic snapshot that additions to nonfarm payrolls are way behind the 2015 average in the first ten months of 2016:

Joe Pags thinks "not in the labor force" does not include the retired, but it does

It's shocking how many people still think, wrongly, that "not in the labor force" includes huge numbers of people who could be or should be working but aren't.

Today on his show Joe Pags said the number not in the labor force, currently over 94 million, does not include retired people, when, for example in 2014 the retired constituted 44% of those "not in the labor force". The truth is the retired always constitute the single largest proportion of those "not in the labor force".

The sick and disabled in 2014 accounted for almost 19%, and people going to school made up another 18% of the total "not in the labor force". Tell me there are some claiming disability who don't have one who should be working, but don't tell me the damn kids should be working. 15.5% were homemakers while 3.5% had other reasons. There's probably many people in these categories who might want a job but can't find one, or ought to be working but aren't, but nothing even remotely close to the almost 39 million retired at the time.

Joe Pags joins a long list of idiots who are quite outspoken in their ignorance about this, including Zero Hedge, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Donald Trump, et alia. Thinking there might be vast numbers of hidden unemployed in "not in the labor force" is just plain lazy stupid.

None of these apparently have had the slightest interest in checking this out on Al Gore's amazing internet using the google machine, which takes you to this page at the Bureau of Labor Statistics with one of the better explanations out there.

I can only conclude the ignorance in the case of Joe Pags is willful because Joe Pags is smarter than that. But then again, he thinks Ted Cruz is a natural born citizen.

His bad.

Sorry Marco, they can fact check your stupidity: philosophers make more than welders

And arguably, we're already producing plenty of welders relative to philosophers, at least 16 times more, but it would be nice if the welders, and the politicians, could at least speak English correctly, as in "more welders, fewer philosophers", instead of "more welders, less philosophers". 

From the BLS, here:

Rush Limbaugh thinks the 46 million on food stamps are the U-3 "counted" unemployed, many of whom actually can and do work

Yesterday, here:

"Today, there are 46 million Americans unemployed, and 94 million not working. Now, these 46 million people, these are the counted unemployed. This is the U-3 number. The counted unemployed represent 14% of the population."

Limbaugh somehow gets this convoluted mess from here, which he cites but which clearly states the 46 million are those on food stamps, not the U-3 "counted" unemployed:

"The reason you don’t see huge lines of people waiting in soup lines during this Greater Depression is because the government has figured out how to disguise suffering through modern technology. During the height of the Great Depression in 1933, there were 12.8 million Americans unemployed. These were the men pictured in the soup lines. Today, there are 46 million Americans in an electronic soup kitchen line, as their food is distributed through EBT cards (with that angel of mercy JP Morgan reaping billions in profits by processing the transactions). These 46 million people represent 14% of the U.S. population." 

In the latest Employment Situation Summary from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for September, those actually counted as unemployed are listed at 7.915 million (2.5% of the population) and the not counted as unemployed at 1.9 million:

"In September, the unemployment rate held at 5.1 percent, and the number of unemployed persons (7.9 million) changed little. Over the year, the unemployment rate and the number of unemployed persons were down by 0.8 percentage point and 1.3 million, respectively. (See table A-1.) . . . In September, 1.9 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force, down by 305,000 from a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. (See table A-16.)"

U-3 is not a number in millions as Limbaugh says but a rate, the percentage of the labor force which is unemployed (7.915 million / 156.715 million), namely 5.1%.

Limbaugh doesn't understand that lots of employed people get food stamps. Individuals grossing up to $15,312 annually can still qualify for assistance.

Almost 49 million individuals made up to but not more than $15,000 annually in 2014.

The unemployed in Sept. 2015 numbered 7.9 million

U-3 is a percentage

Conservative news sarcasm alert: 97% of those 94.6 million not in the labor force aren't lazy bums after all

They're the 92 million who are in high school, college, and graduate school full-time, or who are raising the kids at home, or are disabled, or are over 65 years of age, retired and drawing Social Security.

Just 3% don't fit into any of those categories, or about 2.8 million people, that's it.

These are the  truly "marginally attached" who aren't counted as unemployed.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics says about them:

"These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey."

The BLS estimates they number 1.9 million in September. This analysis puts them about a million higher than that. Both can't be right but the margin of error is only 1%.

The government's estimate is close enough, I'd say.

Employment Situation report records 142,000 added to payrolls in August vs. 212,000 monthly in past year

That's a 33% decline in one month in the pace at which jobs have been added monthly in the last year.

From the report, here:

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 142,000 in August, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 6.1 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. ... Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 142,000 in August, compared with an average monthly gain of 212,000 over the prior 12 months. In August, job growth occurred in professional and business services and in health care. ... The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for June was revised from +298,000 to +267,000, and the change for July was revised from +209,000 to +212,000. With these revisions, employment gains in June and July combined were 28,000 less than previously reported.

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Meanwhile, hours have been flat for six months at 34.5 and hourly wages climbed at a 2.1% annual pace, meaning there is little sign of an uptick in inflation in labor costs.

Those who work usually part-time declined slightly below last year's summer nadir, another sign ObamaCare is NOT part-timing workers . . . yet.

Those who work usually full-time rose to their summer peak to just over 120 million, but this measure is still 3.1 million off the summer 2007 peak, SEVEN years ago.

The labor participation rate came in at 63.0%, not seasonally adjusted, a level we thought we had said goodbye to permanently in the mid-1980s. The level was first achieved in 1976 in the post-war.

The pace of job creation under Obama remains well below the rates under Reagan and Clinton.

Unemployment plummets to 6.3%, 288,000 jobs are added in April and the stock market just shrugs its shoulders

The employment situation report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for April 2014 is here.

806,000 people dropped out of the labor force in April (seasonally adjusted), many of whom likely caused the unemployment rate to plunge 0.4 points to 6.3%. Fewer people not counted as unemployed even though they were unemployed makes the headline number drop. The not-seasonally-adjusted number leaving the civilian labor force was 782,000.

People are making too much of this data point, however. Granted, the drop was large for a March to April cycle. But key is that the civilian labor force level always peaks in July each year and then declines and rises again to a new high. It is not appreciated that a new all time high in the civilian labor force level was reached just last July at 157,196,000. True, the pace of achieving new peak levels was arrested after July 2008. Adding about 1.5 million to the labor force each summer as in the past would mean we should have been at about 163.8 million in the summer of 2013. We were off that pace by 6 million. The April 2014 level, however, was higher than the April 2013 level, which was higher than the April 2012 level, which was higher than the April 2011 level. The point is the civilian labor force level is climbing out of its hole, and the peaks and valleys prove it. When they stop proving it we should be concerned.

The 288,000 added to payrolls in April stands in vivid relief against the 190,000 average added to payrolls per month in the preceding twelve months. The employment level of those who are 25-54 years old surged 321,000 to 95,421,000, still almost 6 million under the November 2007 high. At 288,000 per month for a year, one could easily add almost 3.5 million to payrolls and in two years return the levels of those of prime working age to the previous peak.

Per hour earnings for all employees did not rise and remained flat. That is concerning, but at least production and nonsupervisory employees saw an increase.

Unemployment rate remains at 6.7% in March, average year over year job growth slows to 183k monthly, weekly hours recover

The BLS reports here:

"Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 192,000 in March, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 6.7 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment grew in professional and business services, in health care, and in mining and logging. ... Job growth averaged 183,000 per month over the prior 12 months. ... The average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls increased by 0.2 hour in March to 34.5 hours, offsetting a net decline over the prior 3 months."

-------------------------------------------------

While total nonfarm private payrolls have finally beaten the 1/1/08 peak (by just 96,000 jobs), rising to 116.07 million, neither seasonally-adjusted nor not-seasonally-adjusted total nonfarm employment has yet to surpass the pre-recession peak. Strapped municipalities and states find it difficult to add to government payrolls with reduced revenues due to on-going unemployment and reduced real estate values.

In 2013 job growth's pace averaged 194,000 monthly, which means at the current year over year pace of 183,000 monthly job growth has slowed 5.7% in 2014 to date.

Rising length of the work week arrests a worrisome downtrend for the time being.

February Unemployment Ticks Up To 6.7%, Year Over Year Job Growth Slows 2.5% Compared To All Of 2013

The BLS reports here:

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 175,000 in February, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 6.7 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment increased in professional and business services and in wholesale trade but declined in information.

Both the number of unemployed persons (10.5 million) and the unemployment rate (6.7 percent) changed little in February. The jobless rate has shown little movement since December. Over the year, the number of unemployed persons and the unemployment rate were down by 1.6 million and 1.0 percentage point, respectively. ...

Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 175,000 in February. Job growth averaged 189,000 per month over the prior 12 months. In February, job gains occurred in professional and business services and in wholesale trade, while information lost jobs.

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The poor job growth in January of 113,000 was revised up a paltry amount, to 129,000. 2013 job growth averaged 194,000 per month and year over year in February is down 2.5% compared to that.