Cheap gasoline prices were key to the Trump-era "boom" for the bottom half of income earners destroyed by the Great Recession

Reported here in "Inflation-shocked low- and middle-income Americans may not spend normally for years":

“For a very large share of Americans, the bottom 60% are spending more on essentials than before the pandemic,” said Michael Pearce, Oxford Economics deputy chief U.S. economist. “The burden is hardest among the lowest income but also touches middle income. Spending patterns of low-income Americans will take years to recover.” ...

The last time low-income Americans’ discretionary spending fell this much, which was during the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2008, it took five to 10 years for spending patterns to return to previous levels, he said.

“And the reason was gas prices fell,” Pearce said. Global oil prices fell by about 70% between 2014-16, which pushed pump prices sharply lower and helped low-income Americans catch up.

“It’s harder to see some revolutionary cost saving (like that) on the horizon,” he said. 

          

Harder to see only if we continue with the green energy nonsense.

The opportunities are YUGE for Trump/Vance because ALL energy costs much more now.

It's not just gasoline. Get the government boot off the neck of fossil fuel producers and gasoline will come down, natural gas will come down, and electricity will come down. 

Base energy from coal should be transitioned to nuclear, which works in cold weather and hot weather without fail just like coal, unlike natural gas, wind, and solar, which are fine where appropriate but not as base energy, the energy you must have when you need it when the sun doesn't shine, the wind doesn't blow, and the gas won't flow.

J. D. Vance knows:

 

 

Twelve years ago under Bush 43 52.36% of Americans had full-time jobs, today just 50.72% do, a deficit of 4.242 million full-time jobs

It's not an economic boom today anymore than September 2007 was, but after the catastrophe of 2008-2009 and the Obama years, some are just relieved that the torturer has stopped visiting their jail cells and mistake that for freedom.

September 2007 (click to enlarge)

September 2019 (click to enlarge)

Average miles traveled on US roads in 2019 through July looks flat compared with 2018

To put the complicated calculation in a nutshell, travel per person 16 years old and over averaged about 12,497 miles for the first seven months of 2019. The full year average for 2018 was 12,483.

So despite there being more cars on the road and population growing and a so-called economic boom, road travel has plateaued.

For another look at it, see Jill Mislinski here, whose population-adjusted road travel chart also shows that the flatlining began with 2017 and that 2005 was the peak year.

You are free to move about the country, but you are not, at least not like you were in a car. 

Meh: Total nonfarm payrolls increased 164,000 in July 2019

Average to date from November 2016 inclusive is 183,000 per month. Not a boom.

Clinton era average: 243,000 per month for eight straight years.

Reagan boom average: 248,000 per month for six years Nov 1982-Nov 1988.

If the current jobs recovery just equaled the average of previous cycle highs, we'd have 3.1 million more working full time jobs than we do

Six previous full time jobs recoveries since 1968 have meant 51.1% of the population working full time on average at peak, but we appear to have stalled out at around 49.9%.

It looks like a small difference on paper but amounts to almost 3.1 million more working full time today than are.

Population continues to grow, why not full time employment along with it?

This is not a boom.

April 2019: 882K dropped out of labor force, labor force contracted 726K, employment level contracted 103K, participation rate fell to 62.8% (the 2016 average), average weekly hours so far in 2019 down 0.4 from 2018 average

Data.

Data.

Data.

Data.

Data.

But other than that it's an economic boom because total nonfarm is up 263K.

This has never been an economic boom, just more meh

Did Billy Cunningham mention the Trumpster's lousy February jobs number last night?

If he did I must have missed it.

20,000 jobs in February, worst performance in 9 years, but Billy Cunningham blathered on about how socialism fails and how Americans enjoy a high standard of living because of great companies like Kroger, Amazon and Walmart. No mention of this huge anomaly in the Trumpster's so-called economic boom.

I can remember when Walmart was widely perceived as the enemy by wide swaths of America because it destroyed mom and pop stores wherever it decided to leave its giant footprint. Walmart defended itself against this opposition with its "Buy American" policy, but those days are long gone now. Walmart and Amazon are now storefronts for Communist China and the globalism which took away America's best jobs for ordinary folks. And the tax breaks generally provided by state and local governments these days to get big businesses to locate where they are is hardly capitalism, but favoritism, state capitalism and fascism. Too much of American life is now the people vs. government and business allied together against them.

But more to the point is that Billy Cunningham's idea of a great America is an America that consumes, whereas the Protestant ethic which truly made America great was the one where people saved, invested and consumed beneath their means. I guess that ethic is not part of the Sunday homily at Billy's church.

It has been because of losing touch with this real meaning and practice of capitalism which has produced the moribund economic conditions where socialism now appears more attractive to growing numbers of Americans for whom capitalism-light has failed to deliver.

Too bad Billy doesn't really get it.  

If this were an economic boom earnings for most people would be increasing 3-4% instead of 2-3%

If this is an economic boom how come new home sales are at 1982 recession levels for a year and a half?

(h/t Jeffrey Snider)

Sorry Charlie: Jeff Cox of CNBC wildly exaggerates wages under Trump, "the last missing piece of the economic recovery"

Here in "Trump has set economic growth on fire":

Friday brought another round of good news: Nonfarm payrolls rose by a better-than-expected 201,000 and wages, the last missing piece of the economic recovery, increased by 2.9 percent year over year to the highest level since April 2009. That made it the best gain since the recession ended in June 2009. ... Indeed, the economy does seem to be on fire, and it's fairly easy to draw a straight line from Trump's policies to the current trends.

The wage series used by Cox for all workers differs little in August 2018 from the series for the 80% of workers who are production and nonsupervisory, except that the latter goes back much farther than 2006, giving a truer picture of where we are at. And where we are at is slightly better off than under Obama, but that's about it. It's still not as good as under George W. Bush, for crying out loud. And it's certainly not "on fire".

This is not an economic boom for most working people.

Noah Smith embraces the Trump narrative: "There’s no doubt that the U.S. economy is in a boom"

Here for Bloomberg.

After examining several indicators, which, however, are not unequivocal for their interpretation despite saying "no doubt", Noah Smith comes down on the side of improved sentiment as the cause of the current "boom".

On that we agree. There's a boom in sentiment.

The problem is, too many people are importing that improved sentiment into their reading of the data, and into their choice of the data.

For example, Smith focuses on job openings to unemployed, which is a tiny measure (6.66 million in June) of what's really going on in the labor market. But the broadest measures of unemployment still show 15.9 million unemployed, underemployed, and no longer counted in the labor force. There is still huge slack in the labor market, which is one reason why wages for the vast majority of workers are not rising like they would in a real economic boom (2.7% y/y in July vs. in the 4s in 2006/7).

Similarly Smith discusses the percent of population employed aged 25-54, but clearly misses that it's most definitely not "back to 2006 levels" as he claims (H1 2018 is at 79.2%, still below the 2006 average of 79.8% and also below the average of either half of 2006). The broadest measure of the percent employed, on the other hand, still shows a huge gap between now and the pre-Great Recession average when over 6 million more were employed than are at present (60.5% now vs. 62.9% then, on average).

The case is similar with domestic investment.

Smith chooses to highlight "Shares of gross domestic product: Gross private domestic investment: Fixed investment: Nonresidential (A008RE1Q156NBEA)" to show that "investment as a percentage of the economy is at about the level of the mid-2000s boom". But the current level in H1 2018 at 13.7% is also identical to H2 2014. Was that indicative of a boom? Did we blink and miss it? How about in H1 2008 when it was again at 13.7%? Was that indicative of a boom? If so, why did the economy then promptly crash in H2 2008?

A broader measure of domestic investment, however, "Shares of gross domestic product: Gross private domestic investment (A006RE1Q156NBEA)", shows us well off the 2006 peak and even the more recent 2015 level. Whatever we call what we have right now, the current 17.7% is still far below the 19.8% level of H1 2006, which itself failed to equal the boom level of the year 2000 (19.9%).

With all that cash unleashed by the tax reforms and sloshing around in the economy, one would think things would look a lot better than this, which simply shows that most of that money indeed went elsewhere.

GDP has been temporarily goosed by the tax reforms in concert with a fresh gusher of federal deficit spending. But those are one-offs. They will not, and cannot, be repeated over and over again in short succession.

We know what comes next.

It's not an economic beum, you fools

Good comparison of the presidents on GDP by Justin Fox at Bloomberg

Guess Which Presidents Really Oversaw Economic Booms

Fox well reminds his readers that GDP is an inadequate measure in many respects, and gives credit where credit is due even when the numbers don't seem to show it.

His second chart is the better chart since it is a political comparison, which is what this is all about, pegging beginning and end of analysis to fourth quarters when presidents are elected or eclipsed.

He has Kennedy and Johnson first and second (5.5% and 5%), followed by Clinton (3.8%), Reagan 3.6%), Carter (3.2%) and Nixon 3.0%), then IKE (2.5%), then Ford and Bush 41 tied (2.2%), with Obama (1.9%) and Bush 43 (1.8%) bringing up the rear. (Trump so far is seventh, ahead of IKE but behind Nixon, at 2.7%).

A few quibbles.

The data is plenty fine for Truman 1948-1952. He should be included. His performance is the best of them all on a full term basis (5.54%), using the same compound annual growth rate Fox uses. The secret to Truman's success? He slashed government spending in the wind-down from World War II. No one seems to get that. By cutting taxes and not slashing spending, Republicans since Truman only defeat themselves and discredit what works.

Secondly, JFK didn't serve out his first term, Nixon his second. Therefore it makes more sense to view JFK coterminous with LBJ (5.19% together), and Ford with Nixon (2.73%), evaluating them together in two eight year periods of Democrat and Republican political administration respectively, which is what it was.

Third, Fox rounds his numbers, which obscures how close Bush and Obama were in their terrible records (1.83% and 1.88% respectively). 

All in all, though, we come up with similar results: Truman is first (5.54), followed by JFK/LBJ (5.19), Clinton (3.81), Reagan (3.55), Carter (3.19), Nixon/Ford (2.73), IKE (2.52), Bush 41 (2.21), Obama (1.88), and Bush 43 (1.83).

Trump's first year through 4Q2017 is 2.47%. Measured 2Q2017 on 2Q2018 just completed he's at 2.85%.

Only by comparison with the previous sixteen years is this anything to cheer about, but thankfully we have that.

If it's an economic boom why aren't inventories surging?

h/t Jeffrey Snider

GDP hysteria

Earlier in the week the economic calendar at FXStreet had indicated a consensus estimate of GDP at 4% for 2Q2018. With less than an hour to go, that prediction has risen to 4.1%.

GDPNow at The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta gave it's final prediction of 3.8% yesterday.

Cheerleaders for Trump on talk radio have been crowing like roosters about a booming economy, pointing to the unemployment rate, and they hope to GDP.

GDP consists of four major components: personal consumption, private investment, net imports/exports, and government consumption and investment.

That last one can contribute significantly when there are big increases to government spending, such as just occurred with defense spending.

I expect to see that reflected in this morning's report, but it shouldn't be confused with an economic boom anymore than stimulus spending under Obama.

Government can pay people to dig a hole and other people to fill it back in again, but that is not an economic boom. Neither is a fireworks display.

Housing starts continue to improve but gradually: It's not a boom

The best that can be said is that the horrible Obama era is over. Housing starts continue to improve, but we have a long way to go before we recover the pre-Great Recession average.

The headline writer at The Hill gets it wrong, but the article author gets it right

People returning to labor force in droves — a key step for the economy, says the headline, but the article says no such thing.

The story author makes many astute points, which the headline writer obviously doesn't understand.

The labor force is growing, but gradually, as is the percentage of the population actually working. We ought to have north of 62% working as was true before the Great Recession instead of 60% now, but the direction is up, if gradual.

This means we are NOT at full employment. People who dropped out are dropping back in, looking for work, and finding it, gradually.

This is dispelling the myth that the decline in the labor force was structural, and permanent. It isn't.

This also explains why wages aren't rising dramatically. Employers still have bodies to choose from as people who formerly sat on the sidelines get back in the game. Employers still do not have to pay dramatically higher wages to keep the employees they have. They still have employees to choose from.

In a nutshell, it's not a boom, but it is overall a return to the right direction.

Fake economic boom: Industrial Production went negative in May 2018

Compared to the 1950s, this economy might as well be sleeping.

What economic boom? Show me!