It's The Economy Stupid: Payrolls, Earnings, Unemployment, Underemployment, AND DONUTS!

It’s NATIONAL DONUT DAY!    It’s your day Greg Carr!

 

Today we got your Payroll data, your Hourly Earnings data, your Weekly Earnings data, your Unemployment Rate, your Underemployment Rate, and your Donut Day all wrapped into one.  It’s a plethora of stuff.

 

Economic Event	Period	Economic Survey	Actual Reported	Original Prior	Revised Prior
Change in Nonfarm Payrolls	MAY	163K	175K	165K	149K
Two-Month Payroll Net Revision	MAY		-12K
Change in Private Payrolls	MAY	175K	178K	176K	157K
Change in Manufact. Payrolls	MAY	4K	-8K	0K	-9K
Unemployment Rate	MAY	7.5%	7.6%	7.5%
Avg Hourly Earning MoM All Empl	MAY	0.2%	0.0%	0.2%
Avg Hourly Earning YoY All Empl	MAY	2.1%	2.0%	1.9%	2.0%
Avg Weekly Earning YoY All Empl	MAY	34.5	34.5	34.4	34.5
Change in Household Employment	MAY		319	293
Uderemployment Rate (U6)	MAY		13.8%	13.9%

 

Okay, this is basically flat line numbers.  Not great news, but not bad news.  More data saying the economy is improving at a “measured” pace.  No inflation pressure in these numbers.

 

An optimist can point out that employment increased more than forecast in May and the jobless rate climbed from a four-year low as more Americans entered the labor force, showing the world’s largest economy weathered the effects of higher taxes and federal budget cuts.  Payrolls rose 175,000 last month after a revised 149,000 increase in April that was smaller than first estimated. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey called for a 163,000 gain, so you could say that the actual number was greater than forecast. However, a pessimist can point out that the unemployment rate rose to 7.6 percent from 7.5 percent.  So let’s just say that the improvement in the labor market is a sign companies are looking beyond fiscal restraint this quarter and are optimistic enough about the prospects for demand in the second half of the year to not fire people.  At the same time, much bigger job and wage gains are needed to move Federal Reserve policy makers closer to scaling back record monetary stimulus.