Weekly Economic Snapshot 6/11 - 6/15

Economic Facts for This Week

• Republicans claimed that their tax cuts cleaned up and simplified the tax code, but recent analysis from the Joint Committee on Taxation suggests otherwise. JCT finds that the new law only repealed 9 tax breaks while creating 17 new ones, thus actually increasing the number of tax expenditures in this year’s code.
• First- and second-generation immigrants founded more than half of the top 25 technology companies in the United States.
• Nationally, individual marketplace premiums are expected to rise more than $1,000 in 2019 due to Republican actions. The Center for American Progress has estimated premium increases for all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
• Countries with high rates of opioid use, like the United States, also tend to have lower labor force participation rates, according to the 2018 OECD Economic Survey of the United States.

Chart of the Week             

President Trump is right to praise the health of the labor market, but the current low level of unemployment is the result of an expansion spanning nearly a decade, not policy changes made six months ago. After the worst recession since the Great Depression, the United States has consistently added jobs every month since September 2010. The pace of job creation has slowed since President Trump took office though. In his first 16 full months in office, the economy has added an average of 185,000 jobs per month, compared with 205,000 per month in the last 16 full months of President Obama’s tenure.

ICYMI

• The Bureau of Labor Statistics released a new contingent worker survey for the first time since 2005. The survey looks at employees whose jobs are conditional, temporary, or on a contract basis.
• A study of community college certificates in Oregon found that those who completed their certificate saw an average boost of $5,000 to their annual earnings.
• New research shows that manufacturing productivity gains benefit workers even beyond the city that sees the gains.

Coming This Week

• Tuesday 8:30am: Consumer Price Index (inflation, for May): https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.htm

• Wednesday 2:00pm: Federal Open Market Committee announcement (where they are expected to announce a raise in the federal funds rate): https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/fomccalendars.htm

• Thursday 8:30am: Retail Sales (for May): https://www.census.gov/retail/marts/www/marts_current.pdf