JEC Republican Staff Memo

February 8 – 12, 2016

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LAST WEEK

News & Commentary Weekly Highlights:

• Wall Street Journal: Jobs Report Keeps Fed’s March Rate Decision in Limbo (Friday)
• Real Clear Markets: Unleashing the Global Competitiveness of the U.S. (Friday)
• Market Watch: Welcome to the Global Economy’s New Abnormal (Thursday)
• Fox Business: Lack of Wage Growth No Great Mystery in U.S. Jobs Market (Thursday)
• Wall Street Journal: U.S. to Cut Back Issuance of Longer-Term Debt (Wednesday)

Top Economic Indicator Highlights:

Productivity and Costs (Q4-2015)

Nonfarm Business Sector

• Productivity (output per hour, annual rate): -3.0%, Recovery avg.: 1.0%
• Output: 0.1%
• Hours worked: 3.3%
• Real hourly compensation: 1.1% annual rate
• Unit labor costs: 4.5%
• Noteworthy: From the fourth quarter of 2014 to the fourth quarter of 2015, productivity increased 0.3% and real hourly compensation grew 2.7%. Productivity growth for the third quarter of 2015 ticked down to 2.1% after revision. The annual average for 2015 nonfarm business labor productivity growth slowed to 0.6% from a 0.7% rate for 2014.

THIS WEEK

Upcoming Economic Reports & Releases:

Major Indicators

• Labor Market Conditions Index (10am, Monday)
• Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (10am, Tuesday)
• Wholesale Trade (10am, Tuesday)
• Treasury Budget (2pm, Wednesday)
• Retail Sales (8:30am, Friday)
• Import and Export Prices (8:30am, Friday)
• Business Inventories (10am, Friday)

Major Reports

• President’s Fiscal Year 2017 Budget (Tuesday)

Chart of the Week:

The chart above shows the growth in real GDP 26 quarters from the end of each post-1960 recession (for recessions that lasted longer than 6 months). The current recovery continues to rank last compared to the other recoveries, growing at a pace roughly half that of the average post-1960 recovery.