LAST WEEK

News & Commentary Weekly Highlights:

• Wall Street Journal: A Hiring Decline in April Points to Broader Labor Market Woes (Wednesday)
• USA Today: Free Trade Takes a Beating in 2016(Wednesday)
•  Real Clear Markets: Paul Ryan and the GOP Start a Serious Poverty Conversation (Wednesday)
•  Wall Street Journal: World Bank Cuts Global-Growth Outlook (Tuesday)
• Washington Times: The Fatal Sickness of Free Stuff (Monday)

 

Top Economic Indicator Highlights:

Productivity and Costs (Q1-2016)

Nonfarm Business Sector

• Productivity (output per hour, annual rate): -0.6%, Recovery avg.: 0.5%
• Output: 0.9%
• Hours worked: 1.5%
• Real hourly compensation: 4.2%
• Unit labor costs: 4.5%

• Noteworthy:

 

THIS WEEK

Upcoming Economic Reports & Releases:

Major Indicators

• Retail Sales (8:30am, Tuesday)
• Import and Export Prices (8:30am, Tuesday)
• Business Inventories (10am, Tuesday)
• Producer Price Index for Final Demand (8:30am, Wednesday)
• Industrial Production (9:15am, Wednesday)
• Consumer Price Index (8:30am, Thursday)
• Housing Starts & Building Permits (8:30am, Friday)

Reports & Releases

•  Federal Open Market Committee Forecasts and Meeting Announcement (2pm, Wednesday)

 

Chart of the Week:

 

 

Federal payments to individuals remain elevated compared to other household income. The chart above shows the ratio of average federal transfers, net of average federal taxes, to average market income (which includes labor income, business income, capital income and other income, but excludes federal taxes and transfers) by market income group. The comparison serves to indicate the size of federal transfers compared to the relative size of market income. Though inferring information from the average of each income group is still rather limiting, it nonetheless demonstrates that federal transfers have increased significantly in size—particularly for the lowest and second quintile—as compared to market income since the last recession.