LAST WEEK

News & Commentary Weekly Highlights:

• Financial Times: ECB keeps interest rates on hold (Thursday)
• National Review: More Duct Tape Won’t Save Obamacare’s Collapsing Exchanges (Wednesday)
• Wall Street Journal:  Indiana Growth Model (Wednesday)
• Bloomberg: The World Is Warming But the Antarctic Is Getting Colder (Wednesday)
• Wall Street Journal: Fed Officials Gain Confidence They Can Raise Rates This Year (Tuesday)
• AEIdeas: Market-based solutions are the only way to get home prices and rents back in line (Monday)

 

Top Economic Indicator Highlights:

New Residential Construction (June 2016)

• Building permits: 1,153,000 (seasonally adjusted annual rate) building permits for privately-owned housing units were granted for June. This is a 1.5% increase relative to May, but 13.6% below the June 2015 estimate.
• Housing starts: There were 1,189,000 (seasonally adjusted annual rate) privately-owned housing starts in June. This is a 4.8% increase from May’s revised number, but 2% below June 2015’s numbers.
• Noteworthy: According to the Wall Street Journal: “New applications for building permits, a bellwether for forthcoming construction, rose 1.5% to 1.153 million, from a downwardly revised May figure. Permits have lagged behind housing starts since February, which some fear could signal weakness in the housing market going forward.”

 

JEC Releases:

• The State of Entrepreneurship (Wednesday)

 

THIS WEEK

Upcoming Economic Reports & Releases:

Major Indicators

• Dallas Fed Manufacturing Survey (10:30am, Mon)
• Philly Fed Non-Manufacturing Survey (8:30am, Tue)
• Consumer Confidence Index (10:00am, Tue)
• New Residential Sales (10:00am, Tue)
• Richmond Fed Manufacturing Survey (10:00am, Tue)
• Dallas Fed - Texas Retail Outlook Survey (10:30am, Tue)
• Revised Building Permits (8:00am, Wed)
• Advance Durable Goods (8:30am, Wed)
• Pending Home Sales (10:00am, Wed)
• Advance Economic Indicators (8:30am, Thu)
• Employment Cost Index (8:30am, Fri)
• Gross Domestic Product (Advance Estimate) (8:30am, Fri)
• Chicago Purchasing Managers Index (9:45am, Fri)
• Michigan Consumer Sentiment (Final) (10:00am, Fri)

 

Reports and Releases:

• June State Employment Data (Monday)

 

Chart of the Week:

 

This chart shows nominal GDP (NGDP) per household, which is an estimate of the average American household’s annual income. Prior to 2008, NGDP tended to closely follow its trend. Post-2008 there is an immense gap. Cumulatively, from 2008 to 2015, the average American household is missing $180,282 of income ($23,535 per year). Rather than using the normal “real” (inflation-adjusted) GDP measurement, a calculation based on nominal (current-dollar) GDP is useful because the bills families face are stated in current dollars, such as mortgages, college loans, car payments, etc. These costs would be more bearable without the average loss of $23,535 per household each year since 2008.

 

On a per capita basis, the cumulative gap per American is $65,230 ($8,154 average per year).