News & Commentary Weekly Highlights:

• Wall Street Journal: The Right-to-Work Advantage (Wednesday)
• Real Clear Markets: To Relieve Human Suffering, Unleash Economic Growth (Tuesday)
• Washington Post: U.S. millennials post ‘abysmal’ scores in tech skills test, lag behind foreign peers (Monday)
• Bloomberg View: The Politics of Aging (Monday)
• Wall Street Journal: The Mumbo-Jumbo of ‘Middle-Class Economics’ (Monday)

 

Top Economic Indicator Highlights: (update)

Employment Situation (February)

Household Survey

• Nonfarm payroll jobs: 295,000, 12-mo avg.: 275,000, Recovery avg.: 150,000
• Private payrolls: 288,000, 12-mo avg.: 267,000, Recovery avg.: 160,000
• Average workweek: 34.6 hours
• Largest industry sector growth (% change): Construction (+0.5%, +29,000)
• Largest industry sector growth (level change): Food services and drinking places (+0.1%, +59,000)
• Noteworthy: Mining fell by 9,300 payroll jobs, with largest drops in support activities for mining and oil and gas extraction, affected by lower oil prices.

Establishment Survey

• Unemployment rate: 5.5%, 12-mo avg.: 6.0% , Recovery avg.: 8.1%
• Long-term unemployed (% of unemployed): 31.1%, 12-mo avg.: 32.6%, Recovery avg.: 39.3%
• Labor force participation rate: 62.8%, 12-mo avg.: 62.9%, Recovery avg.: 63.8%
• Employment-to-population ratio: 59.3%, 12-mo avg.: 59.1%, Recovery avg.: 58.6%

 

THIS WEEK

 

Upcoming Economic Reports & Releases:

Major Indicators

• Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS, 10am, Tuesday)
• Treasury Budget (2pm, Wednesday)
• Retail Sales (8:30am, Thursday)
• Business Inventories (10am, Thursday)
• Producer Price Index-Final Demand (PPI-FD, 8:30am, Friday)

Reports

• The CBO’s Updated Baseline Budget Projections (11am, Monday)
• The CBO’s Analysis of the President’s FY 2016 Budget (Mid-to-late week)

 

Chart of the Week: (update):