LAST WEEK

News & Commentary Weekly Highlights:

• Wall Street Journal: Would Negative Rates Work in the U.S.? (Thursday)
• Real Clear Markets: The U.S. Is Now the Least Ugly Economy (Thursday)
• Wall Street Journal: IMF Cuts 2016 Global Economic Growth Outlook to 3.2% (Tuesday)
• Washington Post: At Purdue, Student Aid Based on Future Earnings Could Revolutionize College Debt (Monday)
• Market Watch: The U.S. Economy: Goldilocks It’s Not (Monday)

 

Top Economic Indicator Highlights:

Consumer Price Index (March)

• Change from previous month: 0.1%
• Change less food & energy (M/M): 0.1%
• Noteworthy: BLS notes that core prices are no longer on a steady path of acceleration, as shelter prices slow in growth. The headline index rose 0.9% over the last 12 months, unadjusted. Core CPI (less food and energy) has decelerated 0.1 percentage point to 2.2% over the past 12 months.
• Series Detail: The CPI is a collection of indexes that measures the average change in consumer prices over time for a fixed basket of goods and services from the perspective of the consumer, whereas the producer price index for final demand (PPI-FD) measures price changes from the producer’s perspective.

 

JEC Releases:

• Countdown to Tax Day – Day 1 (Sunday)
• Countdown to Tax Day – Day 2 (Saturday)
• March State Employment Reports (Friday)
• Countdown to Tax Day – Day 3 (Friday)
• Countdown to Tax Day – Day 4 (Thursday)
• Countdown to Tax Day – Day 5 (Wednesday)
• Countdown to Tax Day – Day 6 (Tuesday)
• Countdown to Tax Day – Day 7 (Monday)

 

THIS WEEK

Upcoming Economic Reports & Releases:

Major Indicators

• Housing Starts & Building Permits (8:30am, Monday)
• Existing Home Sales (10am, Wednesday)

 

JEC Hearing

• Is Our Complex Code Too Taxing on the Economy? (2:30pm, Wednesday)

Chart of the Week:

 

 

The chart above, based on data from Pew Research Center, shows how American family arrangements have shifted over the past several decades. Though the share of children living in households with no parent or two parents in remarriage have stayed roughly the same over time, the share of children in families with two parents in first marriage has significantly declined from nearly three-fourths to under half. Alternatively, the share of children living with cohabiting parents (counted as single parents in the 1960 and 1980 data) and single parents has grown significantly over the same time period, comprising one-third combined in 2014 compared to less than one-tenth in 1960. Brookings Institution’s Isabel Sawhill notes that gaps in family structure and parenting styles are creating “very unequal starts” for American children, affecting income inequality and potentially slowing economic mobility for those on the low end of the economic ladder.