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Christian Saether's avatar

Appreciate your level take and analysis of economic data.

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David John Urban's avatar

Thanks Jared. The stock market sure hates Trump's attempt to destroy US car manufacturers who use union labor, his revenge on UAW.

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David E Lewis's avatar

"Second, and intimately related to the still-intact labor market, real after-tax income looks good through February, up 0.3% in Jan and a hefty 0.5% in Feb. Mechanically, higher income and less spending means higher savings, and savings rates are up from a very low 3.3% in Dec to 4.6% in Feb."

To the extent team Trump aims to cut our trade deficit THAT (raising the US savings rate) is the only way to fly.

Pretty sure they haven't at all considered how unpleasant that path will be.

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Deanna Laquian's avatar

The jobs piece doesn’t include the tens of thousands of firings of federal workers yet, right? That 1% GDP growth will seem optimistic by the time employment numbers show its effects (to consumer spending, inflation, etc.)

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Jared Bernstein's avatar

That 1% was already marked down to 0.6% after factoring in the soft spending in today's report.

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Deanna Laquian's avatar

😂 Even better. It seems to show that the likelihood of a Trumpcession will come into fruition sooner than expected. Thoughts and prayers to the tanking Trump slump GDP (and the precipitous decline of its evil twin’s stock, Musk’s Tesla).

To be clear, no American wants their economy to flounder, but if it lays bare the consequences of the greed of the oligarchy taking hold of our government at the expense of the rest of us, then so be it.

Tangentially, I’ve been wanting to say, we Americans can’t ever express our full gratitude to you, Yellen, and Biden for Bidenomics that salvaged our economy during the pandemic’s Great Recession. You created an economy that was indeed as promised, beneficial to most Americans. I voted for Biden and would’ve wanted him to continue his vision. His legacy endures in all of us.

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