Nice beats in new and continuing claims -- no recession evidence here. In our new DOGE Tracker on page 3, Washington DC continues to lead the nation in jobless claims growth since Trump's inauguration, followed by federal employees nationwide. Virgina is in fourth place, behind Vermont (does Bernie Sanders have a secret plan to reduce the size of government?). Maryland shows only a modest increase in claims, in fifteenth place. And our office utilization index has moved to post-pandemic highs -- is DOGE driving remote workers back to their offices?
Separately, the Producer Price Index was reported as unchanged for February (final demand actually deflated), confounding expectations for pre-tariff pre-emptive buying (we've updated yesterday's "Data Insights: CPI/PPI" to reflect it). Hmmmm... seems that none of the standard narratives are without their complications.
High-Freq Data Monitor
High-Freq Data Monitor
Wednesday, March 5, 2025
New jobless claims beat, falling back to the low levels interrupted by last week's scare. Our daily measure of 365 days-ahead forward earnings is trying to recover, but still below the late January peak. Red lights aren't flashing here. But yellow ones are.
High-Freq Data Monitor
Thursday, February 27, 2025
Big miss in new jobless claims, a jump of 22,000 (from 220,000 to 242,000 on the week). It will make a nice media narrative to blame DOGE government firings for it. But 242,000 is lower than the 260,000 claims last October before anyone had heard of DOGE. And put together, the increase in claims across DC, Virginia and Maryland was just 2,800. But the story is too good to fact-check, so...
High-Freq Data Monitor
Thursday, February 20, 2025
Since Trump's inauguration and the headlong dash of DOGE, new claims for unemployment in Washington DC have totaled 3.7 thousand, Maryland 8.6 thousand, and Virginia 1.1 thousand. Across all states, the average is 13.5 thousand. Yes, that's not population-adjusted, but it's indicative that, so far, all the overheated headlines about DOGE have been, well, overheated.
High-Freq Data Monitor
Thursday, February 13, 2025
Nice beat in claims. Yesterday’s inflation news was a bad surprise – but there’s no high-frequency data that’s showing any distress.
High-Freq Data Monitor
Thursday, February 6, 2025
A small miss in claims, but the number is still very low. Over all of January, new claims in California were only 10,000 despite the extreme dislocations caused by the Los Angeles fires. Separately, nationwide there is a new high in office utilization. People are still coming back, but utilization remains miles below the pre-pandemic levels.
High-Freq Data Monitor
Thursday, January 30, 2025
Big beats in both new and continuing claims, built in part on a surprising drop in claims in fire-stricken California.
High-Freq Data Monitor
Thursday, January 23, 2025
New and continuing jobless claims missed slightly, but remain low. There's only the smallest impact from the California fires -- this week's new claims very normal, last week's revised only a little higher. Is serious impact going to be delayed, or maybe will there be no impact? It's hard to get labor organized around new demands, but there is surely a great demand for it now in the rebuilding.
High-Freq Data Monitor
Thursday, January 16, 2025
Perfectly normal claims report -- too soon to see the inevitable effects of the Los Angeles fires. Our "Truflation" real-time inflation indicator, which correctly called yesterday's December CPI, is showing flat price growth so far with half of January under our belt.
High-Freq Data Monitor
Wednesday, January 8, 2025
God rest the soul of James Earl Carter. He did his best. Meanwhile, new claims beats yet again and our "Truflation" CPI estimate shows outright deflation so far in the New Year.