Last week’s historical perspective on U.S. long-term interest rates concluded that low interest rates are not unusual. The “new normal” is simply the re-establishment of the “old normal”. What was true for long-term interest rates is also true for CPI…
Ever since we elaborated the ‘Race to Zero” forecast in 1992, there have been countless proclamations stating that the secular downward trend in long-term interest rates was at an end. The most recent assertion is that passage of the tax…
In many parts of the world, migration has replaced fertility and mortality as the leading agent of demographic change. The movement of populations is increasingly the primary process shaping patterns of residence within and between countries. While there has been…
The usual metrics used to measure growth in consumer income, e.g. average hourly or weekly earnings, are just the tip of the iceberg in assessing the sustainability of consumer spending because it overlooks substantial changes that have occurred in the…
The most recent Current Population Survey (CPS) estimate of net household formations is disappointing. They estimate an increase of only 405,000 for the 12 months ending March 2017. It is the smallest gain since 2010 and only the second time…
Our more sanguine outlook for the Social Security Trust Fund is to a large extent anchored on the fact that labor force participation rates for older Americans have been increasing for quite some time - in combination with an expansion…
The October Employment report was a mixed bag – great payroll developments; much less spectacular household news. The robust gain in the number of payroll jobs was even more impressive as it followed upward revisions to both August and September. …
Nearly all central bankers profess belief in two economic propositions related to the labor market. First is the existence of a trade-off between unemployment and inflation, i.e. an unemployment rate at or below the natural rate of unemployment will result…
The title of a recent article in The Economist labelled as “Workers are not switching jobs more often” is not totally accurate (https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21730440-millennials-it-turns-out-are-loyal-and-boring-previous) . While it is true that average job tenure has barely changed in America for most age…
The September CPI delivered another curve ball for the Fed. For the fifth month in a row, the core CPI increased by only 1.7%. In the context of what has happened and what is likely to come, it is significant…