The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is often the item we look at when we want to talk about where "inflation" is in this country, and those numbers have leveled off in recent months, with no readings above 0.2% in any of the last 4 months, and the lowest 12-month increase (2.5%) in 3 1/2 years.
That certainly is important, but it's also not the only part of the inflation picture. There also is the costs and prices that businesses pay for their products, before consumers ever buy those items at stores and dealerships. And there was even good news on that side on Thursday.
The Producer Price Index for final demand increased 0.2 percent in August, seasonally adjusted, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Final demand prices were unchanged in July and rose 0.2 percent in June. (See table A.) On an unadjusted basis, the index for final demand advanced 1.7 percent for the 12 months ended in August.
The August rise in the index for final demand can be traced to a 0.4-percent increase in prices for final demand services. The index for final demand goods was unchanged.
Prices for final demand less foods, energy, and trade services advanced 0.3 percent in August, the same as in July. For the 12 months ended in August, the index for final demand less foods, energy, and trade services moved up 3.3 percent.
Not only was final demand PPI staying low (especially for goods), but further up the supply chain, costs are actually going down.
Also add in sizable increases in productivity, with a 2.5% annual rate of increase for the 2nd quarter of 2024, and year-over-year productivity increases of more than 2.4% for each of the last 4 quarters. So if anything, inflation will be diminishing further. And that there is room for both profit as well as wage growth that gives some of those productivity gains back to the workers that made it possible.
Then on Friday, we got even more indications that inflation will stay low in the coming months, as lower oil prices from overseas led to a general decline in import prices.
Nonfuel goods were negative on lower prices for industrial supplies, consumer goods, and food imports. Capital goods was the only category to see an advance. Prices for motor vehicles and parts were flat after rising 0.4% in July, but the annual pace remains elevated at 2.3%.
So there is nothing to cause inflation to gear back up in the coming months, and the real near-term threat is that higher debt costs are causing Americans unneeded financial strain.
It also means that if we had a proactive Federal Reserve that realizes that inflation will stay low and likely decline in the coming months, we will be cutting by 50 points this week. In addition, the weakening in manufacturing and other interest-rate sensitive sectors indicates a need for relief from interest rates that are more than twice the level of current inflation, and possibly triple what it will be in September and October.
After a soft jobs report, and other tepid economic data in recent months, today’s release of the Consumer Price Index update for August would give an indication as to whether inflation had stayed under control as Summer wound down, and if the Federal Reserve might do a sizable cut of interest rates when it meets next week.
When the numbers came down, it showed inflation staying low overall, but not in all areas.
CPI (main gauge of prices at the retail level): Headline: UP 0.2% month, UP 2.5% year-over-year. Core: UP 0.3% month, UP 3.2% yr./yr. Food: UP 0.1% month, UP 2.1% yr./yr. Energy: DN 0.8% month, DN 4% yr./yr Shelter: UP 0.5% month, UP 5.2% yr./yr CPI UP 21% since Jan. 2020 (see… pic.twitter.com/r1WQZp2nhF
The number that got attention from the financial media was the 0.3% (actually 0.28%) increase in the core CPI. Wall Street sheep traders decided that this core stat meant the Federal Reserve was only going to cut by 25 basis points next week, and sold off hard in the morning.
Then things reversed throughout the afternoon.
A rally in the world’s largest technology companies spurred a stock-market rebound in a volatile session that had Wall Street traders digesting faster-than-anticipated inflation data.
It was the first time since October 2022 that the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 each erased an intraday loss of at least 1.5%. Chipmakers led gains on Wednesday, with Nvidia Corp. up 6.5%. Financial, energy and industrial shares underperformed. Treasury yields edged up on bets the Federal Reserve will move gradually with rate cuts. Swap traders have fully priced in a quarter-point Fed reduction next week.
Sounds like the experts don’t know where this is going after next week, and they’re just throwing money around from place to place. But the overall trend is the CPI increasing at a lower level than we saw in the first 3 months of the year.
With underlying inflation of 2-2.5%, and gas prices falling in September, there’s no reason the Fed shouldn’t cut by 50 points with the Fed Funds rate being 3% higher than that. But as I have stated earlier, I suspect the Fed will be scared off by how Republicans will whine, and only do 25 points before the November elections.
The thing is, I would argue that a 50-point cut would help calm down the inflation in shelter that is the main negative of this August report, because it could encourage some people with low-interest mortgages to put their homes on the market and increase inventories.
Preliminary information regarding general fund tax collections for the 2023-24 fiscal year is now available. According to the Department of Revenue (DOR), collections totaled $21,329.6 million in 2023-24, which was 1.7% higher than the previous year.
This office's final estimate of 2023-24 tax collections (projected on January 24 and adjusted for subsequent law changes) was $21,053.9 million. Actual collections were $275.7 million, or 1.3%, above the estimated amount.
Everything I had seen in previous months indicated that the numbers were going to be in line with those January projections. But it looks like the “cleanup” for the end of FY 2024 was much larger than the end of FY 2023. Perhaps a capital gains thing or more quarterly payments due to underpayments on 2023 taxes due to capital gains? Not entirely sure.
Go back to May, the LFB projected the year-end General Fund balance to be $3.8 billion under the previous revenue estimations. So add in the $275 million+ of additional revenues, and we are over $4 billion before we account for FY 2024's expense totals and some miscellaneous revenues.
This also puts us ahead of the revenue curve for year 2 of the 2023-25 biennium, meaning we only need a revenue increase of 1.65% in FY 2025 instead of nearly 3% to meet the LFB’s projections. Even if you assume we only reach those January projections for this current fiscal year, that means we still would be well above $3.4 billion at the end of this budget cycle, and expands the cushion in the next budget.
Good spot to be in, and it certainly means that there is room for more investments into K-12 schools and/or higher education (the UW System’s administration is asking for an additional $855 million, for example), or to help pay for roads or child care services, or other needs.
It also allows for more room for tax cuts, if that’s to be an emphasis for the next budget. Although if we use the large amount of permanent tax cuts that the GOP put together from last year, it would mean there is little left in the General Fund to deal with inflation or any kind of additional spending of note in a $46 billion+ budget.
And given the large number of school and local government referenda that’s looming for November, there’s still work on shared revenues that needs to be done in the next budget, and it needs to go beyond giving more money to unincorporated towns.
Still, the state remains in great fiscal shape, and resources are not going to be a reason to avoid dealing with big issues. Hopefully a fairer-mapped Legislature is going to lead to a better chance of lawmakers being responsive to these needs.
Things have been hectic and odd over the last week in my life (mostly in a good way), but I did notice an important jobs report dropping on Friday before I hit the road for the weekend.
JUST IN: A solid jobs report. The US added 142,000 jobs in August. That’s just below expectations of ~160k and a decent rebound from 89,000 jobs in July.
The unemployment rate fell back to 4.2% (down from 4.3% in July)
Most of the sectors of the economy still saw jobs added in August, which is a good sign for keeping overall growth going. Hiring in construction stayed strong, with another 34,000 jobs added last month, and is now 620,000 jobs above pre-COVID levels, even with the revised benchmarked numbers.
But manufacturing wasn't one of those growing sectors, losing 24,000 jobs in August. That decline came after the prelim benchmarks indicated that past job growth in manufacturing had been overestimated by 115,000 jobs, and if you distribute those losses over the 12 months of the benchmarks, it shows a significant shedding of manufacturing jobs from the start of 2023 to today.
And manufacturing is extremely sensitive to interest rates, as it frequently involves large purchases of machinery and consumers buying large-ticket goods. It doesn't seem like a coincidence that manufacturing jobs started to go down in the wake of the Fed aggressively raising interest rates in 2022 and the first half of 2023.
Heather Long of the Washington Post says that this middling August jobs report, the downward revisions of past job growth and increasingly tame inflation underscore that the Fed should be cutting rates, and by sizable amounts.
There’s an easy way for the Federal Reserve to stop this deterioration and prevent a recession: Cut interest rates decisively.
The Fed has its benchmark interest rate sitting at a two-decade high of nearly 5.5 percent. This has resulted from purposeful increases made over the past two years to fight inflation. And they worked; all the latest data indicate that inflation has come way down. Now the Fed must turn its focus to the labor market and take quick action to stave off a spike in layoffs. Over and over again, Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell has told the world that the Fed would do whatever it took to get inflation down. His message needs to be that the Fed will do what’s necessary to avoid more job losses.
I’ve covered the Fed for years, and I think it is very likely that Powell will choose the modest option of a 25-basis-point cut. He and other Fed leaders will say the economy still looks solid, and they don’t want to scare anyone. They will rationalize that they can take a first small step and follow it with more cuts later this year if the labor market >worsens. Already, Powell’s top deputies are laying out this case. New York Fed President John Williams said Friday that interest rates should move down “over time, depending on the evolution of the data.” Fed Gov. Christopher J. Waller put it this way on Friday: “If subsequent data show a significant deterioration in the labor market, the [Fed] can act quickly and forcefully to adjust monetary policy.”
This is a mistake. The biggest risk lies in not doing enough. By making a larger cut this month, the Fed could signal that it is taking the warning signs seriously and wants to prevent the worst-case scenario. It would quickly restore Americans’ confidence in the economy. What’s missing from Fed leaders’ speeches is any mention of who gets hurt if they get this calculation wrong.
I agree with all of this, and would add that a 50-point rate cut is also needed because the Fed needs to catch up from failing to cut rates by 25 points in July. Since then, we have seen inflation decline in June and the benchmark revision of -818,000 for previous job growth.
A rate cut also might mitigate the job losses we've been seeing in manufacturing (and encourage equipment purchases for all the new factories that have been built in the last year), and reduce the burdensome debt costs that are annoying so many Americans these days.
But like Long, I am also skeptical that the Fed will do the right thing, and not as much because they're out of touch with the reality of weak spots in our still-growing economy. But instead, I'd bet they decide on a 25-point rate cut largely out of fear of how much Donald Trump and other Republicans would whine about how this return to balanced monetary policy will make voters happier with the economy before the November election (and GOPs have no chance if voters are calm and happy).
That rate cut will at least be a step in the correct direction by the Fed. But it is worth worrying if it'll be enough to stabilize things and insulate the economy from some other negative event that might start a general decline in activity, and raise unemployment past the 4.2% we are at today.
The worker-focused High Road Strategies Center at UW-Madison released its Annual State of Working Wisconsin report ahead of Labor Day, and says Wisconsin employees are doing better than they have in quite a while.
In particular, the UW-Madison study says inflation-adjusted wage growth was quite strong in 2023, recovering almost all of what inflation took away in 2022, and returning to the uptrend that we saw from 2018 through 2021.
2023 wage increases largely make up for losses in 2022, when inflation spiked and workers’ pay did not keep up. Though nominal wages rose in 2022, inflation rose more rapidly peaking at 9.1% in June 2022. Both nationally and in Wisconsin, high inflation drove the 2022 purchasing power of the median wage below the 2021 level.
Inflation came down to 3% by mid-2023 and has hovered around this level since. As inflation cooled, wage growth surged, especially in Wisconsin. In Wisconsin, median wage growth was especially strong (from $22.93 to $23.90 over 2022-23). Nationally, wages rose but only slightly: up from $23.82 to $23.98. 2023 median wages in both Wisconsin and the U.S. sit just slightly below all-time highs set in 2021.
In addition, High Road Strategies says that in Wisconsin and in the nation as a whole, lower-wage workers have been doing better at beating inflation and improving their real pay in recent years, with the largest rate of wage growth since 2019.
From 2019 to 2023, wages of higher wage workers (workers who earn more than 80 percent of the workforce) grew modestly – Wisconsin wages are up less than 1% and national wages are up 2.5%. For lower wage workers (who earn more than 20 percent of the workforce) wages grew much more rapidly, surging 8.4% nationally and 8% in Wisconsin.
In the last four years, wage increases for lower wage workers are more than three times faster than higher wage workers’ gains. Lower wage workers have seized the opportunity provided by tight labor markets and moved to higher paying jobs and secured higher wages in jobs that they stay in. As a result, our wage distribution is more equal today than it was in 2019.
So that mitigates some of the strain from the fact that lower-wage workers would have been the ones hurt most by the sizable increase in food prices in the early 2020s.
One other item I want to point out in the State of Working Wisconsin report is that Wisconsin women continued to close the pay gap with men in 2023, with solid pay gains vs inflation in both 2022 and 2023. On the down side, Wisconsin men saw their (higher) real pay slide down some in those 2 years, and still aren't back at the (inflation-adjusted) level they were at before the Reagan era.
Since 1979, all workers have seen their wages increase by 16%. However, these gains have not been consistent across demographic groups. Over this period, women’s wages have increased by 28% while men’s have fallen by 8.1%.
The gains in women’s wages have been driven by white women who have seen an astounding 43% growth, with strong growth for Hispanic and Black women at 38% and 14%, respectively.
The lack of real men's wage growth in Wisconsin is a blemish on an otherwise strong situation for Wisconsinites as last year ended. And the good times seem likely to have continued so far in 2024, as jobs have continued to be added, and unemployment has stayed around or below 3% in the state while the US unemployment rate has risen to 4.3%.
Not a bad place to be on this Labor Day, even if there is still a lot of work to be done in terms of taking back what has been taken from so many over the last few decades.
I recall Republicans saying that they wanted to talk about "policy" in this election. Fortunately, Henry Redman of the Wisconsin Examiner watched Donald Trump's event in La Crosse this week, and gave us Trump's responses on some important issues.
The first was Trump's newly-announced desperate flail policy on helping Americans pay for Invitro Fertilization (IVF) and similar fertility treatments.....which somehow veered into tax policy before veering back again.
Trump then segued directly into a new topic before returning to the question about IVF: “And as you know, we have no taxes on a thing called tips. You know that? And I said, Tell me, we did three things. We did that, and we did no tax for seniors on Social Security benefits. We want to have that. And I’ve been seeing a lot of IVF, and I kept hearing that I’m against it, and I’m actually very much for it. In fact, in Alabama, where the judge ruled against it, and I countered the judge and came out with a very strong statement for it. And the Alabama [Legislature] they were amazing. The Legislature approved virtually my statement. I mean, full IVF, and it’s really gone — it’s terrific. And I said, so, with the tips and with the Social Security, no taxes on Social Security, I said, maybe for IVF, and I’ve been looking at it, and what we’re going to do is for people that are using IVF, which is fertilization, we are, government is going to pay for it, or we’re going to get or mandate your insurance company to pay for it, which is going to be great. We’re going to do that. Well, it’s big. And you know what? We want to produce babies in this country, right? We want to produce babies. So I think it’s going to be something we told we sort of announced it a little bit.”
A few things to unpack here.
1. Remember how Republicans were all pissy about Obamacare mandating that companies try to cover their employees, or how people were "forced" to buy insurance? How is Trump going to "mandate your insurance company" to pay for IVF? And how much is it going to cost to cover all of these treatement if the government is going to do it?
2. And especially how is the government going to pay for IVF and similar treatments if "a thing called tips" and Social Security benefits aren't taxed? In addition, if employers cut base wages and tell their employees that it's made up for with untaxed tips (a bad enough thing, which is why I oppose both Harris and Trump on not taxing tips), and Social Security benefits aren't taxed, that increases our deficit further and defunds Social Security even more.
3. "We want to produce babies in this country, right?" That's not creepy whatsoever. There's a lot of dark places to take that, but I'll go with this quiet musical interlude instead.
Back to Social Security, as Trump told the audience in La Crosse that he's got that all figured out for the future.
...“I’m the one that’s going to protect the Social Security, but they’re coming. I will tell you, as I did for four years, and there was no age increase, there was not anything they’re going to protect. You know, they destroy you with inflation, and then they want to destroy your Social Security … not going to happen. But this is going to be the most important election in the history of our country. So I just want to say that it’s an honor to be with you tonight. It’s a forum that’s very different, because I have no idea who the hell is broadcasting it, but all we’ll do is we’ll talk because we’re friends. I love this state. I gave them Marinette. We gave them a very big, you know, Tulsi, we have a ship contract. And as you know, we gave Marinette guards, but we gave them a tremendous contract. They wanted her all over the country. I said, we’re going to get it for Wisconsin, and it’s a big one, and they’re doing a great job, I understand. So we got that, and we’re going to have a good time tonight. So let’s go.”
So we're going to save Social Security by...giving more defense contracts to Marinette Marine? (I think that's what Trump is referring to there. If he even knows) That's not really how it works, Donnie.
Also, Trump says "they destroy you with inflation". I assume he means cost of living doesn't keep up with Social Security benefits? Except Social Security benefits were significantly boosted after the inflation bumps of 2021 and 2022, growing by 5.9% for 2022 and 8.7% for 2023. And you know which presidential candidate has submitted budgets that would have reduced benefits that come from Social Security? DONALD TRUMP.
Sure, Trump never asked for an "age increase" in when people could get Socal Security benefits. Instead, he would have done it by screwing over Americans on Disability and others in severe need. Here's a good example from a budget he threw in midway through his term in office.
The 2019 Trump budget reduces disability programs by $72 billion, including reductions to Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) as well as Supplemental Security Income (SSI), which provides aid to low-income individuals with disabilities (as well as low-income seniors).
The budget cuts tens of billions of dollars in SSDI benefits, which are funded out of workers’ payroll taxes and which protect workers and their families if a disability cuts their careers short. One budget proposal cuts in half the retroactive benefits that disabled workers may receive. These are benefits provided to new SSDI recipients to reflect the loss of earnings when they became disabled, even if they delayed applying for benefits because they were hoping to get better and go back to work.
For example, consider a worker whose career is cut short by a car crash, but who hopes she can overcome her injuries and return to work. Under current law, she can receive up to 12 months of retroactive benefits — a critical lifeline that can prevent bankruptcy or homelessness. The Trump proposal would cut that payment in half. A beneficiary who would have qualified for 12 months of retroactive benefits would lose an average of about $7,000 in earned Social Security benefits. Moreover, shortening the period of retroactive benefits can encourage people to apply earlier for SSDI instead of first testing whether they can return to work, since such a test could cost them thousands of dollars in benefits their families may need if they aren’t successful in going back to work.
Let's not forget that by lowering base wages by not taxing tips, it reduces the amount of money going into Social Security and the Treasury in general, which makes it harder to cover the cost of those benefits - or greatly expands the deficit and debts required to pay them. Again, it is not certain if Trump knows this, but the ones that in charge that give Trump money and would handle the actual work in the White House sure do.
And here is Trump's take on energy policy and how he will bring gas prices down.
“I’m supposed to be nice when I talk about the election, because everybody’s afraid to talk about it. ‘Oh please sir, don’t talk about the election, please,’” he said. “You know, if you can’t, if you can’t talk about a bad election, you really don’t have a democracy, if you think about it, right? But what they did, Tulsi, is they took, they took the oil production. The oil started going crazy. That started the inflation. Then they went back. They said, go back to where Trump was. The problem is that we would have been three times that level right now. We would have been so dominant over Russia and Saudi Arabia. Look, Saudi Arabia, Russia, lot of oil. We would have had more. You know, we had something in Alaska, ANWR, that we, that I created. I mean, Ronald Reagan wanted it. You remember, Ronald Reagan wanted it. They all wanted it. And I got it approved. Nobody was able to get it approved. I got it approved. And they, the first week in office, they turned it back. They said, No, it’s the biggest site possibly in the world. Could be bigger than Saudi Arabia. Well, we’re going to start that up. We’re going to become the energy capital of the world. We’re going to pay down our debt, and we’re going to reduce your taxes still further, and your groceries are going to come tumbling down, and your interest rates are going to be tumbling down. And then you’re going to go out, you got to buy a beautiful house. OK, you got to buy a beautiful house. That’s called the American dream.”
Let's back up again.
1. "They took the oil production." WHO IS THEY? And where did they "take the production"? The only US leader I recall asking for a cutback on oil production in the 2020s was...Donald Trump. To his buddies in Saudi Arabia and Russia.
If you wonder why Trump is conspiring with Putin and Mohammad Bin Salman to raise the price of oil on American consumers, recall that Putin's wealth is tied up in hydrocarbons.
I guess if you announce it openly you don't have to worry about whistleblowers (sarcasm) pic.twitter.com/DkumROVEM6
2. In fact, the US is pumping more oil than ever today, at more than 13 million barrels a day. That exceeds the previous records under the Trump Administration, which came after a big increase in oil production in the second half of the Obama Administration.
What has changed since Trump left office is that the Biden-Harris Administration has put together strategies to reduce our country's usage of gasoline, as gas consumption in America is signficantly down compared to the Trump years, even with more people working today.
3. How do we "pay down our debt", "reduce your taxes still further", while groceries and interest rates "tumble down"? The President isn't (supposed to be) able to control interest rate policy, because the Federal Reserve handles that. And I thought Republicans were all unhappy with VP Harris' plans to crack down on price gouging and non-competitive practices in the food industry (at least that's what the Republican hacks that run the Wisconsin Grocers Association say). But how else would Trump going to reduce and regulate grocery prices, especially when he wants to put tariffs on imported foods?
It all seems to come down this as a strategy for Trump/GOP.
I haven't even mentioned how Trump told the audience in La Crosse that immigrants are taking "Black jobs", as well as jobs from Hispanic Americans and union members (there is little evidence that this is happening, and in fact, CBO says that our recent wave of immigrants is increasing growth for the US economy). Redman also relays that Trump said he could end the world's wars "with telephone calls by being smart," (how? He doesn't say) and how he proudly wears the Viktor Orban seal of approval.
When you read what passes for "plans" from Trump, what's concerning isn't the fact that it is obvious BS that doesn't add up in the real world. It's that it's clear that Trump has no idea what he is talking about, which was bad enough when he was a candidate from the outside in 2016.
But THIS GUY WAS PRESIDENT FOR 4 YEARS, and has been basically running for President in the 4 years since then (to stay out of prison). How does he still not have a clue about how things are paid for in this country, what current reality is like for the typical American, or have a clue or care about who may be affected by these policy choices? That's the real red flag here - Trump is a foolish, declining BS artist who is desperately throwing things together without a hint of coherence, and GOP politicians and our ratings-needy media are too compromised to tell this truth.
So feel free to pass ahead the Wisconsin Examiner's rundown of Trump's recent event in La Crosse, which is one of the most damaging attacks that can be done against Trump. Just show others what this idiot is saying, and how out of touch he really is.
