Rasky-DeLong "Covering the Economy": Discussion Notes: Week of January 24

Rasky-DeLong "Covering the Economy": Discussion Notes: Week of January 24

Seven background graphs on employment statistics:

Payroll Survey Employment Growth since 1994
Long-Term Unemployment
Unemployment and Underemployment
The Employment-to-Population Ratio
Thirty Years of the Unemployment Rate
Three Years of the Unemployment Rate
Unemployment: The Importance of Seasonal Adjustment

New claims for unemployment insurance emerge every Thursday...

Monthly Employment Report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics every month, at 8:30 AM on the first Friday:

Statement by Commissioner of Labor Statistics Kathy Utgoff.
The January 6, 2006 Employment Report itself.

• Household survey: the CPS or Current Population Survey:
  • Unemployment rate
    • Underemployment rates
    • Long-term unemployment rate
  • Employment-to-population rate
    • Female labor force participation
    • What is the participation trend?
      • Why are the unemployment rate and the employment-to-population ratio telling different stories since 2000?
• Payroll survey of businesses
  • Watched by Wall Street
    • As an indicator of economic activity
    • As an input into the Federal Reserve's decision-making policy
      • Federal Reserve sets interest rates
      • Federal Reserve wants to keep inflation low
      • If inflation is low, Federal Reserve would like employment to be as high as possible
  • Since 2000, the payroll and household surveys have been telling different stories...
  • Benchmark for payroll survey: 140,000 per month as neutral result
  • Payroll survey also contains workweek data and wage data--but save that for next week

Now let's look at some stories:

January 6, 2006: Reuters: Reuters's initial story on the January 6, 2006 BLS Employment Report: "Job growth below expectations in December" Fri Jan 6, 2006 9:20 AM ET: By Glenn Somerville..."
January 6, 2006: Economist Forecasters' Immediate Reactions to the Employment Report release.
January 7, 2006: Greg Ip: writes about Friday's employment report for the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal
January 7, 2006: Edmund Andrews's next-day article on the January 6, 2006 Employment Report.

Broader Perspectives:

January 6, 2006: Tim Duy Looks at the Fed: and guesses what the Federal Reserve's reaction will be to the January 6, 2006 Employment Report.
Mark Thoma of the University of Oregon tries to provide perspective on the January 6, 2006 Employment Report.
Kash Mansouri of Colby College on the January 6, 2006 Employment Report: "the US economy continues to disappoint when it comes to the creation of new private-sector jobs."
The Heritage Foundation's Tim Kane.

The impact story: for bond traders. The opinion-sample story--the WSJ has it up by 10:02 AM! Greg Ip's story: state of the economy in a broader perspective Edmund Andrews's story: political context and consequences of employment report.

Four webloggers: Tim Duy, Mark Thoma, Kash Mansouri, Tim Kane.