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Retail sales including home furnishings, home garden and building materials, consumer electronics and department store sales declined 0.42 percent in March 2013 and slipped 0.64 percent below the level seen in March 2012. (SoldAtTheTop)
Retail sales down in March
Today, the U.S. Census Bureau released its latest nominal read of retail sales showing a decline of 0.4% from February, but a gain of 2.8% on a year-over-year basis on an aggregate of all items including food, fuel and healthcare services.
Nominal "discretionary" retail sales including home furnishings, home garden and building materials, consumer electronics and department store sales declined 0.42% from February and slipped 0.64% below the level seen in March 2012 while, adjusting for inflation, “real” discretionary retail sales declined a notable 2.27% over the same period.
On a “nominal” basis, there had appeared to be “rough correlation” between strong home value appreciation and strong retail spending preceding the housing bust and an even stronger correlation when home values started to decline.
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Chart 1 shows the year-over-year change to nominal discretionary retail sales and the year-over-year change to nominal the S&P/Case-Shiller Composite home price index since 1993 and since 2000. ( Continue… )
Thursday's jobless claims report showed declines to both initial and continued unemployment claims as initial claims trended well below the closely watched 400K level. (SoldAtTheTop)
Jobless claims drop to 346,000
Today’s jobless claims report showed declines to both initial and continued unemployment claims as initial claims trended well below the closely watched 400K level.
Seasonally adjusted “initial” unemployment claims declined by a notable 42,000 to 346,000 claims from 388,000 claims for the prior week while seasonally adjusted “continued” claims declined by 12,000 claims to 3.079 million resulting in an “insured” unemployment rate of 2.4%.
Since the middle of 2008 though, two federal government sponsored “extended” unemployment benefit programs (the “extended benefits” and “EUC 2008” from recent legislation) have been picking up claimants that have fallen off of the traditional unemployment benefits rolls.
Currently there are some 1.83 million people receiving federal “extended” unemployment benefits.
Taken together with the latest 3.35 million people that are currently counted as receiving traditional continued unemployment benefits, there are 5.18 million people on state and federal unemployment rolls.
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Individuals receiving food stamp benefits declined to 47.27 million in January 2013 which, as a ratio of the overall civilian non-institutional population, increased 0.79 percent since January 2012 to now stand at a whopping 19.32 percent of the population. (SoldAtTheTop)
Food stamp use down in January
As a logical consequence of the prolonged economic downturn, participation in the federal food stamp program is continuing to rise.
In fact, household participation has been climbing so steadily that it has dwarfed the last peak (which looks like a minor blip by comparison) set as a result of the immediate fallout following hurricane Katrina.
The latest data released by the Department of Agriculture indicated that in January, a whopping 514,518 individual recipients were removed from the food stamps program with the current total still increasing 1.78% on a year-over-year basis.
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Individuals receiving food stamp benefits declined to 47.27 million which, as a ratio of the overall civilian non-institutional population, increased 0.79% since January 2012 to now stand at a whopping 19.32% of the population.
Households receiving food stamps benefits increased by 23,322 to 23.08 million households with the current total rising 4.05% above the level seen a year earlier
As participation continues to swell, so too has the total nominal benefit cost climbing 2.85% on a year-over-year basis to $6.32 billion for the month.
Unemployment fell to 7.6 percent in March, according to the latest Employment Situation Report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (SoldAtTheTop)
Unemployment drops to 7.6 percent in March
Today’s Employment Situation report showed that in March “total unemployment” including all marginally attached workers declined notably to 13.8% while the traditionally reported unemployment rate also trended down to 7.6%.
The traditional unemployment rate is calculated from the monthly household survey results using a fairly explicit definition of “unemployed” (essentially unemployed and currently looking for full time employment) leaving many workers to be considered effectively “on the margin” either employed in part time work when full time is preferred or simply unemployed and no longer looking for work.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics considers “marginally attached” workers (including discouraged workers) and persons who have settled for part time employment to be “underutilized” labor.
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The broadest view of unemployment would include both traditionally unemployed workers and all other underutilized workers.
To calculate the “total” rate of unemployment we would simply use this larger group rather than the smaller and more restrictive “unemployed” group used in the traditional unemployment rate calculation.
Payrolls increased by just 88,000 jobs overall in March, according to the latest Employment Situation Report. Unemployment declined to 7.6 percent. (SoldAtTheTop)
Hiring slows as economy adds only 88,000 jobs in March
Today’s Employment Situation Report indicated that in March, net non-farm payrolls increased just 88,000 jobs overall with the private non-farm payrolls sub-component adding just 95,000 jobs while the civilian unemployment rate declined to 7.6% over the same period.
Net private sector jobs increased 0.08% since last month climbing 1.78% above the level seen a year ago but remained 2.02% below the peak level of employment seen in December 2007.
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The latest data from the Mortgage Bankers Association shows that average mortgage rates declined 3 basis points to 3.62 percent since last week. (SoldAtTheTop)
Mortgage rates drop to 3.62 percent
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) publishes the results of a weekly applications survey that covers roughly 50 percent of all residential mortgage originations and tracks the average interest rate for 30 year and 15 year fixed rate mortgages as well as the volume of both purchase and refinance applications.
The purchase application index has been highlighted as a particularly important data series as it very broadly captures the demand side of residential real estate for both new and existing home purchases.
The latest data is showing that the average rate for a 30 year fixed rate mortgage (from FHA and conforming GSE data) declined 3 basis points to 3.62% since last week while the purchase application volume increased 1% and the refinance application volume declined 6% over the same period.
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The latest National Employment Report indicates that the situation for private employment in the US improved in March as private employers added 158,000 jobs. (SoldAtTheTop)
ADP: Private employers add 158,000 jobs in March
Today, private staffing and business services firm ADP released the latest installment of their National Employment Report indicating that the situation for private employment in the U.S. improved in March as private employers added 158,000 jobs in the month bringing the total employment level 1.66% above the level seen in March 2012.
Perusing the rest of the data in the ADP dataset you can see the the economy is currently showing the most growth for small to mid-sized service providing jobs with goods-producing jobs remaining near trough levels.
Look for Friday’s BLS Employment Situation Report to likely show somewhat similar trends.
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Construction spending increased 2.17 percent from January 2013, according to the latest data from the US Census Bureau. (SoldAtTheTop)
Construction spending increases in February
Yesterday, the U.S. Census Bureau released their latest read of construction spending showing improvement in February with total construction spending, residential and non-residential construction spending increasing on the month.
On a month-to-month basis, total residential spending increased 2.17% from January climbing 20.08% above the level seen in February 2012 while still remaining a whopping 55.15% below the peak level seen in 2006.
Single family construction spending climbed a notable 4.27% since January rising 34.14% since February 2012 but remained a whopping 66.40% below it's peak in 2006.
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Non-residential construction spending increased 0.44% since January and rose 6.08% above the level seen in February 2012 and remained a whopping 27.37% below the peak level reached in October 2008.
Total continued claims keep falling, despite ups and downs in the weekly data. (SoldAtTheTop)
Jobless claims rise. More than 5 million on unemployment rolls.
Today’s jobless claims report showed a notable increase to initial unemployment claims and a decline to continued unemployment claims as initial claims trended well below the closely watched 400K level.
Seasonally adjusted “initial” unemployment claims increased by 16,000 to 357,000 claims from 341,000 claims for the prior week while seasonally adjusted “continued” claims declined by 27,000 claims to 3.050 million resulting in an “insured” unemployment rate of 2.4%.
Since the middle of 2008 though, two federal government sponsored “extended” unemployment benefit programs (the “extended benefits” and “EUC 2008” from recent legislation) have been picking up claimants that have fallen off of the traditional unemployment benefits rolls.
Currently there are some 1.90 million people receiving federal “extended” unemployment benefits.
Taken together with the latest 3.46 million people that are currently counted as receiving traditional continued unemployment benefits, there are 5.36 million people on state and federal unemployment rolls.
The National Association of Realtors released their Pending Home Sales Report for February showing that pending home sales declined with the seasonally adjusted national index dropping 0.4 percent from January 2013. (SoldAtTheTop)
Pending home sales decline in February
Today, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) released their Pending Home Sales Report for February showing that pending home sales declined with the seasonally adjusted national index dropping 0.4% from January but increasing 8.4% above the level seen in February 2012.
Meanwhile, the NARs chief economist Lawrence Yun suggests that new home inventory is needed in order to relieve the current "shortage" :
"Only new home construction can genuinely help relieve the inventory shortage, and housing starts need to rise at least 50 percent from current levels, ... Most local home builders are small businesses and simply don't have access to capital on Wall Street. Clearer regulatory rules, applied to construction loans for smaller community banks and credit unions, could bring many small-sized builders back into the market."
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