Monitoring the Economic Slide by Means of Graphs

Article source: ConstructConnect

U.S. initial jobless claims for the latest week, ending April 18th, were 4.4 million. Only a minimal amount of encouragement can be taken from the fact the figure has been declining for three weeks in a row. A level of 4.4 million reached in only seven days is still horrifically high.

The sum of the weekly figures for the past five periods is 26.4 million. Not all that number will appear in the monthly unemployed tally to be reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in May, for April. A certain unknown percentage of UI seekers still have jobs, but they’ve moved from full-time to part-time.

Nevertheless, when one crunches the numbers and compares a likely figure for the number of unemployed versus the size of the civilian labor force (163 million), the best the unemployment rate can be at this time is 15.0%. And it doesn’t take much of an adjustment in assumptions to yield a 20.0% result.

Graph 1 

U.S. Inflation in March -0.4% M/M

The inflation rate in the U.S. in March was still positive on a year-over-year basis, +1.5%. The ‘core’ rate (which omits volatile energy and food items) was +2.1% y/y.

But month to month in March, ‘all-items CPI-U, for urban consumers’, was -0.4%. And ‘core’ was -0.1% m/m.

Prices were dragged down by weakness in the energy sector. Saudi Arabia, in what would prove to be an ill-advised move to demonstrate its clout, jacked up production, significantly lowering the international price of crude.

In March, the U.S. energy sub-index of the CPI was -5.7% y/y and -5.8% m/m. Gasoline was -10.2% y/y and -10.5% m/m.

March’s results don’t come close to capturing the big decline in economic activity that has come since, due to the full onslaught of the coronavirus pandemic.

Commuter, airline and basically all other forms of travel have unwound to a fitful stall, slashing the need for oil and lowering its price next to zero.

Other commodity prices, buffeted by evaporating demand, are also on the downslide.

April’s inflation results will be considerably more negative than March’s.

Graph 2

Canada’s March Inflation Rate -0.6% M/M

CPI deterioration was a little more severe in Canada than in the U.S. in March.

All-items CPI north of the border in the latest reporting month was only +0.9% y/y and -0.6% m/m. Canadian ‘core’ was +1.7% y/y and +0.1% m/m.

The ‘all-items’ rate excluding food and energy was mildly positive m/m only because the energy and gasoline sub-indices went so deeply in the hole.

Energy was -11.6% y/y and -10.2% m/m. Gasoline was -21.2% y/y and -17.8% m/m.

Graph 3

Graph 4

Name of this file: “Apr 23 20 – Initial Jobless Claims & Inflation – Alex.docx”

in Documents folder.

U.S. Initial Jobless Claims:  https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf

U.S. Inflation:  https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cpi.pdf

Canadian Inflation:  https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/daily-quotidien/200422/dq200422a-eng.pdf?st=VtrQfp7J

Category: ConstructConnect

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