Today the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the Employment Situation for December 2022. The report shows that the labor market remains strong, despite the federal reserve rapidly raising interest rates to combat inflation during the second half of 2022. The report showed that the economy gained 223,000 new jobs in December, and the unemployment […]
Clemson Economic Trends
November Jobs Report – Strong Labor Market and Rising Wages
The Bureau of Labor Statistics released The Employment Situation for November 2022 today. The report contains information from two surveys about the state of the labor market. The household survey reports data from households about individual employment outcomes. This survey found that the unemployment rate was unchanged in November at 3.7 percent. The report also […]
October Jobs Report – A Resilient Labor Market
The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the Employment Situation for October 2022. The report provides evidence that while the labor market remains strong, it is growing at a less rapid pace. Specifically, the report finds that the economy added 261,000 new jobs in October, and the unemployment rate increased slightly to 3.7 percent. While job […]
September Jobs Report – Unemployment Remains Extremely Low
Today the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its latest report on the Employment Situation in September 2022. The report shows that the labor market remains strong despite the recent large hikes in interest rates undertaken by the Federal Reserve to tame inflation and slow the economy. The unemployment rate dropped to 3.5 percent, matching the […]
August Jobs Report – Workers Returning to Labor Force Increase Unemployment Rate
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the Employment Situation for August 2022. The report found that the economy added 315,000 jobs in August, but the unemployment rate increased by 0.2 percentage points to 3.7 percent. Given the continued strength of job gains, a natural question is how the unemployment rate could continue to rise. […]
PCE Inflation Report Provide Further Evidence That Inflation Has Peaked
The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released its report on Personal Income and Outlays for July 2022 today. The report gives an updated view of income and inflation in the economy. The report details how personal income, expenditures, and prices evolve each month. On the income side, the BEA found that real disposable personal income […]
July Jobs Report – Labor Market Continues to Show Strength
This morning the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its report on the Employment Situation for July 2022. The report showed that the labor market continues to expand rapidly despite fears that the economy is in a recession. The report found that the economy added 528,000 new jobs in July, and the unemployment rate declined […]
Second Quarter GDP Report Shows Stagnating Economic Growth
The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released their advanced estimate of second-quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) today. GDP is an estimate of the total value of goods and services produced in an economy. The BEA estimated that real GDP decreased at an annual rate of 0.9 percent in the second quarter after shrinking at a […]
June Jobs Report – Labor Market Remains Robust Despite Recession Concerns
The Federal Reserve bank increased interest rates by 75 basis points in June to slow the high levels of inflation experienced in the past few months. There are concerns that this rapid tightening of monetary conditions could bring the economy into a recession. Despite these concerns, new data on the labor market released this week […]
Monetary Factors are an Important Source of Current Inflation
With CPI inflation remaining above 8% over the past year and average gas prices rising above $5.00 per gallon, policymakers are trying to identify the source of the rapid increase in the price level in order to determine how rapidly to raise interest rates to combat inflation. There are two views to describe the inflation […]
