Yesterday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the Consumer Price Index for May 2022. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) tracks inflation by measuring the average change over time in prices that urban consumers pay for a market basket of consumer goods and services. The headline number showed that the all items index increased 8.6 percent […]
Clemson Economic Trends
May Jobs Report – Strong Labor Market Is Not Driving Inflation
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its monthly report on the Employment Situation for May today. The report shows that the labor market is now in a steady pattern of slow growth, with little change from previous months. The headline numbers of the report show that the economy added 390,000 new jobs, slightly higher […]
April Jobs Data Show Continued Labor Market Growth
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released two reports this week showing that the labor market continues to be extremely strong. First, on Tuesday, they released data from the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) from March 2022. The survey showed that job openings in the economy are at an all-time high of 11.5 […]
Inflation continued to accelerate in March
Last week, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released the consumer price index (CPI) for March 2022. The CPI is a measure of inflation that tracks changes in prices paid by consumers for a basket of goods and services. As seen in figure 1, inflation for urban consumers rose to an annualized rate of 8.5 […]
Labor Market Continues Strong Growth in March
Today the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the employment situation for March 2022. In March, the labor market continued to grow rapidly, adding 431,000 new jobs. In addition, revisions to the previous two months’ reports increased estimated job gains by 95,000 additional jobs. Together, the economy added 562,000 jobs per month over the last […]
South Carolina’s Extremely Tight Labor Market Predates the Panemic
As the labor market continues to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, many firms have had trouble finding and retaining workers. This is a sign of a strong labor market where firms need to compete to find the workers they need. One way to understand this issue is to look at the trend of labor market […]
February Jobs Data Show Strengthening Recovery
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their monthly report on the employment situation in February today. The report highlighted a substantial increase in payroll employment of 678,000 new jobs and a reduction of the unemployment rate to 3.8 percent. These numbers highlight a continued strengthening of the labor market in February. This followed strong […]
Inflation and consumer spending accelerated in January
Last week, the Bureau of Economic Analysis released the Personal Income and Outlays report. The Personal Consumer Expenditure price index represents the changes in prices paid by consumers for goods and services, and it reflects both inflation and changes in consumer behavior. It is the preferred inflation measure of the Fed because it has more […]
Unemployment by County in South Carolina
The employment page of the Clemson Economic Trends website has an updated link to graphs of unemployment in each county in South Carolina compared with the state unemployment rate. The plots are useful to understand how the strength of the labor market varies across the state. Among the largest three counties in the state, Greenville […]
U.S. trade deficit soars in 2021
Last week the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis released the Monthly US Trade in Goods and Services report. The report highlights that the U.S. goods and services deficit reached 80.7 billion dollars in December, a 1.8 percent increase over the previous month. Overall, the total US trade deficit for 2021 […]
