With today’s spending and income release, we see the key indicators (consumption, income, sales) followed by the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee along with monthly GDP. The Atlanta Fed also released new GDP forecasts.
figure 1: Nonfarm employment, NFP (dark blue), clerical employment (orange), industrial production (red), 2012 personal income excluding transfers (green), 2012 manufacturing and trade sales $ (black), 2012 Consumption Ch.2012$ (light blue) and monthly GDP in Ch.2012$ (pink), GDP (blue bars), GDPNow for 2023Q2 is 6/30, all logarithms normalized to 2023M01=0. The Bloomberg consensus level is calculated by adding the forecast change to the previous unrevised level of available employment at the time of the forecast. Sources: BLS, Federal Reserve, BEA 2023Q1 Release 3 (via FRED), atlanta fed, S&P Global/IHS Markit (Nigeria Macroeconomic Consultant, IHS Markit) (6/1/2023 release) and the authors’ calculations.
Perhaps there has been a slowdown over the past few months (consumption flat but personal income transfers rising), but a recession does not appear to be on the horizon (but note that all of these numbers will be heavily revised, including GDP).
Weekly indicators support continued year-on-year growth, although literally they also imply (considering Q1 GDP) negative growth in Q2.
figure 2: Lewis-Mertens-Stock weekly economic index (blue) and Baumeister-Leiva-Leon-Sims US weekly economic conditions index plus 2% trend (green), all year-over-year growth in %.Source: New York Fed fred, WECIAccessed 6/30, and author’s calculations.
