Nominal consumption was above consensus (1.8% m/m vs. 1.3%). Personal income is 0.6% m/m, compared to the consensus of 1%. NBER BCDC looks at real consumption and real pre-income flow transactions for conjoint analysis. These are plotted below, along with actual manufacturing and trading industry sales.
figure 1: Nonfarm payrolls, NFP (dark blue), Bloomberg 2/24 consensus (blue+), civilian employment (orange), industrial production (red), personal income excluding 2012 China transfers (green), manufacturing and Trade Sales Ch.2012 USD (black), Ch.2012 USD Consumption (light blue) and Ch.2012 USD Monthly GDP (pink), GDP (blue bars), all log normalized to 2021M11=0. Q3 Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Federal Reserve, BEA 2022Q4 via FRED 2nd Edition, IHS Markit (nee Macroeconomic Advisers) (published 1 February 2023) and authors’ calculations.
Strong labor market, spending and income data all point to a recession not yet in sight. Q1 GDPNow at 2.7% q/q SAAR; but IHS Markit/SP Global has raised its tracking forecast to -0.3%.
