Unemployment Rate (Dec)
| Survey | 4.8% |
| Actual | 5.0% |
| Prior | 4.7% |
| Revised | n/a |
It comes from the household survey – been volatile.
Change in Nonfarm Payrolls (Dec)
| Survey | 70K |
| Actual | 18K |
| Prior | 94K |
| Revised | 115K |
Change in Manufacturing Payrolls (Dec)
| Survey | -15K |
| Actual | -31K |
| Prior | -11K |
| Revised | -13K |
Payroll increases continue to decline modestly over time. The fed believes demographic changes will reduce the labor force participation rate, keeping unemployment relatively low and labor markets tight, even with fewer jobs.
Average Hourly Earnings MoM
| Survey | 0.3% |
| Actual | 0.4% |
| Prior | 0.5% |
| Revised | 0.4% |
Average Hourly Earnings YoY (Dec)
| Survey | 3.6% |
| Actual | 3.7% |
| Prior | 3.8% |
| Revised | n/a |
Remains firm, and productivity probably down, meaning unit labor costs rising some.
Average Weekly Hours (Dec)
| Survey | 33.8 |
| Actual | 33.8 |
| Prior | 33.8 |
| Revised | n/a |
ISM Non-Manufacturing (Dec)
| Survey | 53.6 |
| Actual | 53.9 |
| Prior | 54.1 |
| Revised |
Very firm and cross checks with th 93,000 increase in service sector jobs for December.
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ISM Non-Manufacturing TABLE
Note the strength in the price categories.
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my ‘guess’ is 2.8 to 3.5% growth for 4th quarter once revisions are in.
good, thanks!
Any thoughts on this? Think it is just a coincident that the bank is Dallas based?
Treasury plans social security debit card: report
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080104/us_nm/treasury_debitcard_dc
Looks like a good ‘micro’ idea.
don’t see any macro consequences.
“Sixty-eight percent of SSI and 27 percent of Social Security check recipients do not have bank accounts; extrapolating this data into the larger population of federal beneficiaries, this equates to approximately 4.5 million unbanked check recipients. Despite the high percentages of unbanked check recipients, 81 percent of Social Security and 50 percent of SSI check recipients go to a local bank or credit union to cash their checks. ”
http://www.godirect.org/about_research.cfm
From my framework, direct deposit places fed funds directly in bank’s accounts and discourages use of cash providing a cheap source of fed funds.
Debit cards take direct deposit one step further. Given this is a single bank that will issue debit cards to 4.5 million recipients at $1100/ recipient* means this bank will have access to close to $5 billion in fed funds at a 0% rate. $5 billion at 4.25% is $210 million/yr. This is money that use to sit at the treasury until cashed?
Looks like another ’tilt’ to the system this time towards Comerica. Another Enron or a recommened buy?
*http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_04/b3917001_mz001.htm
from what you say the tsy will lose some float. not sure what the ave balance of that float is.
not sure how material that will be. let me know!