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Sixty-two percent of employers said they expected to raise prices of goods and services to accommodate the higher wages brought by the law. Ten percent of the employers believed incorrectly that the ordinance would force their business to move to a $15 wage immediately upon implementation.
But in an analysis of area prices over time, done through a combination of “web scraping” and in-person visits to grocery stores, restaurants and other retail locations, such price increases were not in evidence.
“Our preliminary analysis of grocery, retail and rent prices has found little or no evidence of price increases in Seattle relative to the surrounding area,” the team concluded.
The Great Normalization (Pragmatic Capitalism)
While many other people have referred to this period as the “new normal” or “secular stagnation”, I’ve referred to it as the “Great Normalization”. What I mean by this is that growth does indeed appear to be moderating. But it’s moderating back to a more stable and steady rate. In other words, we’d been in a secular boom for 50+ years and what we’re seeing now is a lower, but more stable form of growth.
“I think we still see the overall economy progressing in that 2% to 2.5% range, kind of uninspiring growth.” — CSX (CSX) EVP Fredrik Eliasson (Railroad)
“I think we still feel we’re. . . in the same low-growth . . . environment that we’ve been operating in for a couple of years — not enough to make it feel like rates are going to move as a result of it but not enough to feel like we’re stalling either.” — Wells Fargo (WFC) EVP and CFO John Shrewsberry (Bank)
“To me the outlook is less about any sort of explosive growth. The word I would use is ‘potential for stabilization.’ So things have been at a low level.” — MSC Industrial Direct (MSM) co-president and CEO Erik Gershwind (Industrial Distributor)
The Dollar is Still Right Above Key Long-Term Support
