- by New Deal democrat
My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha.
In the aggregate, consumer spending remains robust. On the other hand, as I pointed out yesterday with my aggregation of the various regional Fed reports on manufacturing and services, the largest sector of the US economy appears to be stagnant, or even shrinking somewhat. Another big sign that there may have been another ratchet downward in the economy is the deceleration in the YoY withholding tax payments since the beginning of the fiscal year in October (also when the government shutdown started.
Of interest is the latest update from early November from California, which is 1/8th of the entire US population. There, withholding tax payments have continued to be very strong, up almost 10% YoY in October. If tax changes from the “Big Beautiful Bill” were driving the recent deceleration, i.e., taxpayers waiting until more favorable treatment next year, I would expect tech-heavy California to have lower comparisons than the rest of the country. But the reverse is true, suggesting that it is sluggish job growth that has been driving the sharp deceleration in payments.
In any event, as usual clicking over and reading will bring you up to the virtual moment as to the state of the economy, and reward me a little bit for my efforts collecting and collating it all for you.
