August real average wages and nonsupervisory payrolls: some signs of flagging but no recession signal yet

 

 - by New Deal democrat

Now that we have the consumer inflation number for August, let’s take a look at real wages and income for ordinary workers.

In the jobs report last Friday, we learned that both average hourly earnings and aggregate payrolls for nonsupervisory workers increased 0.4% in August. Yesterday we learned that consumer inflation also rose 0.4%, so unsurprisingly growth in both real average wages and aggregate payrolls rounded to zero.

First, here is the historical pre-pandemic graph of real average hourly wages, both YoY (red, left scale) and in absolute terms (blue, right scale). As you can see, a decline in YoY real wages has been a decent - though far from perfect - antecedent to recessions:

The metric is badly complicated by gyrations in the work force itself. In particular, from the early 1970s through the mid-1990s, with the entry of the huge Baby Boom generation, as well as the majority of women, into the workforce, real wages underwent a generation of depression. Once entry of the last Boomer and woman was digested, real wages started rising again. Even during that period, when wages declined more than trend, it was a warning signal.

Now, here is the post-pandemic record:

Somewhat with fits and starts, real average hourly wages have been rising since June 2022, the inflection point when gas prices fell from $5 to $3/gallon, and the supply chain un-kinked. 

The increase in real average wages stands at +1% YoY, with no significant sign of decoration at this point. 

The much more reliable indicator is that of real aggregate nonsupervisory payrolls. This tells us how much the vast majority of consumers have to spend. When it rolls over, consumers pull back, and a recession almost always begins.

Here is the historical, pre-pandemic record:

This indicator is almost flawless. If real aggregate payrolls are rising (blue line) the economy is not in recession. With one exception (2002-03), shortly after it peaks, a recession has always begun, typically within two months of when the YoY% change crosses the zero line (red).

Post-pandemic, this indicator has held up as well, with several periods of weakness (late 2022, the beginning of 2024) but never crossing the zero line:

Currently YoY growth is at 2%.

Finally, as the below graph, normed to 100 as of this March shows, we appear to have entered our third period of weakness in real aggregate payrolls (thick, red line):

These have risen only 0.3% in the five subsequent months, for an annual rate of 0.7%. Meanwhile real average hourly wages (thin, orange line) have increased 0.4%.

It would be wrong to project either of these forward, since needless to say, they don’t forecast their own future trajectory. What we can say is that, if weak job growth translates to weaker nominal wage growth, and if tariffs and the weaker US$ result in higher inflation, real aggregate payrolls could cross the zero threshold, signaling recession, by early next year.

As consumer inflation shows more signs of re-acceleration, the Fed is being forced to pick its poison

 - by New Deal democrat

The Fed is really facing a no-win situation. Between the recent employment reports, the QCEW, and even this morning’s jobless claims report, the jobs market has clearly been weakening, and may be on the very cusp of contraction, implicating the Fed’s dual mandate to strive for full employment. But this morning’s CPI report shows that reviewed inflation is beginning to percolate through the economy as well. About the only silver lining is that shelter inflation continues to abate, and is almost at its pre-Covid range.

For the record, let’s start with the month over month numbers for headline inflation (blue), core inflation (red), and inflation ex-shelter (gold) for the past two years:

Note that I am no longer including the big inflationary spike of 2021-22. Note that the last three months of both headline and core inflation show no deceleration at all, and are actually closer to their highest monthly readings of the past 24 months. In other words, the deceleration in consumer inflation has stopped.

Here is the YoY% look at the same data:

This now clearly shows an uptrend in non-shelter inflation and a smaller but notable increase in headline inflation, with no deceleration in the past 12 months flat YoY core inflation.

Now let’s look at the silver lining: shelter, as usual comparing the YoY% changes in the repeat home sales indexes, which lead by about 12-18 months (/2.5 for scale), to CPI for shelter (red). YoY home price increases are near or at multi-year lows, and shelter inflation has followed. While shelter CPI increased 0.4% in August, on a YoY basis it is up 3.6%, its lowest level since October of 2021. The below graph includes several years before Covid to show that this is actually at the very top end of its 3.2%-3.6% range during the latter part of the last expansion:

On a monthly basis, actual rent increased 0.3%, while fictitious owners’ rent increased 0.4%. On an YoY they advanced 3.4% and 4.0% respectively, the lowest YoY% increases since the end of 2021:

Let’s take a look at a few other areas of interest.

First, new car prices continue to be largely unchanged, down -0.1% for the month and up only 0.7% YoY, while the story for used car prices is completely different, as they  increased 1.0% monthly and are up 6.0% YoY. Still, on a long term basis the two are within their historic relative ranges, as shown in the below long term graph which is normed to their early 1980s prices:

I suspect the rebound in used car prices is because car loan interest rates may be causing a bigger percent of purchasers to go to lower cost used vehicles.

Next, transportation services (mainly car repairs and insurance) lag the prices of new and used cars. Inflation here has returned to below 4.0% YoY this year. But note that inflation in maintenance and repairs has increased from 5.0% to 8.5% YoY in the past three months:

I suspect this is a direct result of the impact of tariffs.

Next, recently price increases in medical care services have also re-accelerated, and again this month increased 0.3% for a 4.2% YoY increase:

Finally, gas for utilities and electricity costs have also turned up sharply this year. In August the former increased 2.5% and the latter 1.0%. On a YoY basis, they are up 13.8% and 6.2%, respectively:

At least some of this is probably due to a sharp increase in demand caused by the enormous use of electricity in data-mining plants used for AI. Ordinary residential customers are not going to be thrilled, to say the least.

In sum, August’s consumer inflation report continued the trend of the two previous months, in which I wrote that consumer inflation was in a transitionary period. In August, the transition is further along, with shelter having disinflated to the cusp of its pre-COVID range, while inflation elsewhere has re-accelerated. The Fed is in the unenviable position of having to pick its poison, while there is massive political pressure to print free money for T—-p.

 

Initial claims have a Texas-sized increase

 

 - by New Deal democrat

I’ll post about the CPI later this morning. But unusually, the biggest news of the morning was initial jobless claims, which spiked to 263,000, an increase of 27,000 from the previous week. The four week moving average increased 9,750 to 240,500. Meanwhile, with the typical one week delay, continuing claims were unchanged at 1.939 million:

For comparison, the weekly number was the highest since October of 2021, but note that the four week average was higher just in June, and also in the summer of 2023:

This may well just be a one week outlier. A scan of the State inputs indicates that initial claims in Texas nearly doubled, from 16,600 to 31,900, last week. It’s unclear which employer(s) are the culprits, as there have been a number of articles in the Texas media about increased layoffs in a number of industries in the past month.

As usual, the YoY% changes are more important for forecasting purposes. While the one week number was higher by 14.3%, the four week and monthly averages are much more important. And the four week moving average was only higher by 4.3%. Continuing claims are up by 5.1%:

So take this week’s number with a liberal dose of salt. Still, it is consistent with my view that there were some unresolved seasonal distortions this summer, which would resolve this month. The bottom line is that jobless claims continue to score “neutral,” suggesting a weak but still expanding economy. 

August producer prices largely a reflection of volatile food and energy prices

 

 - by New Deal democrat

Consumer price inflation will be reported tomorrow. In the meantime, this morning producer prices for August were reported. Normally I don’t pay too much attention to producer prices - and I won’t this month, either. But let me put that in some context.

In the past, when producer prices have outstripped consumer prices, that has meant that producers aren’t able to pass on the full amount of price increases to consumers.

Since the summer of 2024, final demand producer price gains have been approximately equal to consumer price gains. If producer prices were to spike even higher, we should expect that to show up in corporate profits within another quarter or two, and possibly even this quarter. And when corporate profits turn down, they think about scaling back hiring, and even layoff off workers.

July’s report suggested that such a spike in producer costs, probably engendered mainly by tariffs, but also by the weakened US$, has begun. This month there was a reversal, but it was largely driven by volatile food and energy prices, as well as an anomalous slight decline in services PPI.

Total final demand producer prices for finished goods increased 0.1% in August. Once food and energy are taken out, they increased 0.3%. Meanwhile producer prices for services declined -0.2%:

On a YoY basis, total PPI for goods are up 1.9%, and core goods ex-food and energy are up 2.8%, while PPI for services is up 2.9%, a deceleration from last winter when they peaked at 4.5%:

Raw commodity prices were unchanged for the month, while headline final demand PPI declined -0.1%. Consumer prices, which will be reported tomorrow, are also shown in red:

On a YoY basis, commodity prices are up 2.7%, the highest since January 2023, while headline final demand is up 2.6%, about par for the course for most of this year, vs. CPI, which was up 2.7% one month ago:

With the continuing upward pressure on commodity prices, in great part due to the relative depreciation of the US$, as well as to tariffs, producer prices later in the process are being squeezed. And their equivalence to CPI suggests profit margins are stagnating as well. 

Tomorrow we will get the more important CPI, and see if producers are continuing to “eat” most of the pressure, or whether it is being passed on to consumers. In the meantime, I expect food and energy prices to remain volatile, so I would pay more attention to the core PPI readings.

The “gold standard” QCEW suggests there may have been *no growth at all* in jobs so far this year

 

 - by New Deal democrat

The Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) for Q1 of this year was released this morning. Perhaps more importantly, the numbers for last year were finalized. This forms the “preliminary benchmark” for the actual reported changes to payrolls over that period which will show up in next February’s report for January.

To reiterate, the QCEW is an actual census of 95%+ of all employers, who must report new employees for purposes like unemployment and disability benefits. It is the gold standard, and is used for the final revisions, a/k/a benchmarks, for monthly jobs numbers, which are estimates based on surveys.

Per the release, there were -911,000 fewer jobs created in the period than are currently reflected in the monthly payrolls totals. The report is not seasonally adjusted, but here are the YoY% changes as currently reported by the payrolls survey vs. the new preliminary QCEW-based benchmark:

[YoY% change; NY Times via Ben Casselman]

On a YoY basis, for all of 2024, about 500,000 fewer jobs were created than we thought based on the monthly payroll series. But even at the end of 2024, on a year over year basis employment grew by about 1.4 million, or 0.9%. These are final numbers.

Then in the first quarter of this year, comparisons fell off a cliff again. On a *preliminary* basis, only about 675,000 jobs were added YoY, or an increase of only 0.4%. 

These are not seasonally adjusted numbers, so although we can only estimate what the seasonally adjusted monthly change would be in the first three months of this year, preliminarily the 333,000 gain in payrolls turns into a -12,000 *decline.” This is based on a 0.9% seasonally adjusted YoY gain through December 2024, adjusting down the March 2024 number based on the final benchmark, and then multiplying that by 1.004. More sophisticated methods will arrive at somewhat different estimates, but suffice it to say that as of now the QCEW is suggesting there might not have been any job growth at all this year.

Vehicle sales in August looked pre-recessionary

 

 - by New Deal democrat

The QCEW for Q1 of this year will be released at 10 AM Eastern time this morning. It should also finalize the numbers for last year. Why is that important? Because it will also set the preliminary benchmark revisions for the monthly jobs numbers last year and into this year. I expect to report on that later, but in the meantime here is something else of interest . . . 

Last week the monthly sales numbers of light vehicles (cars, SUVs, pick-up trucks) and heavy trucks were reported for August, and they suggested that this important industrial and consumer durable good sector is rolling over.

First, here is the historical look:

The important thing to notice here is that the heavy trucks component typically rolls over first, and more decisively, while light vehicle sales are noisier, although when smoothed are also a leading indicator going in to recessions (heavy truck sales also pick up later, making them a lagging indicator coming out of recessions).

Here is the post-pandemic picture:

Heavy truck sales in August made a 3 year low, down almost -25% from their peak. 

This is a typical decline right on the cusp of past recessions. 

Additionally, after some tariff front-running and backlash, August car sales came in significantly off their previous peak at the end of last year, suggesting that these sales too may be trending down. 

Only one indicator, of course, and no indicator is perfect. But recall that the typical paradigm is that after housing, durable industrial goods and then durable consumer goods turn down in advance of recessions. This report is evidence that the latter is happening now.

Scenes from the no good, rotten, terrible, and abysmal August jobs report

 

 - by New Deal democrat

Let’s take a more in-depth look at the leading indicators for the economy in Friday’s abysmal employment report.

As shown in the graph below, employment in goods has historically turned down first; indeed, in some recessions employment in services doesn’t turn negative YoY at all:

Which is a shorthand way of saying that the leading jobs in the employment report are all in the goods-producing sector. To wit, below is a graph of employment in manufacturing (gold), total construction (red), residential building construction (orange) and goods-producing as a whole (blue), all normed to 100 as of April with the exception of residential construction, which peaked in March:

With Friday’s report for August, all 4 series have now turned down. Manufacturing employment is down -0.3%, residential construction employment is down -0.4%, total construction employment is down -0.1%, and goods-producing employment as a whole is down -0.3%.

One of the actual “official” 10 leading indicators is average weekly hours for manufacturing employees. While the “official” number simply relies on the absolute number, since the 1980s the typical number of hours worked in manufacturing has included significant overtime. Thus while a decline is negative, in the past 40+ years the economy has typically not been in the “danger zone” until this declines to 40.5 hours or less:

While we did decline -0.2 hours in August, the actual number is 40.9 hours, so we aren’t in recessionary territory yet by this metric.

Another leading indicator in the jobs report is the number of short-term unemployed. These are people who have been unemployed less than 5 weeks. This metric is somewhat noisy, but generally accords with initial jobless claims. 

Here is the post-pandemic record updated through this month:

August was the highest number for such short duration unemployment since the end of 2020.

Next let’s take an updated look at real aggregate nonsupervisory payrolls. Recall that this is an excellent “fundamental” indicator, tellling us how much average American working families in total have to spend in real terms. When that turns down, so does spending, and a recession almost always quickly follows. This had been stagnating this year before improving to a new record in July. In August nominal aggregate payrolls increased 0.4% (orange, left scale), so depending upon revisions we might set another record, although there are clear signs of deceleration (blue, right scale):



Next, here is a look at the YoY% change in total employment going all the way back to World War 2:

Currently employment is up about 0.85% YoY. In the past 80 years, only once - in 1952 - has such anemic growth not occurred either in or just prior to a recession.

Finally, let’s take a look at the main monthly coincident indicators of recession monitored by the NBER, including employment, look like over the past 12 months:

There was pretty strong growth in the latter part of 2024 into early 2025, but since the beginning of spring, there is evidence of sharp deceleration or even stagnation. Industrial production and real personal spending on consumer goods look like the crucial reports later this month.

Weekly Indicators for August 1 - 5 at Seeking Alpha

 

 - by New Deal democrat

My latest “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha.

The high frequency data continues to be buoyed by financial indicators as well as consumer spending, despite the weakness we saw in, among other things, Friday’s employment report.

As usual, clicking over and reading will bring you up to the virtual moment as to the economy, and reward me with a little pocket change for collecting and collating it all for you.

August jobs report: “Recession Watch” as the leading indicators across the spectrum turn negative

 

 - by New Deal democrat

Even before the utter chaos of the new Administration in Washington, my focus had been on whether the economy would have a “soft” or “hard” landing, i.e., recession. Last month I said that the report virtually screamed “Hard Landing!!!” 

If so, this month’s report added the sound of a crash with explosions. Almost everything about this report with the exception of the headline number indicated a recession is imminent or at least close.

Below is my in depth synopsis.

HEADLINES:

• 22,000 jobs added. Private sector jobs increased 27,000. Government jobs declined -6,000. The three month average declined sharply to +29,000, well below the breakeven point necessary with any kind of population growth.
• The pattern of downward revisions to previous months continued. June was revised downward by -27,000 to a *decline* of -13,000, while July increased 6,000 to +79,000, for a net declined of -21,000. 
• The alternate, and more volatile measure in the household report, rose by 288,000 jobs. On a YoY basis, this series increased 1,969,000 jobs, or an average of 164,000 monthly.
• The U3 unemployment rate rose 0.1% to 4.3%. Since the three month average is 4.2% vs. a low of 4.0% for the three month average in the past 12 months, or an increase of 0.2%, this means the “Sahm rule” is not in play.
• The U6 underemployment rate rose 0.2% to 8.1%, a new 3.5 year high.
• Further out on the spectrum, those who are not in the labor force but want a job now rose by 179,,000 to 6.354 million, its highest level since July 2021.

Leading employment indicators of a slowdown or recession

These are leading sectors for the economy overall, and help us gauge how much the post-pandemic employment boom is shading towards a downturn. For the second month in a row they were sharply negative:

• the average manufacturing workweek, one of the 10 components of the Index of Leading Indicators, was fell -0.2 hours to 40.9 hours, and is down -0.7 hours from its 2021 peak of 41.6 hours.

• Manufacturing jobs decreased by -12,000, the fourth decline in a row. This series declined sharply in the second half of 2024 before stabilizing earlier this year. It is now at a 3+ year low.
• Truck driving, which had briefly rebounded earlier this year, declined another -900.
• Construction jobs fell -7,000.
• Residential construction jobs, which are even more leading, declined -900. This is the 5th decline in a row for this important series.
• Goods producing jobs as a whole declined -25,000. This is now the 4th decline in a row, which is very important because these jobs typically decline before any recession occurs. Further, on a YoY% basis, these jobs are now negative by -0.2%. Only three times in the past 70+ years - 1952, 1967, and 1984 - has this series been more negative YoY than this without it being during or shortly before a recession. 

• Temporary jobs, which have declined by over -650,000 since late 2022, declined again this month, by -9,800, a new post-pandemic low.
• the number of people unemployed for 5 weeks or fewer rose 177,000 to 2,476,000, its highest level in 3.5 years.

Wages of non-managerial workers 

• Average Hourly Earnings for Production and Nonsupervisory Personnel increased $.12, or +0.4%, to $31.46, for a YoY gain of +3.9%, close to its lowest YoY% gain in 4 years set last month. Nevertheless, this continues to be well above the 2.7% YoY inflation rate as of last month.

Aggregate hours and wages: 

• The index of aggregate hours worked for non-managerial workers was unchanged, but is up 1.0% YoY, about average for the past two years.

• The index of aggregate payrolls for non-managerial workers rose 0.4%. It is now up 5.0% YoY, about average for the past 18 months. 

Other significant data:

• Professional and business employment declined another -17,000. These tend to be well-paying jobs. This is the fourth decline in a row, and is the lowest number in over 3 years. It is also lower YoY by -0.2%, which in the past 80+ years - until now - has almost *always* meant recession. This is vs. last spring when it was down -0.9% YoY.
• The employment population ratio was unchanged at 59.6%, vs. 61.1% in February 2020.
• The Labor Force Participation Rate increased +0.1% from last month’s 2.5 year low to 62.3% , vs. 63.4% in February 2020.

SUMMARY

This was probably the worst report, including last month’s, since the 2020 pandemic shutdown months.

The *only* bright spots in addition to the positive headline number were the YoY increase in average hourly earnings and in real aggregate nonsupervisory payrolls, an excellent short leading indicator for continued economic growth, which likely another new all-time high once we find out about inflation last month.

Everything else was negative: all of the leading indicators in the goods producing sector, plus temporary and professional jobs. In particular, residential construction jobs, typically one of the last shoes to drop in that sector before a recession begins, declined further. And more broadly, goods producing jobs as a whole continued their significant downward turn.

Additionally, both unemployment and underemployment increased. Further out on the spectrum, once again those not in the labor force but who want a job increased to the highest level in 4 years. And the icing on the cake was the revised negative June payrolls number, the first negative print since 2020.

Last month I concluded that “We are now a hair’s breadth away from ‘recession watch.’” Last month’s ISM reports confirmed that, but then they rebounded in August. But with this report, the “recession watch” is back on. In fact, depending on how other short leading reports come in later this month, it may need to be upgraded to a “recession warning.”

Economically weighted ISM headline and new orders indexes back into weak expansion

 

 - by New Deal democrat

The regional Fed August indexes, including both manufacturing and general business activity, rebounded sharply, telegraphing that a rebound was also likely in the ISM indexes. On Tuesday, the ISM manufacturing index rose slightly. This morning the ISM services index increased sharply.

To wit, the headline number increased to 52.0, while the new orders index rocketed all the way to 56.0:

As a result, the three month average of the headline number rose 0.7 to 51.0, and the new orders subindex rose 3.2 to 52.5.

For a read on the general economy, I assign a weight of 75% to the services index and 25% to the manufacturing index. Here is what the comparison of two headline numbers looks like:

Since the three month average of the manufacturing index was 48.6, the economically weighted headline number rose above 50 to 50.4.

Next, here is the comparative look at the two new orders indexes: 

Since the three month average of the manufacturing new orders subindex was 48.3, the economically weighted new orders number rose sharply to 51.5.

This takes the economically weighted averages back out of “recession watch” territory. Because of the ever-changing situation with tariffs, I expect the monthly ISM numbers to be particularly volatile, so this isn’t really an all-clear vs. a respite. But the bottom line is, the economically weighted averages are at back a level suggesting a weak continuing expansion.

Jobless claims revert to neutral

 

 - by New Deal democrat

In the last few weeks, there has been speculation that jobless claims may have been affected by the jihad against immigrants, the theory being enough were being deported or else were simply afraid to report to work that the number of jobless claims was held down. But I suspected it might at least mainly be due to unresolved seasonality issues involving educational layoffs and rehires. 

To refresh, in the past several years even the seasonally adjusted data appeared to show a bottom in claims after the Holiday season, rising through spring to a wave peaking during the summer, and then declining back through the end of the year. Because of issues involving the school calendar this year, the June and July employment reports showed sharp, adjusted, swings in education employment. I hypothesized the same thing might be going on with jobless claims.

This week’s report added to evidence that my hypothesis has been correct. Initial claims rose 8,000 to 238,000, a ten week high. The four week average rose 2,500 to 231,000, a seven week high. With the typical one week delay, continuing claims declined -4,000 to 1.940 million, near the bottom of this summer’s range, but above any other readings since November 2021:

As usual, the YoY% changes are more important for forecasting purposes. And as of this week, all three were higher. Initial claims were up by 3.9% YoY, the four week average up 0.4%, and continuing claims up 4.9%:

Thus, after over a month as a “positive” indicator, jobless claims now revert to “neutral,” suggesting a weak but still expanding economy in the next several months.

Tomorrow we will get the August jobs report. The comparison of the monthly YoY% changes in jobless claims vs. the unemployment rate (which was either 4.1% or 4.2% in the July through September period last year), suggests that it will remain in that range, or possibly tick higher to 4.3%:

The important takeaway today is that initial claims had been one of the two main positive indicators, along with the stock market, suggesting clear sailing ahead. While it is not forecasting recession, it is no longer suggesting strength either.

The “soft landing” scenario in the JOLTS report remains intact

 - by New Deal democrat

In contrast to much other data in the jobs sector, the JOLTS reports have been very much consistent with a “soft landing scenario,” and that trend continued in this morning’s report for July.

As a quick refresher, this survey decomposes the employment market into openings, hires, quits, and layoffs. So to begin, here are job openings, hires, and quits all normed to 100 as of just before the pandemic:

Except for openings, which declined over -2% to close to their post pandemic low, all of the other series were close to unchanged for the month. Since I regard openings are “soft” data, which have trended down for several years, but remained above their pre-pandemic levels, they are not of much concern to me. While the remaining metrics are all weaker than one year ago, their trend has been virtually flat for the past 11 months.

Now let’s look at several components are slight leading indicators for jobless claims, unemployment and wage growth.

Layoffs and discharges, which have trended slightly higher since last summer, but have been rangebound since last autumn, remained so again (although if you are looking for a negative take, their three month average is the highest since last autumn):

This generally accords with both the increase in the unemployment rate in 2023-24, as well as its plateauing this year (red, right scale), as well as the recent trends in new and continuing jobless claims (not shown), which after a YoY increase earlier this year, improved in July and remained lower YoY in August.

Finally, the quits rate (left scale) typically leads the YoY% change in average hourly wages for nonsupervisory workers (red, right scale):

In July the quits rate continued to remain steady at 2.0%, about average for the past 12 months. The latest data suggests that nominal wage growth will not decelerate further in the next several months, and may increase slightly back to 4.0%.

To reiterate, the recent JOLTS reports have been consistent with the “soft landing” scenario remaining intact. In two days we will get the jobs report for August. Because T—-p’s partisan lackey has not been confirmed by the Senate (at least, not yet), I anticipate Friday’s report will not be skewed. As you know, last month there were severe downward revisions. Since much of that had to do with unresolved seasonality in the education sector, and in August many of these people are rehired, I would not be surprised by an equally sharp rebound - but we’ll see. Further, the final QCEW revisions for 2024 will be unveiled later this month, and they are likely to be very substantial and further muddy the waters.

ISM manufacturing confirms rebound in new orders in August, but construciton spending continues to decline

 

 - by New Deal democrat

As usual, the new month begins with important manufacturing and construction reports which give us the pulse of the goods-producing economy.

The ISM manufacturing report has been a recognized leading indicator for the past 60+ years, although of diminished importance since the turn of the Millennium and China’s accession to regular trading status. While any number below 50 indicates contraction, the ISM itself indicates that the number must be under 42.8 to signal recession. 

Because of the report’s diminished importance, for forecasting purposes, I use an economically weighted three month average of the manufacturing and non-manufacturing indexes, with a 25% and 75% weighting, respectively. For the last three months,  months ago, that average justified a “recession watch.” 

Today’s report was an improvement, although the headline number continued in contraction at 48.7. Significantly, the more leading new orders subindex rose from 47.1 in July to 51.4 in August. Here is a look at both the total index (blue) and new orders subindex (god) for the past fifteen years (via Briefing.com):

Note that both remain slightly better than their low points in 2022-23.

Hare the last six months of both the headline (left column) and new orders (right) numbers:

MAR 49.0. 45.2

APR 48.7. 47.2

MAY 48.5. 47.6

JUN. 49.0. 46.4

JUL 48.0.  47.1

AUG 48.7. 51.4

The current three month average for the total index is 48.6, and for the new orders subindex 48.3. Note that the regional Fed reports, which turned positive during the last month, accurately telegraphed the improvement in the new orders subindex into expansion. But at the same time, although the three month averages improved, they both remain in slight contraction.

As I indicated above, for the economy as a whole the weighted index of manufacturing (25%) and non-manufacturing (75%) indexes is more important. In the non-manufacturing report, the average of the last two months for the headline and new orders numbers has been 50.5 and 50.8, respectively. Pending the ISM report on services Thursday, the economically weighted headline number is exactly 50.0, and the new orders average is 50.2.

If the ISM services report on Thursday does not indicate any further downturn, this means that the economy as a whole is every so slightly expanding, and would justify lifting the “recession watch” posted last month.

But if the news from new orders in particular in the manufacturing index was a relief, construction in July, the month covered by this morning’s report, continued to be more of the same, i.e., a continuing decline since a summer of 2024 once we adjust for the cost of construction materials.

For the month, total construction spending (blue in the graph below) declined -0.1%,  while residential construction spending (red) increased 0.1%. Nominally, total  residential construction spending has declined every month but one since last August, and is now down -3.4% from its August 2024 peak. Residential construction spending has declined every month but two (including this month) in the past year, and is down —6.8% since May of last year:

Adjusted by the cost of construction materials, both measures declined again last month. So adjusted from their peaks last year, total construction is down -7.1%, while residential construction is down -9.4%. If there is a silver lining, it is that adjusted residential construction spending may have stabilized in the past three months:

For the last three months I have concluded that these two reports together suggested that the goods-producing part of the economy as a whole has been contracting, if only slightly. That still appears to be the case.

Weekly Indicators for August 25 - 29 at Seeking Alpha

 - by New Deal democrat 

My “Weekly Indictors” post is up at Seeking Alpha.

The most significant benefit of these high frequency indicators is to alert you of possible changes in trend that are unexpected. In the case of the past several weeks, that would be the sharp improvement in the regional Fed surveys of both manufacturing and services. The latter are almost exactly back in equipoise, and the former have improved all the way back to positive, showing expansion in the manufacturing sector.

This may be of a piece with the improved consumer spending we saw Friday in the persona income and spending data, and suggests the end to distortions based on the original April imposition of tariffs. 

As usual, clicking over and reading will bring you up to the moment as to all of the economic sector trends, and bring me a penny or two.