🧵Monthly economic review, with data through February. Biden continues setting one economic record after another, despite the Fed's best efforts to slow the #BidenBoom. 1/
On most key measures adjusted for inflation, we're in better economic shape now than 2019 pre-pandemic. The unemployment rate hit 3.4% in Jan, lowest since '69, then popped back up to the 15 month average 3.6%. Jobs level, real GDP per capita, real net worth...all better. 2/
Perhaps the most important economic measure is jobs from the Establishment Survey:
✅+3.0 million above the pre-pandemic peak.
✅+12.4 million since 1/21
✅+495k avg Biden job creation / month; president with most job creation total is Clinton, who averaged 239k / month. 3/
Wage for production & non-supervisory workers have outgrown inflation if the starting point is pre-pandemic.
Yes, you have higher real wages (more purchasing power) now than in the vaunted 2019 economy, despite inflation! 4/
In fact, President Biden has the highest average real wages (2022$) of any president LBJ to present.
Note also that Carter had real wages nearly $2/hour higher than Reagan, despite the criticism he faced about inflation. 5/
One of the reasons we have inflation is because consumers have so much money to spend. This is a combination of stimulus checks, child tax credit, big wage gains, and not spending on services 2020-2021. Middle 20% has about $10,000 more saved than pre-pandemic trend. 6/
While we're seeing news reports about the amount of debt consumers are taking on, delinquencies on auto, credit card, and mortgages remain historically low, although they have risen recently. 7/
NBER is the organization that calls economic peaks / recession starts. However, 5 of the 6 key measures they use are up since June '22, and all 6 are up six December '21. These indicate growth, not recession. 8/
CBO released the annual "Budget and Economic Outlook" -- always fascinating to econ nerds.
CBO forecasting a recession in 2023, with near-zero growth, higher unemployment, and slowing inflation.
I think '23 will look more like '22 than forecast. 9/
The long-term budget situation is simply that expenses (outlays) grow faster than revenue as % GDP. Outlays increase driven by aging, healthcare inflation > GDP growth, and higher interest on debt. 10/
However, it's easy to argue we have a revenue problem not a spending problem.
Tax expenditures (discounts vs. table rates) are forecast at a whopping 7.4% GDP in 2023; top 20% get half that.
Budget deficit in 2022 was 5.5% GDP, or 3.8% GDP ex student loan forgiveness. 11/
Yes, we have a big revenue problem here: IRS estimates tax cheats cost Treasury about 2% GDP per year or around $500 billion, mainly from the rich. The IRA invests in IRS to help collect this money from rich deadbeats; Republicans crying foul. 12/
The Social Security shortfall (revenue < outlays) for next 75 years is about 1.7% GDP on average.
For scale:
7.4% GDP tax expenditures
2.0% GDP tax collection opportunity
2.0% GDP Trump tax cut reversal
1.1% GDP Removing cap on payroll tax. 13/
This table helps translate the gigantic economic and budgetary by displaying per household, % GDP, etc.
Callouts:
$135T household net worth; $5T of that belongs to bottom 50%.
----vs.-----
$30T national debt
Yes, plenty of money at the top to solve deficit "problem." 14/END
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🧵To what extent has food industry "price gouging" happened? I'll explain & graph as we go, but here's the tl;dr: Companies that increased their gross margin rate on average 2020-2023 vs. 2019 could be considered gougers; sorted by $ impact on consumers. 1/
First, here's how the math works for each company; JNJ example shown. Sales and cost of goods sold (COGS) data from annual reports, the rest is math. Gross margin reflects pricing most directly, as opposed to net income after many other expenses are considered. 2/
We can see that JNJ had GM % above 2019 in 2021-2023, after a drop in 2020. We multiply the excess % margin by the sales to get the excess margin $, which totals $6.65 billion. 3/
🧵Monthly economic update for the July data. First, a record 158.7 million were working, up 6.4 million from the pre-pandemic peak, regained in June 2022. We added 114,000 jobs in July. 1/
Job creation under Biden has been faster than Trump, no matter how you slice it. Since we regained the pre-pandemic peak jobs level in June 2022, job creation has averaged 255,000/month under Biden, vs. 180,000/month pre-pandemic under Trump. 2/
The unemployment rate increased from 4.1% in June to 4.3% in July, which is still lower than 78% of monthly readings back to 1948. The historical average is 5.7%.
The unemployment rate under Biden has averaged 4.11%, the lowest of any president LBJ to present. 3/
🧵A few slides comparing Biden vs. Trump on the economy. First, Biden has the highest real hourly wages on avg of any president at $29.74/hr vs. $28.82/hr for Trump. Yes, workers have more purchasing power under Biden than Trump, despite inflation. Real=Infl-Adj. 1/
Biden also has the lowest unemployment rate on average of any recent president, at 4.11% vs. 5.01% for Trump. 2/
Biden has faster real GDP growth vs. Trump overall, and slighly slower than Trump pre-pandemic. At Q4 '23, Biden was ahead on both. 3/
🧵Monthly economic review through the June data. First, about 6.3 million more were working in June than pre-pandemic. We regained peak employment in June 2022 and have set records monthly since. We added 206,000 jobs in June. 1/
No matter how you slice it, job creation has been much faster under Biden than Trump: 2/
That said, the pace of job creation is slowing. The 3-month average was 177,000. After prior months' adjustments, we added just 95,000 in June. The slowing rate helps ease inflation and gives the Fed more room to cut interest rates. 3/
🧵Let's go through a few of the ways Trump's economic agenda would damage the U.S. economy.
First, tariffs raise prices Americans pay. That is the point, to deter imports.
CBO estimated Trump's tariffs cost families about $1,300/year. But this next round would be bigger. 1/
Trump is proposing a 10% tariff across the board. We imported about $3 trillion in goods in 2023. So that's $300 billion, divided by ~130 million households = $2,300 per household. We can't just make that stuff overnight here, so people will be paying that indefinitely. 2/
But wait, there's more! Trump is proposing a 60% tariff on goods from China. We import around $500 billion of that $3 trillion from China. So if you think my number is a little high on the prior tweet, it's understated from this perspective. 3/
🧵CNN released a transcript of the debate. Some observations. First, it's informative to put it in Word and highlight Trump's lies, which are nearly continuous. Here's an example on tariffs, a key plank of Trump's platform. 1/ cnn.com/2024/06/27/pol…
Trump did something Biden should learn from: On the economic question at the start, Biden struggled with a coherent message, while Trump said right away he presided over the best economy ever and spent what he had to. Biden lost the initiative immediately on the subject. 2/
Biden should have said what Trump did, and then delivered talking points like these right at start so everyone could hear them and media could analyze them. 3/