Wednesday, July 6, 2022

Calculated Risk is NOT on recession watch

Denizens of this blog from many years ago will know that I hold Bill McBride of Calculated Risk in high regard. Many folks have their favorite economist that "called" the Great Recession, but I really like McBride's data-driven approach (and yes, he and his former co-blogger, Tanta called the Great Recession). Here's his latest comment on a potential recession (emphasis his): 

Employment is currently off about 0.5% from the pre-recession peak (dashed line).  This is a significant improvement from off 14.4% in April 2020.

Employment is still 822 thousand below pre-pandemic levels.

And the second graph is for real personal income excluding transfer payments through May 2022.

Real personal income less transfer payments was at an all-time peak in May 2022.

These graphs are useful in trying to identify peaks and troughs in economic activity - and neither are suggesting a recession.

Note: See: Predicting the Next Recession.  I'm not currently on recession watch.

I've definitely called 10 of the last two recessions, and so this makes me dial back a touch. I still think "the chemical and pharmaceutical companies will continue hiring in fall 2022, but less than fall 2021."  

No comments:

Post a Comment

looks like Blogger doesn't work with anonymous comments from Chrome browsers at the moment - works in Microsoft Edge, or from Chrome with a Blogger account - sorry! CJ 3/21/20