The White House released its annual Economic Report of the President on Monday, which summarizes the state of the economy and also provides insight to what’s on the mind of the president’s top economic advisers.
Employers in Los Angeles and the rest of California will keep hiring in the next two years but at a slightly slower pace than in 2015, a new report said.
The economy and job market in Silicon Valley chalked up an “astounding” year in 2015, but the region’s boom cooled in the final three months as the stock markets weakened, according to a new Silicon Valley Index report released Wednesday. . . However, this year’s report arrived with some hazards in tow. The 2016 Silicon Valley Index warned of a shrinking middle class, fewer jobs available at mid-level wages, rising housing costs and worsening transportation. These problems, the study warned, could imperil the boom.
The Commerce Department said on Friday the trade gap rose 2.7 percent to $43.4 billion. November’s trade deficit was revised down to $42.2 billion from the previously reported $42.4 billion.
The U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, through the Department of Commerce, announced today that the goods and services deficit was $43.4 billion in December, up $1.1 billion from $42.2 billion in November, revised. December exports were $181.5 billion, $0.5 billion less than November exports. December imports were $224.9 billion, up $0.6 billion from November.BR/>
Personal income increased $42.5 billion, or 0.3 percent, and disposable personal income (DPI) increased $37.8 billion, or 0.3 percent, in December, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) decreased $0.7 billion, or less than 0.1 percent. In November, personal income increased $44.3 billion, or 0.3 percent, DPI increased $33.4 billion, or 0.2 percent, and PCE increased $59.4 billion, or 0.5 percent, based on revised estimates.
Gross domestic product, a broad measure of economic output, expanded at a 0.7% seasonally adjusted annualized rate in the fourth quarter, the Commerce Department said Friday. The economy had advanced 2% in the third quarter and 3.9% in the second quarter.
Economic activity in the [12th] District grew at a moderate pace during the reporting period of late November through early January. Overall price inflation was minimal, and upward wage pressures increased further. Retail sales expanded moderately, as did demand for business and consumer services. Manufacturing output declined somewhat. On balance, activity in the agriculture sector was flat. Activity in residential and commercial real estate markets expanded further. Lending activity grew at a modest pace.
Setting a higher minimum wage seems like a natural way to help lift families out of poverty. However, minimum wages target individual workers with low wages, rather than families with low incomes. As a result, a large share of the higher income from minimum wages flows to higher-income families. Other policies that directly address low family income, such as the earned income tax credit, are more effective at reducing poverty.
Even as the recovery from the Great Recession brought booming corporate profits, most workers’ salaries have barely kept up with inflation. But now, as the nation edges ever closer to full employment and with layoffs near historical lows, there are growing indications that ordinary workers are finally starting to reap some of the gains of the 6 1/2 year-old recovery.
Americans boosted spending in November as their incomes continued to tick up, a sign the economic expansion remains on track despite sluggishness overseas. . . Even with the higher outlays, households maintained a decent level of savings. The personal saving rate slipped to 5.5% in November from 5.6% a month earlier but remained at the second-highest level since the start of 2013.
The U.S. economy expanded at a slightly slower pace than initially estimated in the third quarter, as steady consumer spending was offset by a slowdown in inventory investment.
This changed when a combination of keen Asian competition and Californian regulation gradually shifted the chip and computer manufacturers out of Silicon Valley, which has lost roughly 80,000 manufacturing jobs since 2000. The new Valley is predominately post-industrial. For example, only 30 of about 16,000 production workers for the iPod are based in the US.
As Silicon Valley became software valley, tech firms no longer needed large numbers of semi-skilled workers and the network of small subcontractors to keep the industrial machine going. Those services, if needed, could be performed in India, China, Utah, Texas or North Carolina. ‘The job creation has changed’, notes long-time San Jose economic development official Leslie Parks. ‘We used to be the whole food chain and create all sorts of middle-class jobs. Now, increasingly, we don’t design the future – we just think about it. . .
The reason for such bleak retirement prospects is the disappearance of traditional defined benefit pensions and the failure of 401(k)-type plans to fill the gap. A recent analysis by the Employee Benefit Research Institute found that, in 2011, only 14% of private-sector employees participated in a defined benefit pension plan. The participation rate has been falling quite rapidly, so it was almost certainly lower in 2015.
Millions of Californians continue to face economic hardship despite the steady job gains and declining unemployment of recent years. California’s official poverty rate in 2014 stood at 16.4 percent, down slightly from the prior year but still well above the state poverty rate in 2007, the year the Great Recession started in California.