News

A decline in the confidence of Los Angeles County consumers continues–raising concern about where the local economy is heading, since consumer spending accounts for about 70% of economic activity in our communities.

According to the index recently released by the Lowe Institute of Political Economy at Claremont McKenna College, Los Angeles consumer sentiment declined by approximately 2% in the first quarter of 2017, following a sharp 12 % decline in the fourth quarter of 2016.

Sales at U.S. stores, restaurants and online retailers increased a seasonally adjusted 0.4% in April from the prior month, the largest gain in three months, the Commerce Department said Friday. Also, the University of Michigan reported its consumer-sentiment index rose to 97.7 in early May—the strongest reading since January, when sentiment reached a 13-year high.

Real gross domestic product (GDP) increased in every state and the District of Columbia in the fourth quarter of 2016, according to statistics on the geographic breakout of GDP released today by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Real GDP by state growth ranged from 3.4 percent in Texas to 0.1 percent in Kansas and Mississippi (table 1 and chart 1). Finance and insurance; retail trade; and professional, scientific, and technical services were the leading contributors to U.S. economic growth in the fourth quarter.

Gross domestic product grew at a 0.7% annual rate in the first quarter from the preceding three months, the Commerce Department said Friday. Economic output has grown an average of roughly 2% during the nearly eight-year expansion.

On Tuesday, Mr. Ballmer plans to make public a database and a report that he and a small army of economists, professors and other professionals have been assembling as part of a stealth start-up over the last three years called USAFacts. The database is perhaps the first nonpartisan effort to create a fully integrated look at revenue and spending across federal, state and local governments.

Retail sales fell a seasonally adjusted 0.2% last month, the Commerce Department said Friday, after a revised 0.3% decline in February. But over the last 12 months, retail sales have risen 5.2%, a sign that that the economy remains on stable footing.

Still, there are indications that consumers are growing more cautious even though the unemployment rate declined in March to a low 4.5%. Steady job growth as the recovery from the Great Recession nears its eighth year and a bump in consumer sentiment following President Trump’s presidential election have yet to strengthen spending much.

Since the start of 2017, Americans have actually cut back on purchases at auto dealers and restaurants and bars, two major sources of sales gains in prior years. Sales dipped 1.5% last month at auto dealers and 0.6% at restaurants and bars. It was the second straight monthly drop in sales for both categories.

“As the state prison population comes close to exceeding a court-mandated limit, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is pursuing new regulations that aim to get more inmates paroled more quickly over time,” the Sacramento Bee reported. “The proposed rules, originating from voter approval of Proposition 57 in November and unveiled [March 24], would allow ‘nonviolent’ felons to first seek parole at the conclusion of the base term for their primary offense, before serving additional time for other charges and enhancements that can add years to their sentence.”

Police officers began making fewer arrests. The following year, the Los Angeles Police Department’s arrest numbers dipped even lower and continued to fall, dropping by 25% from 2013 to 2015. The statewide numbers are just as striking: Police recorded the lowest number of arrests in nearly 50 years, according to the California attorney general’s office, with about 1.1 million arrests in 2015 compared with 1.5 million in 2006.

The latest figures are a marked deceleration from the third quarter’s 3.5% pace, which had been the strongest reading in two years. They are, however, broadly in line with an economy that has, through ups and downs, settled at a roughly 2% growth pace since the recession ended.

Orders for long-lasting factory goods climbed last month due to purchases of military and civilian aircraft, overshadowing a weak start to 2017 for business investment in new equipment.

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) on Thursday issued its final revision for third-quarter gross domestic product (GDP). According to the BEA, U.S. GDP rose at an inflation-adjusted and seasonally adjusted rate of 3.5%, higher than the October estimate of 2.9% and the November estimate of 3.2%.

A recent analysis by the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that union membership as a percentage of the entire labor force declined in 24 states in 2015 compared to the year before, while some 34 states and the District of Columbia were down from where they were a decade earlier. . . Union membership in California fell by .6 percent over the last 10 years, falling to 15.9 percent in 2015 from 16.5 percent in 2005.

The study, which surveyed businesses with revenues from $100,000 to $5 million, showed 47 percent of entrepreneurs believed the Los Angeles economy would improve in the next year – up from 40 percent in a spring survey. Of those surveyed, 39 percent felt the national economy would improve, a 10 percent gain from the spring.

Economists seeking to explain slowing productivity growth have pointed to a downturn in global innovation. Overlooked in that debate is how hard it is to innovate in services, which are lapping up a growing share of consumers’ budgets as goods prices fall. Technology has transformed many services—think of TurboTax, for instance—but has left many sectors like education relatively untouched.

Data released Friday showed that core inflation, which excludes food and energy, reached a two-year high of 1.7% in the third quarter, according to the Fed’s preferred measure. Other data found stirrings of wage acceleration.