A key measure of U.S. manufacturers’ health suffered its largest annual decline since the recession ended more than six years ago, showing how global headwinds are eroding a onetime pillar of the economy.
The share of U.S. workers in unions last year was unchanged at 11.1%, according to Labor Department figures released Thursday, a reflection of the labor movement’s struggle to reverse years of stagnation that followed decades of declines. . . Membership in the private sector rose slightly to 6.7% from 6.6% in 2014 as unions added 195,000 more members there. The public sector had 23,000 more unionized workers in 2015 than it did the year before, but the membership rate fell to 35.2% from 35.7% over that period due to a larger increase in nonunion government workers.
An expanding economy and dramatically cheaper gas prices have lured Americans back onto the roads, where they’re racking up record mileage, new data shows.
The Supreme Court on Monday upheld a federal rule that calls for payments to businesses, schools and other large energy consumers that reduce their electricity usage at times of peak demand.
Nearly every major Chinese car maker is churning out electric cars these days in hopes of capitalizing on regulatory largess. . . One suspected strategy involves manufacturers selling faulty or incomplete cars to related parties who pocket the subsidies and then return the cars. That could explain why wholesale shipments of electric cars between January and November were 56% above retail sales, according to LMC Automotive data. By contrast, in the broader car market, wholesale was 6% higher than retail.
The Port of Long Beach reported a 7% increase in imports, while neighboring Los Angeles reported a 4.5% decline from a year earlier.
Wednesday’s losses follow a rough first week for U.S. stocks. The Dow has declined 7.3% so far this year and the S&P 500 has dropped 7.5%, as concerns about global growth flared up and oil prices careened lower.
Big oil companies deepened their cutbacks to staff and investment Tuesday, as the price of oil briefly slipped below $30 a barrel for the first time since December 2003.
Today is a more extreme test of that divergence from the 1990s. Inflation is even lower, most visibly due to the surprising persistence of low oil prices, but also due to the strong dollar, which is helping make import prices cheaper. Yes, people’s paychecks are growing slowly, but their inflation-adjusted paychecks have been growing at a clip that may even be considered healthy.
The latest measure of U.S. trade flows from the Commerce Department on Wednesday showed imports and exports hitting their lowest level in years, a double whammy that hints at a domestic slowdown as well as anemic demand for U.S. products abroad.
Before Monday, the U.S. economy appeared to have ended 2015 on solid, though unspectacular, footing. Many economists were estimating that the nation’s gross domestic product–or the sum of all goods and services produced–grew at an annual pace of roughly 2% in October through December. . . But those estimates are falling, due to weak readings Monday morning on the nation’s manufacturing and construction activity, two key drivers of economic growth.
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.
But the less-heralded weekly jobless claims, due Thursday morning, still matter a great deal, perhaps now more than ever. They are useful for gauging the state of the labor market in a relatively real-time manner. Based on the past year’s trend, historically low levels of claims and budding signs of wage pressure suggest the Federal Reserve may feel pressure to accelerate the tightening pace in 2016.
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.
The Federal Reserve said it would raise its benchmark interest rate from near zero for the first time since December 2008, and emphasized it will likely lift it gradually thereafter in a test of the economy’s capacity to stand on its own with less support from super-easy monetary policy.