mcsnead - RegionTrack

Pic-of-the-Week: U.S. Crude Output Growing 4X Faster than Nat Gas (09/29/2014)

September 28, 2014
mcsnead
Pic of the Week, Uncategorized

U.S. Crude Output Growing Four Times Faster than Natural Gas. The pace of growth in U.S. crude oil output is nothing short of remarkable. Oil output has risen at a 16.1% annualized pace since the beginning of the current cycle in July 2011. Total oil production is up almost 60% in three short years. Our pic-of-the-week shows that oil is also growing four times faster than the 4% annual growth rate of natural gas output since its cycle began in January 2006. For comparison, natural gas output is up roughly 40% in 8+ years.

Pic-of-the-Week: Nearly All New Jobs Being Created are Full-Time (09/15/2014)

September 15, 2014
mcsnead
Pic of the Week, Uncategorized

NEARLY ALL NET NEW JOBS CREATED IN THE RECOVERY ARE FULL-TIME. Our pic-of-the-week highlights the differing trends in full-time and part-time job creation in the recession and recovery. The U.S. economy has added more than 8 million jobs so far in the job expansion that began in January 2010, and nearly all of the net new jobs are full-time. Part-time employment surged during the recession but has not contributed to job growth in the recovery.

Yes, Falling Gasoline Prices Can Easily Sway Overall Retail Activity

The string of weak retail sales reports in the first four months of 2015 are not an indication of slowing overall economic activity. Instead, recent weakness in the retail data merely reflects the steep fall in sales at gasoline stations since November 2014. In our pic-of-the-week, retail sales minus gasoline station sales continues to show a very steady uptrend, even in the most recent data.

Pic-of-the-Week: County Jobless Rates Show Strengthening Oklahoma Economy (09/01/2014)

NEARLY ALL OKLAHOMA COUNTIES HAVE DECLINING UNEMPLOYMENT RATES THE PAST YEAR. There are a number of ways to gauge the underlying strength of a state economy. One useful way is to measure the cumulative health of the individual counties. We often do this using a simple form of diffusion index which is simply the sum of counties with a declining unemployment rate the past 12 months. For Oklahoma the indicator has returned to very positive territory. After sluggishness in the state economy in 2013, the state has bounced back in 2014 with the jobless rate in a distinct downtrend in nearly every county.

Pic-of-the-Week: One Bright Spot for Self-Employment (08/18/2014)

SELF-EMPLOYMENT REMAINS WEAK – EXCEPT FOR THOSE INCORPORATED. A common refrain in this recovery is that self-employment is lagging badly. That is generally true if you look at the traditional measure of self-employment which covers unincorporated businesses (primarily sole proprietors) only. The top graph shows that the level of traditional unincorporated self-employment has been locked in a downtrend during much of the period since 2007. Currently about 9 million persons are self-employed in unincorporated businesses.