Viewpoints

Something missing. Federal withheld gross income tax receipts continue to post large declines, missing the rebound in employment and wage and salary income. One wonders if the weakness in gross federal income tax receipts is related [...]

The announcement this week concerning a potential vaccine for COVID-19 should be a game changer for the world economy. Financial markets have certainly greeted this news by pricing in a rosier global economic scenario (see figure 1 [...]

A watershed event in politics reflects a "fundamental shift" in the federal government's role in domestic economic, financial, and social affairs. Based on the unprecedented governmental actions already taken by Congress and the [...]

The 2020 economy will be remembered for the record plunge in Q2, and its record rebound in Q3. Yet, the most unusual or unique feature of the economy's performance, or downturn, is its mix. The 2020 downturn is the first economic [...]

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia's state coincident indexes continued to be remarkably mixed in September, but still on an uptrend. 11 states saw an increase of 10 percent or more in the three months since June, led by [...]

On August 27, Fed Chairman Powell gave a speech entitled "New Economic Challenges and the Fed's Monetary Policy Review". The main "challenges" seemed to be a very low "neutral" or equilibrium interest rate structure and very low rates [...]

State labor market data results in September were somewhat less uniform than in prior months. 30 states had statistically significant drops in their unemployment rates from August to September, with New Jersey's 4.4 percentage-point [...]

The employment data and tax receipts don't compute. In September, the US Treasury reported that gross federal income tax receipts fell 19% versus year-ago levels. That represents the sharpest year-on-year decline since May, or when [...]