Employment - Daily Treasury Statements

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Withheld Income and Employment Taxes month to date 126,389.
Average daily rate is 6,019.
Average daily rate a year ago was 6,498.

what are the units of measurement here?

[Beet]

Withheld Income and Employment Taxes month to date 126,389.
Average daily rate is 6,019.
Average daily rate a year ago was 6,498.

what are the units of measurement here?

Millions.
http://www.fms.treas.gov/webservices/show/?ciURL=/dts/09083100.txt

I don't have my original spreadsheet, but it looks like August 2008 was actually up 6% over August 2007. So I don't these these numbers are nearly as bad as July's.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Withheld Income and Employment Taxes month to date 126,389.
Average daily rate is 6,019.
Average daily rate a year ago was 6,498.

what are the units of measurement here?

Millions.
http://www.fms.treas.gov/webservices/show/?ciURL=/dts/09083100.txt

I don't have my original spreadsheet, but it looks like August 2008 was actually up 6% over August 2007. So I don't these these numbers are nearly as bad as July's.

oh, so these are tax revenues from taxing paychecks?  Obviously, these tax revenues going to be way down from 12 months ago, we've lost over 6 million jobs since then. Even if we had added 1 million jobs in August2009, we still would have been way negative compared with August2008.

So, I don't see what this has to do with "Employment declines are accelerating" because it clearly doesn't show that.

What exactly is your point, Beet?

[Democratic Hawk]

The stimulus wasn't perfect. Not enough for infrastructure and not enough WORKFARE tax cuts. There was too much proposing on the part of Congress. The Progressive Caucus (the minority uber-liberal faction), for a start, chairs, relative to its strength, too many House committees given it major input in the drafting of legislative

As far as the tax cuts in the stimulus go, the "Making Work Pay" tax credit (the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center rate it a B+) along with the increase in eligibility for the refundable portion of child credit, the increase in earned income tax credit (rated, B) and the temporary suspension of taxation of unemployment benefits (rated, B-) are the most effective parts of the tax provisions in the stimulus

Given that the alternative amendment as substitute to the CBR proposed by the House GOP committed them to rolling back the tax cuts for workers in the stimulus, I'd be minded to both up them and extend them as a stand alone putting the Republicans on the spot

As for the blight that is unemployment -  why not have something of a left-libertarian voluntary insurance model whereby corporations and small business invest part of their pre-tax profits so that as they shed employees, as a result of any recession, said employees are on salary protection for say, three months, dropping each quarter, thereafter? Keeping it high for too long would only serve as a discentive to work - but surely the more money these folks have, the more they'd have to spend, as consumers given that it is is consumer spending which drives the economy, resulting in economic growth and job creation. It would, of course, require start-up money

I wouldn't consider "austerity" - be it a spending freeze at the federal level of government or spending cuts at the state level of government - the way forward. The Republican minority in the California state legislature, I gather, has forced through spending cuts, in the state budget, in healthcare and education, which will only serve to make the state sicker and dumber. What good will that accomplish?

Of course, the political 'problem' for Obama is that the "investment" strategy, be it in education, energy or healthcare, while high on possible long-term benefits, seems low on immediate benefits

[Beet]

Withheld Income and Employment Taxes month to date 126,389.
Average daily rate is 6,019.
Average daily rate a year ago was 6,498.

what are the units of measurement here?

Millions.
http://www.fms.treas.gov/webservices/show/?ciURL=/dts/09083100.txt

I don't have my original spreadsheet, but it looks like August 2008 was actually up 6% over August 2007. So I don't these these numbers are nearly as bad as July's.

oh, so these are tax revenues from taxing paychecks?  Obviously, these tax revenues going to be way down from 12 months ago, we've lost over 6 million jobs since then. Even if we had added 1 million jobs in August2009, we still would have been way negative compared with August2008.

So, I don't see what this has to do with "Employment declines are accelerating" because it clearly doesn't show that.

What exactly is your point, Beet?

Cool it, battle axes. The headline was from last month. I already said this month's looks better, though it obviously still doesn't look good.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

got it

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Then, why aren't they pushing it? I mean, if they are really willing to do something about our problems, I'd listen to them....but will we have to wait until after the fact before things start to get better?

Since when is T Boone Pickens not an oilman? He loves CNG and so does every other sane oilman out there. The problem is the left doesn't like CNG eventhough its cleaner, cheaper and much more of it is available in the US then oil.

[Beet]

Withheld Income and Employment Taxes month to date 126,389.
Working days in August 21.
Average daily rate is 6,019.
Average daily rate a year ago was 6,498.
YoY change is -7.4%.

Another deterioration.

Withheld Income and Employment Taxes month to date (September 30 2009) 125,216.
Working days in September 22.
Average daily rate is 5,692.
Average daily rate a year ago was 6,489.
YoY change is -12.28%.

[Beet]

Withheld Income and Employment Taxes month to date 126,389.
Working days in August 21.
Average daily rate is 6,019.
Average daily rate a year ago was 6,498.
YoY change is -7.4%.

Another deterioration.

Withheld Income and Employment Taxes month to date (September 30 2009) 125,216.
Working days in September 22.
Average daily rate is 5,692.
Average daily rate a year ago was 6,489.
YoY change is -12.3%.

Worst since July, but saved by the fact that the year ago rate was falling more sharply.

Withheld Income and Employment Taxes month to date (October 30 2009) 124,731.
Working days in October - 22.
Average daily rate is 5,670.
Average daily rate a year ago was 6,196.
YoY change is -8.5%.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Beet, wouldn't the month to month be more accurate. It would seem that for the next few months to 2/3 of a year the YOY declines will be horrific since the most rapid pace of declines occured within that past year. Only after that gets timed out of the YOY(next summer), or when growth resumes, will we see improvements in those statistics. In fact those statistics show the rate of declines slowing. To go from losing 400 in the Average daily rate to losing 19 is a pretty significant improvement. Also the Withheld Income and Employement index went from losing 1100 to losing about 500.

[Beet]

I am using YOY for the bottom line because otherwise, there is no seasonal adjustment, which would be pretty important for real time data. If there is interest and I can find the working days per month going back to the 1990s, I might go back and create a seasonal adjustment for this at some point.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I am using YOY for the bottom line because otherwise, there is no seasonal adjustment, which would be pretty important for real time data. If there is interest and I can find the working days per month going back to the 1990s, I might go back and create a seasonal adjustment for this at some point.

I understand your point but Employement moves rather slowly compared to the rest of the economy and I don't think the type of recovery exists to turn those YOY numbers positive by now or in the next 6 months for that matter. The Trends and rate of decline are more informative then the YOY especially considering that your standard of comparison with YOY is a 5%-6% unemployement rate and we are at 9.9% now.

[Vepres]

Interesting to see the rate state-by-state:



No real correlation between the ruling party and the unemployment rate. Colorado, Vermont, and the Dakotas are all in good shape with low and falling rates of unemployment. I find if funny that states with high unemployment are mostly Carter states or close in '76 (save Michigan and Nevada).

[Beet]

Google has some great state by state and county by county unemployment graphs, if that is the kind of thing that gets your goat (I admit that it gets mine.) Generally, states that had big housing bubbles and heavily reliant on manufacturing have been hit bad, while commodities exporting states have not been hit that bad.

[Beet]

I have created a seasonal adjustment for this series, using data for 11 years (1998-2008). The data definitely shows a seasonal variation, with much higher than normal receipts in December to March of each year. However, while I was creating this series it also became apparent why this data is not used by the markets. It is extremely volatile from month to month and does not necessarily correlate well with actual conditions. It also seems to be a lagging indicator.

First, the chart (raw data only, not seasonally adjusted-- but you can see the peaks):



If you were looking at this chart for clues, you would not have noticed the recovery in the labor markets until the summer of 2004!

Now, the table:


Here is where you can really see the volatility.