GDP and the Housing Market: Perspectives from Paul Bishop of the National Association of Realtors
On July 27th the U.S. Commerce Department released new gross domestic product (GDP) estimates for 2018 Q2. The U.S. GDP grew by 4.1%, up from 2.2% in the first quarter, which was in line with expectations. Business Forward hosted a webinar with Paul Bishop, Vice President of the National Association of Realtors, to discuss these…
U.S. GDP Grew 2.3% in 2017, But the Real Story is Productivity
The U.S. Commerce Department released new gross domestic product (GDP) estimates for Q4 and year-end 2017 on January 26, and the numbers were close to but slightly lower than what experts predicted: the U.S. GDP grew 2.3% in 2017 and 2.6% in Q4 2017. Hours after the numbers were released, Business Forward hosted a webinar…
May Jobs Report: Employment Now Above Pre-Recession Levels
Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the economy added 217,000 jobs in May. Unemployment remained unchanged from April at 6.3 percent. On Monday, Business Forward will host a free interactive webinar on the implications of this jobs report with Dr. Jennifer Hunt, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Microeconomic Analysis at the U.S.…
Labor Market Healthiest Since 2008 Says Conference Board Report
The Conference Board Employment Trends Index, which uses eight different labor-market indicators to pick out underlying trends that are moving the job market, reached its highest point since June 2008 this morning. The report doesn’t point to fast accelerating job growth (that won’t come unless GDP growth picks up), but does bode well for the…
April Jobs Data Suggest No Spring Slowdown – But Impact Of Government Cuts Showing Up
The economy added 165,000 jobs last month, above analyst projections and an improvement over March’s increase of 138,000 jobs, and the unemployment rate edged down to 7.5%. Concerns of a spring slowdown sparked by last month’s weak report appear to be unfounded – but the details of the report show that sharp and sudden government…
A New Era For American Manufacturers?
It’s no secret that American manufacturers have been at the leading edge of the economic recovery. We’ve added 520,000 manufacturing jobs since January 2010, the strongest period of manufacturing job growth since the 1990’s. And stories about companies like GE and Ford moving operations back to the U.S. pop up seemingly every week. But the manufacturing sector is digging…
President Bill Clinton and The Road Ahead
This past weekend, President William Jefferson Clinton, senior executives from three of America’s most innovative companies, and President Obama’s deputy national security advisor helped brief more than 500 local business leaders on the need for immigration reform, best practices in workforce development, eliminating unnecessary regulations, and how to encourage more manufacturing in America. To see…
The history of the debt limit, and the stakes now
At midnight on December 31st, 2012, the United States would have defaulted on its debt obligations were it not for “extraordinary measures” undertaken by the treasury department to prevent it. According to the non-partisan Governmental Accountability Office (GAO), failure by Congress to increase the debt ceiling in 2011 led to uncertainty and higher Treasury borrowing costs—costing the taxpayer $18.9…
Where did the debt come from?
This chart from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities is a useful reminder of where America’s debt came from.