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Businesses Are in Uncharted Waters
Inflation expectations in our April Business Inflation Expectations (BIE) survey fell to an all-time low (going back to October 2011) of 1.4 percent, plunging far below its next lowest level of 1.7 percent (most recently observed in February 2020). Perhaps unsurprisingly, firms have bigger worries on their minds. And our boss, President Raphael Bostic, agreed, noting on Wednesday that "inflation at this point is not something I'm particularly worried about."
U.S. Firms Foresee Intensifying Coronavirus Impact
In late March—even before many states had issued shelter-in-place, stay-at-home, or shutdown orders—we noted that firms were bracing for a huge negative impact on sales revenues from developments surrounding the coronavirus. Results from our March Survey of Business Uncertainty (SBU)—a national survey of firms of varying sizes and industries—revealed that disruptions stemming from COVID-19 had led to sharp declines in expectations for year-ahead sales growth.
COVID-19 Mortgage Relief—The Role of Income Support
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a large number of furloughs, layoffs, reductions in hours worked, and wage cuts. Anticipating that many homeowners would consequently have problems paying their monthly mortgage bill, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development ordered all mortgage servicers of federally backed debt to provide forbearance to any homeowners affected by the crisis. In addition, bank regulators encouraged lenders to forbear and restructure mortgages for borrowers affected by the shutdown, actions that staved off an immediate wave of foreclosures. At the end of the ...
American Firms Foresee a Huge Negative Impact of the Coronavirus
The rapid unfolding of the COVID-19 pandemic has created grave concerns for the health and welfare of the U.S. population and the economy. The economic worries are very apparent in financial markets. From the closing bell on February 21 through March 20, U.S. equities fell more than 30 percent, and stock market volatility skyrocketed.
Introducing the CFO Survey
For almost 25 years, the Duke CFO Global Business Outlook has provided policymakers, academics, and the public with an understanding of how financial executives view the economy and prospects for their business. Today, three partners—Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta—announce an enhanced iteration of this survey, now called the CFO Survey. Starting with the second-quarter data release on July 8, 2020, the CFO Survey will offer the same crucial information about the economic outlook and, through some ...
COVID-19 Caused 3 New Hires for Every 10 Layoffs
Reports about the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic and efforts to slow its spread make for grim reading. One especially grim statistic is the number of layoffs. Since early March, just over 28 million persons have filed new claims for unemployment insurance benefits (roughly 30 million if you seasonally adjust).
Unpaid Absence from Work Because of COVID-19
As has been widely reported, the March employment report shed light on the early impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the U.S. labor market. One telling number is the official unemployment rate, which tallies the share of the labor force made up of people out of work (but who are looking for a job) plus those who have been laid off and expect to be recalled. The official unemployment rate increased from 3.5 percent in February to 4.4 percent in March. My own preferred measure is the share of the working-age population who are unemployed, working part-time because of economic conditions, or ...
Challenges in Nowcasting GDP Growth
Real gross domestic product (GDP) declined at an annualized rate of 4.8 percent in the first quarter, according to the first estimate from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), 3.8 percentage points more than the decline anticipated by the Atlanta Fed's final GDPNow model projection. Why was the error, which was easily the model's largest on record for final GDPNow forecasts, so big? Chart 1 looks at GDPNow's forecast errors since the model went live in mid-2014 and breaks them down into forecast errors for the various subcomponents' contributions to GDP growth.
A Couple of Insights from the April Current Population Survey
The latest reading of the Atlanta Fed’s Wage Growth Tracker indicates that wage growth is slowing. It came in at 3.3 percent for April, down from 3.5 percent in March and 3.7 percent in February. This slowing primarily reflects the relatively large decline in the employment of those who typically experience the fastest wage growth: young workers. In February, those aged 16–24 accounted for about 12 percent of employment. By April, that share had dropped to under 10 percent. This change has significant bearing on the Wage Growth Tracker because those aged 16–24 had median wage growth of ...
Amid the COVID-19 Crisis, a Tale of Two Cities
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in both a major public health crisis and a major economic crisis. The economic impact is coming primarily via social distancing (or stay-in-place) restrictions that have resulted in the temporary closing of nonessential businesses in many parts of the country. As a result, millions of workers have been laid off or furloughed. Unemployment claims for the week ending March 21 totaled more than 3 million—the highest number of seasonally adjusted initial claims in the history of the series at that time. That record was broken quickly. For the week ending March ...