Overview of National Economic Trends
The major macro-economic indicators. The First Quarter doldrums struck again in 2016. Relatively weak job gains in January (168,000 net new jobs for the month) were a drag on First Quarter totals, with the three-month employment increase at just 628,000. The pattern of the past several years has been economic acceleration in the Spring and Summer months. Year-over-year, U.S. employment gains exceeded 2.8 million, or 2.0%. Wages are starting to respond to the low five percent unemployment rate, with average hourly earnings up 2.3% for the year. These are “real” wage gains, as the CPI increase for the 12-months ending March 2016 was just 0.9%.
Although recent increases in energy prices suggest some upward inflation to come, the US Energy Information Agency predicts that gasoline prices will average $2.04 per gallon nationally this summer, compared with $2.63 per gallon last year. That could buoy retail spending and vacation travel for consumers, which would be a welcome trend for the stores and hotels sector of the economy. The stock market gyrations certainly raised the level of nervousness across the economy. The VIX was high and the drop in the equities indexes during the first six weeks of the year was more than 10%. But since that “bottom”, stock prices are up more than 15%. We are entering the Second Quarter with positive momentum.
Read more: TCN Worldwide’s State of the Market | 2016_Q1_Central
Economist Hugh F. Kelly PhD, CRE, who leads TCN’s Real Estate Economic Committee, is Clinical Professor at New York University’s Schack Institute of Real Estate where he has taught for 30 years. He is widely cited in the real estate industry and is a frequent speaker around the world.