personal income
The personal income report came out, and the headline number was that it increased at an 0.5% annual pace; it happens that it was over 0.54%, and that more than all of the increase came from employee compensation (i.e. other components, as a whole, decreased slightly). For the first four months of the year, employee compensation increased at an 8.4% annual rate — the last month was higher — which requires, if it continues, that growth be very strong, inflation intolerably high, or that the portion of GDP going to labor increase. I expect personal income from employee compensation to continue to rise at a decent clip, and I expect some of it to come from corporate profits (i.e. the portion-of-GDP increase) and some of it to turn into inflation. (The first quarter numbers for GDP growth and its deflator are enough to cover 8.4%, but I'd be far more surprised if GDP growth hit 5% again this quarter than if employee compensation slowed down.)
- posted by dWj @ 11:17 PM