The Real Economy Blog

Joseph Brusuelas, Chief Economist, RSM US LLP

@JoeBrusuelas

Joe Brusuelas, “chief economist to the middle market,” is the preeminent voice championing issues and policies facing midsize companies in the United States and around the world. An award-winning economist, Brusuelas has more than 20 years’ experience analyzing U.S. monetary policy, labor markets, fiscal policy, international finance, economic indicators and the condition of the U.S. consumer.

A member of the Wall Street Journal’s forecasting panel, Brusuelas regularly briefs members of Congress and other senior officials regarding the impacts of federal policy on the middle market and the factors by which middle market executives make business decisions. He also frequently offers his insights on the U.S., Canadian and global economies in the financial media.

Before joining RSM in 2014, Brusuelas spent four years as a senior economist at Bloomberg L.P. and the Bloomberg Briefs newsletter group, where he co-founded the award-winning Bloomberg Economic Brief. Earlier in his career, he was a director at Moody's Analytics covering the U.S. and global economies for the Dismal Scientist website. He also served as chief economist at Merk Investments L.L.C. and chief U.S. economist at IDEAglobal.

Preview: May U.S. employment report

by

We expect the U.S. economy to shed 7.8 million jobs and the unemployment rate to reach 21.5% when the May U.S. employment estimate is released on Friday. To put this in the proper context, the near real-time data implies that greater than 40 million people have lost employment and income in less than three months, with 16.6 million people filing for ... READ MORE >

State jobless claims continue to decelerate in week ending May 23

by

Another 2.1 million first-time unemployment claims were processed by state employment agencies for the week ending May 23, with 323,000 less than the prior week but still 10 times the normal amount. Because of the staggering magnitude of initial claims, it seems premature to declare the end of the rush to collect unemployment benefits. Still, only six ... READ MORE >

First-quarter GDP is revised downward to a 5% contraction

by

A 10.5% decline in gross private investment was the primary driver of the downward revision to first-quarter gross domestic product to a 5% contraction, from a drop of 4.8%, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. Despite modest upward revisions to household consumption and robust residential investment, we are keeping our forecast of a 38.5% ... READ MORE >

Jobless claims: 40.7 million file first-time claims in 10 weeks

by

First-time jobless claims for the week ending May 23 increased by 2.123 million, bringing the total number of Americans who have filed for unemployment benefits to 40.76 million during the past 10 weeks. This data, released Thursday by the Department of Labor, strongly implies that the unemployment rate will most likely peak near 25% this year, with ... READ MORE >

The post-coronavirus economy: What to expect, and what is needed

by

We think that the U.S. economy has ended its pandemic-induced free fall. Tentative signs of the recession’s nadir are evident in near real-time data across the economy. It is now time to begin considering the shape of the post-pandemic economy: What it will look like, whose interests are given preference and how fiscal and monetary policy will drive ... READ MORE >

Economic free fall has ended, nontraditional data show

by

Over the past few weeks, an array of near real-time economic data implies that the economic free fall of the coronavirus has come to an end. While there will be some troubling data ahead – including employment, wages and bankruptcies -- we do expect that the data for May and June will show that the economy is contracting at a slower pace than ... READ MORE >