As of March 12, more than 341 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered globally at a remarkable pace of 8.5 million doses a day, according to Bloomberg. Nearly a third of those vaccinations have occurred in the United States, where we have already administered more than 101 million doses ... READ MORE >
coronavirus
CHART OF THE DAY: Airline passenger volume rising
One sign that Americans are ready to resume taking normal social and economic risks is the rise in airline passenger traffic. Airline passenger volume in the United States is increasing again in a welcome signal that the economy is ready to recover. About 1.1 million passengers per day are being ... READ MORE >
Coronavirus update: Vaccines and the pandemic in six charts
After a year of a mounting human and economic toll brought on by the pandemic, help is on its way. Americans are being vaccinated at an average rate of 2.3 million per day and supplies are sufficient enough that states have begun to lower age requirements. So encouraging are these numbers that the ... READ MORE >
CHART OF THE DAY: Rising food costs catch up with grocers
During the pandemic, despite all of the challenges it presented, grocers gained some relief from the margin pressures that had been steadily building. Not only did demand from consumers increase as they ate at home more, but grocers were also able to pass along higher costs created by production and ... READ MORE >
Short-term rates and economic expansion at risk without Fed’s SLR extension
With the economic recovery still in its early stages, an important component of the Federal Reserve’s response to the economic collapse last spring is in danger of expiring. It’s called the supplemental leverage ratio, or SLR, and the Fed lowered it last spring to help banks maintain liquidity and ... READ MORE >
CHART OF THE DAY: Where in the world is wage push inflation?
Much of the talk about risks to the economic outlook has been linked to the prospect of higher inflation following more than $5 trillion in federal spending to address the pandemic. But what is often missing in that discussion is the link between price volatility and wages. It is difficult to make ... READ MORE >
Making sense of inflation: What we can learn from post-recession recoveries
It's a central tenet of economics: We should expect prices to increase when the demand for goods and services increases, and to decline when demand diminishes. Price rigidity and the presence of product choices will dictate the speed at which price changes occur. This has held up in our analysis of the ... READ MORE >
Initial jobless claims: Expect the number to swell in coming weeks on benefits extension
First-time jobless claims remained elevated for the week ending March 6, arriving at 712,000, down from an upwardly revised 754,000 the week before, the Labor Department reported on Thursday. The total number of people on some form of unemployment insurance increased to 20.1 million for the week ending ... READ MORE >
Economics of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act
President Biden on Thursday signed the $1.9 trillion fiscal aid and stimulus package into law. The American Rescue Plan Act will provide a robust tailwind to the domestic economy as it recovers from the pandemic and will most likely boost gross domestic product by an additional three percentage ... READ MORE >
Pandemic recovery signals new ways health care can serve and grow
Health care services are poised to lead the services recovery for the next two years, according to analysis from the UCLA Anderson School of Management. Not only will providers benefit from the return of pre-pandemic volumes, but the increasing likelihood of an endemic virus may present new ways for ... READ MORE >