(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Winter Smacks February U.S. Manufacturing Output but Forecast Remains Bright

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aerospace, aircraft, American Rescue Plan, automotive, Biden, Boeing, CCP Virus, China, coronavirus, COVID 19, Covid relief, Donald Trump, facemasks, Federal Reserve, industrial production, inflation-adjusted output, machinery, manufacturing, masks, medical equipment, petroleum refining, pharmaceuticals, plastics, PPE, real growth, resins, semiconductor shortage, semiconductors, stimulus package, tariffs, Texas, Trade, vaccines, winter, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Count me as one awfully surprised blogger when I saw this morning’s Federal Reserve U.S. manufacturing production figures (for February), which reported a 3.12 percent sequential drop in industry’s inflation-adjusted output. That was by far the worst such monthly performance since pandemicky April’s 15.83 percent crashdive, and even though the Fed largely blamed harsh winter weather in much of the country, it still contended that manufacturing would have shrunk by about half a percent even in balmier conditions.

A big reason for my surprise was the apparent contrast between these results and the findings of the monthly manufacturing surveys conducted by various of the Fed’s regional branches. They’re soft data, presenting manufacturers’ perceptions rather than actual changes in output (or jobs, or capital spending, or any other indicator), and I’ve written before that soft data are anything but perfect. But not only were the production reads in these surveys strong. They were strong even in Texas, where the storms were so severe. (And the Dallas Fed’s survey was conducted as they were raging.) Moreover, the same held for the February results from the neighboring Kansas City Fed bank.

Further, other hard data – specifically, on jobs – pointed to a good February for manufacturing, too, as industry expanded its payrolls by 21,000.

But the new Fed production numbers shouldn’t be dismissed entirely, so let’s look at the…lowlights, starting with the revisions, which were moderately negative. January’s previously reported 1.04 percent monthly advance is now pegged at 1.29 percent. December’s already once-downgraded inflation-adjusted output growth was lowered again, from 0.94 percent to 0.84 percent. November’s result, which had been upgraded twice (most recently to 1.10 percent) is now judged to have been 1.05 percent. October’s string of upward revisions was stopped, too, as the new report reveals a downgrade from 1.51 percent to 1.39 percent.

Overall, these readings mean that domestic manufacturing’s after-inflation production has grown by 20.26 percent since its April nadir, and stands 3.83 percent below its last pre-pandemic reading, from February.

As not the case with recent Fed industrial production reports, the output changes were highly concentrated in a few industries. Bearing out the central bank’s observation that “some petroleum refineries, petrochemical facilities, and plastic resin plants suffered damage from the deep freeze and were offline for the rest of the month,” most of these sectors saw outsized price-adjusted month-to-month drops in February. For petroleum and coal products, the fall-off was 4.43 percent, and for the huge chemicals sector, 7.11 percent Interestingly, the chemicals decline was even bigger than that it suffered last April, at the depths of the pandemic and related economic activity curbs (6.08 percent).

And as for those resin plants? Their February real output plummeted by fully 28.12 percent – much more than at any time last spring, during the pandemic’s height, and the worst such performance since the 30.64 percent cratering during Great Recessionary September, 2008. In fact, constant dollar output in the industry sank to its lowest level since equally Great Recessionary March, 2009.

Another February real production decrease that looks temporary (but perhaps longer-lasting): the 8.26 percent plunge in constant dollar automotive production. The main culprit is no doubt a global shortage of semiconductors that could well weigh on the entire domestic manufacturing sector going forward.

As known by RealityChek regulars, the machinery sector is a major barometer of manufacturing’s overall health, because its products are used throughout industry. So given February’s poor results for the entire sector, it’s no surprise that real machinery output was off by 2.33 percent on month. But January’s results were upgraded tremendously – from 0.52 percent after-inflation growth to 2.59 percent. So price-adjusted machinery output is still within 1.17 percent of its final pre-pandemic levels.

Because Boeing’s protracted safety-related problems continue to clear up, aircraft and parts production notched another month of growth in real terms in February – an increase of 1.04 percent. Revisions, however, were negative, especially December’s – its previously upgraded production increase (to a strong 3.03 percent) is now judged to be a 0.61 percent decline. Largely as a result, inflation-adjusted output is now just fractionally above its February pre-pandemic level.

The picture was brighter in pharmaceuticals and medicines. This industry, which includes vaccines, saw its after-inflation production climbed by anorther 1.29 percent in February. Moreover, January’s initially reported robust 2.42 percent increase was revised to an even better 2.57 percent. As a result, pharmaceutical and medicines real output is now 5.62 percent higher than just before the pandemic, and should generate even better results in the coming months, as vaccine production will be surging even more strongly.

Unfortunately, the also vital medical equipment and supplies sector – which includes virus-fighting items like face masks, face masks, protective gowns, and ventilators – is still behind the curve. Constant dollar production actually dipped by 0.56 percent on month in February, although in another major revision, January’s performance is now judged to be a 1.08 percent gain rather than a 0.54 percent loss. All the same, real production in this sector (which encompasses many other products as well) is still 1.37 percent less than just before the CCP Virus and the lockdowns arrived in force.

All told, I’m still full of confidence about domestic manufacturing production, due to the Boeing, vaccines, and now the Biden stimulus effects. And don’t forget the administration’s continued reluctance to lift its predecessor’s towering and sweeping tariffs on China, and on metals imports from many countries. Lastly: The weather’s bound to keep getting better!

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: More Reopening, Not Endless Money, is Now the Best Jobs Strategy

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African Americans, American Rescue Plan, Biden, CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, Covid relief, education, Employment, Federal Reserve, Hispanics, hotels, Jerome Powell, Jobs, Latinos, leisure and hospitality, lockdowns, recovery, restaurants, shutdown, stay-at-home, stimulus package, unemployment, wages, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

There’s no doubt that the American jobs market has suffered an out-and-out disaster since it got hit by the CCP Virus and the follow-on lockdowns and other restrictions. There’s also no doubt that many workers and their families are still suffering greatly, and will need government aid to make it to the Other Side, and the Biden administration’s American Rescue Plan legislation that the President will likely sign into law soon will help fill this gap.

Plenty of doubt remains, however, about whether all, or close to all, of the massive funds approved in this measure are actually needed to cure the economy’s remaining employment woes, and one of the main reasons is the nature of the jobs blow that’s been delivered. Because it’s been so heavily concentrated in the country’s leisure and hospitality industries (encompassing eateries and drinking places of all kinds, plus hotels and motels, and entertainment and cultural venues), it’s entirely possible that nowadays, the most effective way to fix the jobs market fastest would be to lift the lockdowns and other mandated curbs that have fallen so hard on sectors that depend on serving in-person customers.

The case for relying on a virus-relief/stimulus package this big, at this stage of the economy’s recovery from its pandemic-induced recession, has been eloquently stated by President Biden and by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. The former warned just before the legislation passed that the U.S. economy “still has 9.5 million fewer jobs than it had this time last year. And at that rate, it would take two years to get us back on track.”

The latter has stated that he won’t be satisfied that full employment has returned until he sees what one reporter has called “broad-based gains in employment, and not just in the aggregate or at the median.” As a result, the Fed Chair is paying particular attention to (the reporter’s words again) “Black unemployment, wage growth for low-wage workers and labor force participation for those without college degrees, categories that historically have taken longer to recover from downturns than broader metrics.”

But it’s precisely these less fortunate portions of the workforce that would be helped disproportionately – and then some – by focusing on reopening steps that would surely affect the leisure and hospitality industries just as disproportionately.

If you doubt the importance of leisure and hospitality job loss over the last year in terms of overall U.S. jobs loss, here’s what you need to know. Of the 8.068 million positions shed by the country’s private sector between last Februrary (the final month of pre-CCP Virus normality for the American economy), fully 3.451 million have come in the leisure and hospitality industries. That’s nearly 43 percent.

Put differently, during that final normal economic month, leisure and hospitality workers represented just 13.04 percent of all private sector workers. Yet their employment plunge was more than three times as great relatively speaking.

Moreover, leisure and hospitality’s progress in getting back to pre-pandemic square one has been slower than that of the private sector overall. Since the April employment trough, leisure and hospitality has regained 4.955 million of the 8.224 million jobs lost during the worst of the pandemic, or 60.25 percent. For the private sector in toto, 13.267 million of the 21.353 million jobs lost in March and April have come back since – 62.13 percent.

It’s also clear that many of the kinds of workers about which Fed Chair Powell has been most concerned are concentrated in leisure and hospitality. For example, in 2019, (America’s last pre-CCP Virus full year), 13.1 percent of these sectors’ workers were African American versus 12.3 percent for the entire U.S. economy (including government workers at all levels), and 24 percent were Hispanic or Latino versus 17.6 percent for the entire economy.

Leisure and hospitality companies tend to employ Americans with low levels of formal education, too. According to the Labor Department, in 2019, 79.9 percent of the nation’s “first-line supervisors of house-keeping and janitorial workers” 25 years and older lack even an associate’s degree, and 76 percent of their food preparation and service counterparts fall into this category. The shares are even higher for the workers they supervise. Meanwhile, only 51.5 percent of all U.S. workers haven’t taken their education beyond high school.

Not surprisingly, therefore, leisure and hositality jobs pay poorly. In February, 2020, just before the arrivals of the pandemic and the lockdowns, their average hourly wages were only 59.28 percent those of all private sector workers. Last month, this figure had fallen to 57.58 percent. (See Table B-3 here.) 

For most of the pandemic period, the U.S. government at all levels pursued a mitigation strategy that aimed mainly at curbing economic and other forms of human activity across-the-board. Now, even with vaccinations and growing population-wide immunity showing strong signs of bringing the pandemic under control, the Biden administration and the Democratic Congress are just as determined to stimulate the economy that’s still significantly shut down by with an American Rescue Plan that seems just as indiscriminate.

As I’ve been writing (see, e.g., here), it should have been clear since late last spring that the anti-virus fight would have much more effective (and less harmful to the economy and other dimensions of public health) had it targeted protecting especially vulnerable populations. I strongly suspect that, with the fullness of time, it will become just as clear that a stimulus and jobs strategy emphasizing accelerating reopening, and thus aiding sectors and workers hardest hit by the remaining shutdowns, will prove a much more effective employment cure than the indiscriminate spending approach on which Washington has just doubled down.