Here are the most recent economic reports from this week (from the Joint Economic Committee of Congress):
State Employment Statistics:
* Non-farm payroll employment increased in 32 states in December. The states with the largest employment gains were Florida (+12,100), Texas (+7,000), Georgia (+5,600), Colorado (+5,400), and New York (+12,100).
* Employment increased in 48 states during 2004. The largest gains in 2004 occurred in Florida (+172,300), California (+152,300), Texas (+124,800), Virginia (+79,500), and North Carolina (+76,400).
* Over the past year, the unemployment rate has fallen in 43 states.
Federal Budget:
* The budget deficit for fiscal year 2005 is projected to be $368 billion – that’s over $40 billion less than the fiscal year 2004 deficit. CBO projects an even smaller deficit of $295 billion for fiscal year 2006.
* As a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the budget deficit will be 3.0% for fiscal year 2005 and 2.3% for fiscal year 2006, significantly lower than the 3.6% level reached during fiscal year 2004. These deficit-to-GDP ratios are significantly lower than levels reached in the 1980s and early 1990s. The most recent highs were 4.7% in 1992, after the Gulf war, and 6.0% in 1983. (In order to compare deficits across different years, it is important to account for the economy’s cheap topamax online capacity to absorb the deficits and the government’s ability to finance them. Both of these factors depend on the size of the economy. For this reason, economists typically measure deficits relative to GDP.)
* The ratio of publicly-held debt to GDP is projected to be 38.1%, a percentage that is still lower than the ratios the U.S. sustained for most of the 1980s and 1990s. Indeed, the debt amounted to almost 43% of GDP as recently as 1998. Since 1940, the highest ratio achieved was 108.6% in 1946.
Economic Expansion
Robust growth in consumer and business investment spending continues to fuel growth in the gross domestic product (GDP) and payroll job gains continue at a healthy pace. Payroll employment has expanded for 16 consecutive months and payroll job gains in 2004 totaled over 2.2 million. Energy prices rose again recently, after a sharp retreat from recent peaks of late October. Higher energy prices have pushed up the dollar value of imports while stagnant growth abroad has hampered export growth. As a result, the U.S. trade deficit hit a record high in dollar terms in November. Despite increases in energy prices last year, inflation remains tame. Forecasters continue to see low inflation along with strong and steady growth at least through next year.
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