Chart via Carl Lantz of Credit Suisse.
Karl Smith notes that bloggers have gone from ridiculing the headline numbers of the jobs reports because later they’ll be revised to focussing on the revisions — which also will be revised. (Guilty.)
But instead of falling into a vortex of economic indicator nihilism and quitting to look for a proper job, we can post a chart like the one above that goes back a few years and clears out some of the noise. It shows that although the April’s income growth fell slightly below trend, the basic path has been steady and clear.
Unfortunately this doesn’t approach any reasonable definition of “catch-up growth” or “escape velocity” or whatever — though of course it’s far better than what’s happening throughout Europe.
As for the relative impact on payroll incomes from fluctuations in its three components, here’s another good chart showing that the worrying fall in incomes last month was due mainly to a big fall in hours:
