BLS DAILY REPORT, WEDNESDAY AND THURSDAY, JAN. 15-16, 1997 _____Spurred by a continuing rise in oil prices, consumer prices rose 0.3 percent in December, BLS reports. The CPI-U rose 3.3 percent in 1996, up from a 2.5 percent advance in 1995. But the core rate of inflation rose just 2.6 percent in 1996, a decline from a 3 percent gain in the previous year. This advance, along with an identical one in 1994, was the smallest annual increase in the core rate since 1965 ....The slow rate of increase in the core rate in 1996 is broadbased and reflects smaller increases in all major expenditure groups except transportation ....(Daily Labor Report, Jan. 15, pages 2,D-1). _____Consumer price inflation, fueled by a big jump in energy prices and a lesser surge in food costs, rose 3.3 percent last year, the highest rate in six years. Outside of food and energy, inflation moderated in every other major part of the CPI ....(Washington Post, Jan. 15, page C10). _____Sales grow modestly with inflation benign. Retail sales confirmed what merchants had suggested for weeks: The 1996 holiday season produced gains, but they were smaller than some retailers had expected ....With sales growth contained, stores have not had much room to raise prices ....(New York Times, Jan. 15, page D2). Retail sales rose 0.6 percent in December, despite department stores' weak holiday sales. Meanwhile, consumer prices, minus food and energy, rose 0.1 percent ....(Wall Street Journal, Jan. 15, page A2). After adjustment for inflation, the weekly earnings of most U.S. workers rose 1.1 percent seasonally adjusted in December, making the gain for all of 1996 a relatively strong 1.8 percent, BLS reports. The 1.8 percent gain for 1996 was the largest annual increase since 1983 when real pay rose 2.0 percent. On an annual basis, real pay increased in only two of the last 10 years ....(Daily Labor Report, Jan. 15, pages 1,D-16). Retail sales rose 0.6 percent in December after a revised 0.2 percent decline in November, Commerce Department reports ....(Daily Labor Report, Nov. 15, page D-13). Yesterday's "USA Snapshots" in USA Today (page 1A) shows the most lucrative majors for men -- engineering, mathematics, physics, pharmacy, and economics -- in terms of wages or salaries and again credits the Occupational Outloook Quarterly, Summer 1996. Census Bureau reports business inventories edged up 0.1 percent in November, for their fifth gain in a row, while sales jumped 0.6 percent ....(Daily Labor Report, Jan. 16, page A-2)_____Inventories up only marginally ....(New York Times, Jan. 16, page D2; Wall Street Journal, Jan. 16, page A2). Manufacturing activity among firms in the Southeast weakened in December, with declines posted in production, new orders, and hours worked, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta reported. In addition, the prices area manufacturers received for the goods they produce fell during the month, while prices paid for raw materials remained solid ....(Daily Labor Report, Jan. 15, page A-3). The steady hum produced by the South's economy in recent years is now being drowned out by a cry for help: Companies, high tech and low tech alike, can't find workers ....The South, like many parts of the country, has been wrestling with a shortage of lower-wage employees for its service economy. But a recent survey of companies by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond shows that the region's labor shortages are beginning to extend far beyond minimum-wage employees ....The pinch means that employers are having to pay higher wages. And higher wages translate into slower economic growth ....(Wall Street Journal, Jan. 15, page A2). "Trendlines" in today's Washington Post (page E1) is "Keeping Debt Down: Why This Expansion Doesn't Seem to Be on Borrowed Time." John M. Berry writes, "A major change in the U.S. economy during the 1990s is the far slower rise in the combined debt of federal, state and local governments, nonfinancial businesses and households. The increase in debt slowed sharply during the 1990-91 recession, but remarkably has not accelerated very much since. Some Federal Reserve officials regard this as one more sign that the economy is on a firm, low-inflation footing ...." An editorial in yesterday's Wall Street Journal includes the following: "`Women's Figures' is a new survey of economic data published by the Independent Women's Forum, a free-market nonprofit in Washington, and by the American Enterprise Institute. The volume brings good news ....Take the wage-gap stereotype. Back in the 1960s, women wore buttons reading `59 Cents' to call attention to the gap between women's pay and men's. By May 1995, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics issued `Facts on Working Women,' that difference had narrowed to 76.4%. The BLS authors wondered aloud about discrimination's role: They wrote that the existence or effect of discrimination `on the earnings gap [are] hard to measure.' Other data suggest prospects for further narrowing: The federal government's National Longitudinal Survey of Youth found that the earnings of childless women 27-33 had reached a level 98% of men's ...."
