> BLS DAILY REPORT, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2000:
>
> Falling energy prices through mid-August and moderation in other goods and
> services nudged down consumer prices 0.1 percent on a seasonally adjusted
> basis last month, according to figures released by BLS. But analysts
> cautioned that energy prices will rebound this fall. While the small
> decline in the CPI-U was the first decrease since April 1986, forecasters
> emphasize that beneath the headline number is further evidence that
> inflation has climbed to a new level this year. During the first 8 months
> of 2000, the CPI-U rose at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.4
> percent, up from the 2.7 percent posted for all of 1999. Almost all of
> the acceleration in the CPI this year has been in energy prices. The
> decline in energy prices shown in the August CPI figures "is a timing
> issue" related to how BLS collects price information over the course of
> the month, said Bob Brown, president of Inflation Analytics, Inc. in
> Arlington, Va. The rise in energy prices at the retail level came later
> in August, after the price information was gathered by the BLS, the agency
> confirmed. BLS economic Patrick Jackman said the agency's monthly CPI
> reports are based on prices gathered over a 3-week period. In the case of
> August figures, gasoline prices rose at the pump shortly after the end of
> the data collection period, he said. Brown's research indicates that while
> the September CPI report, scheduled for release on October 18, is likely
> to show some rebound in energy prices, there will be a larger jump in
> natural gas and home heating oil in the CPI figures for October and
> November. In terms of spillover effects of higher energy costs, a jump in
> airline fares was one of the few places in the CPI report where it was
> evident. Jackman attributed virtually all of the growth in medical costs
> this year to an acceleration in hospital and related costs, which were up
> by 6.6 percent, compared with August 1999. In contrast, prices of
> prescription and nonprescription drugs showed a price increase of 4.0
> percent over the same 12-month period (Daily Labor Report, page D-1).
> __World oil prices may be on the rise again, but last month prices paid by
> consumers for gasoline, home heating oil, natural gas and electricity all
> declined enough to cause the consumer price index to fall slightly for the
> first time since 1986, the Labor Department reported yesterday. Combined,
> the energy items in the CPI fell 2.9 percent, with gasoline down the most
> -- 6 percent. That was enough to push the overall index down by 0.1
> percent. "We believe that core inflation has peaked," said Bruce
> Steinberg, chief economists at Merrill Lynch & Co. in New York. "With the
> economy slowing, core inflation should move lower in coming months." Two
> other reports added to the growing body of evidence pointing to a slowing
> of economic growth. The Federal Reserve said that industrial production
> -- the output of the nation's factories, mines, and utilities -- increased
> 0.3 percent last month, almost entirely because utility output rebounded
> on a seasonally adjusted basis, following an unusually cool summer in much
> of the country. A third report, from the Commerce Department, indicated
> that business stocks of unsold goods rose only 0.2 percent in July after
> much stronger gains in May and June (John M. Berry, The Washington Post,
> September 16, page E1).
> __For the first time in more than 14 years, it cost American consumers a
> bit less last month to fill their market baskets with goods and services
> than it did the month before. It took an exceptionally big drop in energy
> prices to bring about this rare suspension of inflation -- and economists
> agreed that the trend would almost certainly be fleeting since the price
> of oil has climbed in September to a 10-year peak. When the energy and
> food components, which tend to swing widely, are excluded, the index
> advanced 0.2 percent, the fifth consecutive month at this same, steady
> pace (Robert D. Hershey, Jr. in The New York Times, September 16, page
> B1).
> __Surging oil prices are raising new fears about a pickup in long-dormant
> inflation in the U.S. and could become a political hot potato in the
> coming elections. So far, though, the official economic news looks good,
> according to Yochi J. Dreazen in The Wall Street Journal (page A2). A
> raft of economic data released Friday continued to portray an economy
> gliding toward a soft landing of slower growth and stable prices. The
> Labor Department said the CPI fell 0.1 percent in August, after gaining
> 0.2 percent the previous month, the first such decline in more than 14
> years. Still, the numbers mightn't be as good as they appear. All of the
> decrease in overall consumer prices stemmed from a 2.9 percent drop in
> energy costs including a 6 percent decline in gasoline prices that is
> certain to reverse itself in coming weeks. "In a normal pricing
> situation, increases in the price of crude oil are reflected at the pump
> in about 6 weeks," said Joe Chelena, an economist with the Labor
> Department division that prepares the consumer price data. If that holds
> true, the full brunt of this month's increase in oil prices wouldn't be
> felt until mid-October, about 3 weeks before the November election. The
> CPI is also mentioned on page B19.
>
> Surging utility output and stronger-than-expected manufacturing growth
> buoyed industrial production 0.3 percent in August, the Federal Reserve
> reports. Seasonally adjusted data compiled by the Fed showed that stepped
> up production of consumer goods and business equipment also helped to lift
> the central bank's industrial production index to 145.7 percent of its
> 1992 base. Labor Department data released 2 weeks ago had showed that
> manufacturing employment fell 1.6 percent in August, prompting economists
> to look for a decline in manufacturing output during the month (Daily
> Labor Report, page D-18).
>
> Health insurance premiums for federal employees and retirees will rise an
> average 10.5 percent next year, the Clinton Administration said yesterday.
> The increase, the fourth consecutive year of higher rates, means health
> premiums for federal employees and retirees have jumped a staggering 36
> percent since 1998. The higher rates reflect the increasing cost of
> health care across the nation and renew concerns about the affordability
> of health care for lower-paid workers, analysts said (The Washington Post,
> September 16, page E1).
> __Frustration grows with the cost of health insurance, says The New York
> Times (page 1), which contends that with health insurance premiums across
> the country rising by 10 percent and in some cases much more in recent
> months, millions of employees, and often their employers as well, are
> grappling with soaring expense that stands in odd and vexing contrast to
> many other items in their budgets. Even as consumer prices actually fell
> over all last month for the first time in 14 years, according to a federal
> report that said the decline was largely attributable to a drop in
> gasoline prices, health care costs are on a seemingly relentless rise.
>
> The big run-up in world oil prices is taking a toll on the U.S. economy in
> terms of slower growth and a bit higher inflation, but consumer confidence
> hasn't suffered and neither economists nor government policymakers see any
> sign that the bigger oil bill will tip the nation into a recession. Prices
> of crude oil to be delivered next month hit a 10-year higher of $36 a
> barrel yesterday, after the president of the Organization of Petroleum
> Exporting Countries said the price might temporarily reach $40 this
> winter. A flare-up between Iraq and Kuwait over the latter dripping close
> to their common border added to concerns about the adequacy of future
> supplies (John M. Berry, writing in The Washington Post, September 16,
> page 1).
> __This winter, the mailman will be delivering markedly higher heating
> bills throughout much of the country, including the Washington area.
> Those who use natural gas -- the dominant heating fuel in the Washington
> area and throughout the United States -- face a 27 percent increase.
> Motorists get hit in the wallet every time they pull into a service
> station. They now typically pay more than $1.60 a gallon for gas, and the
> days of 90-cent-a-gallon gas -- yes it was just last year -- are but a
> distant memory. At least that's better than in England, France and
> Belgium where motorists are waiting in long lines to buy $4-a-gallon gas,
> only to find that some stations have run out. Is this the start of an
> energy crisis? (The Washington Post, September 17, page H1).
> __The price of crude oil rose more than 5 percent yesterday, reaching a
> 10-year high for the second time this week. The jump came amid tensions
> in the Persian Gulf and concern that a storm would intensify as it moved
> toward rigs and refineries along the Gulf of Mexico (Bloomberg News, in
> The New York Times, page B3).
>
> An article on proposed Occupational Safety and Health Administration rules
> for workplace injuries in The Wall Street Journal (page 1) says that
> repetitive motion disorders and other repeated-trauma injuries began
> getting attention in the 1980s, when the advent of desk-top computers
> coincided with a spike in cases of carpal-tunnel syndrome. In 1990,
> President Bush's labor secretary ordered OSHA to start considering rules
> to address such injuries. Her successor formally launched the process in
> 1992, as repeated-trauma cases continued to proliferate. They peaked at
> 332,100 in 1994, compared with 23,200 in 1980, Labor Department statistics
> show. The Clinton Administration made the rules a priority. In 1995, OSHA
> informally floated a numerical risk-scoring system that employers would
> use to evaluate every job for ergonomically hazardous conditions, high
> scoring jobs would have to be altered. OSHA's sister agency, the Bureau of
> Labor Statistics, tracks every imaginable type of work-related injury and
> illness based on reports from employers. It has a category for
> musculoskeletal disorders, or MSDs, but OSHA considered it too narrow,
> because it doesn't include backaches, hernias, carpal-tunnel syndrome and
> other ailments that officials wanted to cover. So OSHA melded those and
> several other existing BLS ailment categories together into a new category
> for "work-related MSDs." The existing categories account for about
> 600,000 employees missing at least some work time each year. The BLS says
> two-thirds of all workplace maladies don't involve absences, so OSHA
> estimates that twice as many workers, or 1.2 million, suffer less-serious
> MSDs. Hence a 1.8 million total. BLS data show that the incidence of
> repeated-trauma injuries has been falling since 1994. According to
> definitions in the BLS injury classification manual, more than
> three-quarters of the injuries in OSHA's MSD total are either generally or
> exclusively the result of "a single incident," including sprains, strains
> and soreness and injuries caused by bending, climbing and twisting. An
> accompanying chart shows all workplace injuries and illnesses 1992 to the
> present, by year, and the source of the data is BLS.
>
> Despite stock slump, Wall Street binges on pay and perks, says The Wall
> Street Journal (page 1) contending that there is a war on Wall Street for
> talent. On page A8 is a graph showing employment in the securities
> industry, whose data is taken from the Datastream, Securities DataBank.
>
> Although Americans consume more oil per person, European consumers will
> take a bigger hit from the spike in global oil prices, says The Wall
> Street Journal (page A28). Inflation in Europe is traditionally more
> sensitive to oil prices than in the U.S. The Organization for Economic
> Cooperation and Development estimates a $10-a-barrel increase in oil
> prices adds 1.1 percentage points to the European inflation rate 2 years
> later but only 0.6 percentage point to the inflation rate in the U.S. That
> makes the task of the European Central Bank, already in danger of losing
> its battle to keep inflation below a target of 2 percent, even more
> difficult.
>
> More than 83 percent of Americans 25 and older graduated from high school,
> and more than 25 percent have at last a college degree, both record highs,
> according to Census Bureau statistics. The high school graduation rate is
> up from 24.5 percent in 1940, the earliest records available, and 77.6
> percent in 1990, according to Census data released Friday. The percentage
> of people in the same age group with a bachelor's degree increased to 25.2
> percent, from 4.6 percent in 1940 and 21.3 percent 10 years ago. Census
> says the numbers should keep rising. The agency says 84.3 percent of
> whites had a high school degree in 1999, compared with 77 percent of
> blacks and 56.1 percent of Hispanics; 25.9 percent of whites had at least
> a bachelor's degree in 1999, compared with 15.4 percent of blacks and 10.9
> percent of Hispanics (USA Today, page 9D).
>
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