[PEN-L:180] BLS Daily Report

[Richardson_D]

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Two comments.

The Am. Elect. Assn. does not say how many of their 200,000 new jobs
went to people living in the US at the beginning of the year.

The Natl. Rest. Assn. never has believed the CPI for Food Away from Home
before, claiming that because of coupons restaurant prices have been
falling.

Dave

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BLS DAILY REPORT, THURSDAY, MAY 21, 1998

RELEASED TODAY:  The share of all U.S. families with at least one worker
rose by 0.8 percentage point to 82.2 percent in 1997.  Over the year,
the proportion of all families with an unemployed person fell by 0.6
percentage point to 7.0....

BLS economist Fran Horvath told a Labor Research Advisory Council
meeting that it appears Office of Personnel Management records on the
number of federal workers covered by union contracts are more accurate
than the current population survey.  The CPS relies on respondents to
accurately recall employment information.  In some households the actual
worker responds to the question, and, in others, a proxy -- usually a
spouse -- answers the question.  Proxy responses tend to show lower
union representation than self response, Horvath said....  The agency
will continue to search for a way to correct the under-representation,
BLS economist Philip Rones said....  (Daily Labor Report, page A-1).  

Wives earn more than their husbands in about a quarter of dual-income
marriages, altering the balance of power in the family and thus family
resource allocation, according to an article in the April issue of the
Monthly Labor Review....  Given that women still tend to earn less than
men, the "large proportion of wives [who] earned more than their
husbands is quite notable," said the article, written by Anne E.
Winkler, associate professor of economics and public policy
administration at the University of Missouri-St. Louis....  (Daily Labor
Report, page A-3).

The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland has tweaked the government's
traditional measure of consumer prices and concluded that the U.S. may
be a lot further from price stability than most analysts think.  BLS
calculates the CPI as the weighted mean -- or average -- of the prices
of 36 product categories.  By that measure, the annual inflation rate
has fallen to barely 2 percent.  But the Cleveland Fed publishes an
alternative measure of inflation based on what it calls the median
CPI....  The median CPI effectively discounts the most extreme
fluctuations in consumer prices, which understate the overall rate of
inflation.  For example, over the past year, the prices of products such
as fuel and used cars have fallen sharply, which has tended to pull down
the government measure of inflation.  By contrast, the median CPI gives
less weight to these large but possibly isolated declines....  Cleveland
Fed economists argue that their median-CPI method is a more accurate
predictor of inflation and is more closely tied to the growth of money
in the nation's economy.  But ... they are still a long way from
convincing colleagues at the Federal Reserve, where governors, including
Chairman Alan Greenspan, are said to be skeptical (Business Week, May
25, page 26).

High-tech industry added more than 200,000 new jobs to the U.S. economy
in 1997, according to the American Electronics Association, a trade
organization....  (Daily Labor Report, page A-16).

U.S. international trade deficit in March was $13.0 billion, $0.8
billion more than the revised figure for February, the Commerce
Department reports....  (Daily Labor Report, page D-1)_____"Two Sides of
a Trade Chasm:  The U.S. Economy May Hang in the Imbalance" is the title
of this week's "Trendlines" in the Washington Post (page D1)....  The
U.S. trade deficit grew to $13 billion in March, up about 67 percent
from a year earlier.  The economic turmoil in Asia -- cutting demand for
U.S. exports -- has been a major factor.  The turmoil, however, also has
cut the cost of many imports into the United States, helping to slow
rapid economic growth and reduce inflationary pressures here....
_____The monthly trade deficit reached a new high, providing the
clearest evidence yet how Asia's mounting economic woes are restraining
American growth for good and for ill....  (New York Times, page
D1)_____March's trade deficit makes it all but certain the year's gap
will set a record by a wide margin....  (Wall Street Journal, page A2)

Menu prices rose 2.5 percent for the 12 months ended in March, outpacing
the rate of inflation, as higher labor costs were passed on to diners,
says the National Restaurant Association.  A higher minimum wage along
with a competitive labor market create price inflation all the way up
the ladder....  (Wall Street Journal, "Business Bulletin," page A1).

DUE OUT TOMORROW:  Regional and State Employment and Unemployment: April
1998


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