Personal income, consumption both down in May, with today’s release. Industrial production, civilian employment in NFP concept down from previous releases. Monthly GDP from SPGMI and manufacturing and trade industry sales down in April…it’s reasonable to ask whether this is all signaling something.

First up, indicators followed by the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee (BCDC). The BCDC places primary emphasis on the employment and income series.

Figure 1: Nonfarm Payroll incl benchmark revision employment from CES (bold blue), civilian employment using smoothed population controls (orange), industrial production (red), personal income excluding current transfers in Ch.2017$ (bold light green), manufacturing and trade sales in Ch.2017$ (black), consumption in Ch.2017$ (light blue), and monthly GDP in Ch.2017$ (pink), GDP (blue bars), all log normalized to 2021M11=0. 2025Q1 GDP is third release. Source: BLS via FRED, Federal Reserve, BEA, S&P Global Market Insights (nee Macroeconomic Advisers, IHS Markit) (6/2/2025 release), and author’s calculations. 

Keep reading this article on Econbrowser Blog - James Hamilton & Menzie Chinn.

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