That's because the snowstorms that hammered the East Coast last month occurred on the same week that the government surveys businesses about their payrolls. Employees who couldn't make it to work and weren't paid won't be included on those payrolls. Job losses for February may be artificially inflated by 100,000 or more, economists estimate.
Citing the weather is analogous to suggesting my dog ate my homework. This economic recovery is fragile - and the spinsters know it. Snow will have little long-term impact, but MOPE is so worried about perceptions that it's already in damage control to keep us from thinking too much. As I have suggested many times, the labor report is revised and skewed by seasonality and the birth/death model that any short-term reads on the trend are nearly impossible.
The Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CNFAI) is an economic diffusion index standardized to one. Readings above zero present above trend growth, while reading below zero represent below trend growth. The point of this chart is to compare the recoveries within the context of depression since 2000.
Waterfall drop, recovery (yellow box), then continuation. While the spinsters run for damage control over the snow storm, we should be more concerned about whether this pattern repeats within a greater depression not scheduled to end for decades.
Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CNFAI) and S&P 500 Average
Source: chicagofed.org
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