Earning, Saving & Spending

Personal income and spending reports are due out at 8:30 a.m. Monday from the Bureau of Economic Analysis – the same folks who brought us Friday’s advance GDP report, which showed that the nation’s economy still was contracting in the second quarter of 2009, but at a slower pace.

The personal income and outlay release uses aggregated numbers for the entire country, so it’s not a great source of nitty-gritty salary detail. Read the May 2009 edition, on the Web site now, for a look at the format and data that will be updated Tuesday with June results.

While very macro, it’s still a decent springboard for doing a grassroots story about household earning and savings trends. (The BEA report assumes that the different between income and outlay equals individual savings, so that figure is part of the monthly report.)

People never, and I mean never, get tired of reading about wages – their own and other workers. And this summer, story angles about household income abound. Aside from the obvious jobless-related approach, many employed workers are taking a pay cut as companies and governments adopt the practice of using unpaid furloughs to cut costs. Check into how widespread this practice is and what the ripple effects are in your area.

It’s not all bad news. Remember that many employees are seeing a few extra stimulus dollars in their checks – how are they spending them? Paying down debt, saving or splurging? You can ask workers themselves, keeping in mind that the real frugalities are home washing out used Ziploc bags and not spending in the public venues like malls and restaurants where you usually find ‘real people’ for your stories. Try to catch people in money-neutral locations – parks, the library, etc., to get a balanced sampling.

Also talk with local banks and credit unions about trends they are seeing. Check with payroll managers – are more workers hustling to retire 401(k) loans or having savings automatically debited right from their checks? Giant payroll processors like ADP and PayChex offers some tidbits in their media centers; it’s worth a call to them or smaller regional providers to see if they can comment on payroll trends.

We also just had a federal minimum wage increase to $7.25 per hour, effective July 24. (Keep in mind that some states’ higher minimums supersede the federal rate; here’s a list from the Department of Labor.) Minimum and living wages are controversial topics, especially among small business owners, so there’s another angle for you.

Come back to Your Daily Tipsheet each morning for advice on where to find sources, background and creative ways to make financial news and trends relevant to your audience.

The ABC's of the GDP

The granddaddy of all economic statistics will be released at 8:30 a.m. tomorrow, and the numbers will show whether or not the U.S. economy has started to claw out of its most dismal slump since the Great Depression.

Gross Domestic Product, in all its intricacies and implications, isn’t something you can assimilate overnight. But since it’s pretty much all of the statistics we’ve already discussed – and more – wrapped into one, it behooves any business reporter to bone up a bit.

Considered the key measure of any country’s economic health, the GDP basically is the sum of all goods and services produced here. It’s considered a lagging indicator, meaning it’s a review of how things were in the previous quarter, from personal income to goods exported overseas.

If quarterly GDP growth (or contraction) deviates significantly from predictions, markets globally will gyrate. According to Reuters, analysts expect the Q2 advance report to show further contraction in the U.S. economy -- the first time since 1947 that records show four consecutive negative quarters – but the pace of contraction is expected to ease.
Start at the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis, which produces the GDP reports.

Click on the GDP channel and you’ll find an e-mail sign-up, educational information about methodology, and other helpful info. Note that the GDP figures for any given quarter are released three times – the advance, preliminary and final reports. The advance is our first peek and will be refined twice more until we get the final verdict on the second quarter. If you’ve never done so before, you might want to read the releases for previous quarters to familiarize yourself with the format.

The spot news in the GDP story will be whether or not it signals an end to the recession. In that regard, you can plan on doing a local economy story highlighting the hardest-hit sectors in your area. If your readers have lost manufacturing jobs or tourism revenue or orders for new airplanes, talk to regional analysts, academics and economists about how long an upswing might take to revive or replace those losses at the local level – and fold in macro view using national statistics.

GDP results tend to move markets; if they buoy or dampen the mini-rally underway, keep an eye Friday on stocks of local interest, especially large employers whose shares are likely lurking in your readers’ retirement accounts.

Also, be sure to root around on the BEA site; you’ll find GDP stats for states and metro areas as well as the U.S.-wide figure. On the downside, the data is a couple of years old, but the interactive maps and tables may provide a springboard for stories as well as charts and graphics.

As an aside, note that the BEA also tracks personal income and spending and issues monthly reports. The June numbers will be released August 4 so you might want to give that channel a glance too, while you’re on the site.

And keep in mind, as Mark Twain supposedly quoted, “there are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies and statistics.” Not everyone agrees that the GDP figure is a true reflection of our economy. I doubt the measure is going to be scrapped any time soon, but critiques help you put it in perspective; here’s a link to a readable Associated Press piece from last year explaining some analysts’ qualms.

Come back to Your Daily Tipsheet each morning for advice on where to find sources, background and creative ways to make financial news and trends relevant to your audience.