coal mining jobs

Comparison of coal mining to national parks jobs

Eric Garland DataLab

US president Donald Trump has talked at length about restoring US coal mining jobs despite the failure of the industry as a whole due to the transition to renewables. On the chopping block? Funding for the national parks service. Hat tip to journalist Matt Yglesias for dipping into the St. Louis Federal Reserve’s FRED database to compare trends in coal …

NAHB Housing Market Index 2017

US homebuilder confidence is at a recent high point

Eric Garland DataLab

Shaking off any implications of impending trade wars with China or Mexico, as well as any doubts from rewiring 17% of the US economy through healthcare legislation, America’s homebuilders are expressing the most confidence in recent years. The reason for this given by CNBC analysts was that builders are anticipating a lax regulatory regime that will make housing starts much …

minimum wage Seattle unemployment

Minimum wage increase in Seattle correlates with low unemployment

Eric Garland DataLab

Barry Ritholz of Ritholz Wealth Management has been an ardent supported of minimum wage increase as a factor in economic growth. With this latest report on Seattle’s record low unemployment, he’s spiking the football on decoupling the increase in wages with job loss. We may have in Seattle the skunkworks for future minimum wage increases as a catalyst in job …