As a lifelong Cleveland Browns fan, I'm prone to pessimism. A win on Sunday only brings expectations of a loss next Sunday. I wait for good news, then don't believe it when it comes. It's a tough way to go through a football season, but I can't help it.
Tracking the economy over the last few years is a perfect fit for a Browns fan—good news followed shortly by bad. When positive economic reports come out, skepticism creeps in. In September, several pieces of economic data came in better than expected and, when combined with what our business contacts in the region were telling us, paint a picture of an economy that appears to be doing better than what we experienced over the summer. Let's look closer.
The lead from the October 19 Beige Book summary reads:
"Reports from the twelve Federal Reserve Districts indicate that overall economic activity continued to expand in September, although many Districts described the pace of growth as modest or slight."
The opening sentence from the Sixth District's section of the Beige Book struck a similar note:
"Business contacts in the Sixth District indicated that economic activity continued to expand at a modest pace in September."
The message here is an important one. Businesses here in the Southeast and in most other regions are telling us that the economy does not appear to be contracting. True, the overall pace of activity may be modest or slight, but we were told that it is still positive. Recent data support what our contacts were telling us. As Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart said in his October 18 speech to the CFA Society of East Tennessee in Chattanooga:
"The somewhat overlooked story of the period since the end of August is that much of the incoming data have exceeded most forecasters' low expectations. For the third quarter at least, it appears that downgrades of growth forecasts have been too pessimistic."
Of course, we're not going to proclaim that the economy is clearly on a path to significantly better outcomes based on a month of data and anecdotal information. After all, three weeks ago the Browns were 2-1 and tied for first place. Today we are 2-3 and in the cellar.
Along those lines, it is important to recognize that modest economic growth does not help address the high rate of unemployment. As President Lockhart noted in Chattanooga:
"[M]ost private sector forecasters envision growth in 2012 approaching 2.5 percent. In the opinion of many economists, that 2.5 percent approximates the steady-state growth rate of the economy's potential. This rate would certainly be an improvement over 2011 as a whole. The problem is without growth measurably better than 2.5 percent, little progress will be made in absorbing slack in the economy—above all, labor market slack."
The Atlanta Fed's Beige Book recorded little improvement in regional labor markets in September:
"Employers continued to manage their labor supply very tightly. Most contacts indicated that the outlook for hiring remained restrained by modest expectations regarding future sales. Several reports suggested that permanent employees were primarily being used to maintain a firm's core business, while specific projects were being assigned to contractors and temporary hires. Firms continued to seek efficiency gains through investment in technology and other cost-saving applications."
Although not mentioned in our Beige Book, we should also note that while we did not pick up on significant plans to increase employment in our discussions with business contacts, we also did not hear much in the way of plans to reduce current levels of employment. The economy may not be improving enough to help cut into unemployment much, but it appears to be doing well enough to prevent further job declines.
Back to the Browns. They are playing better and we may be looking at a .500 season. After two straight years of going 5-11, 8-8 looks pretty good. But, like the Browns, a steady-state rate of growth and not experiencing further reductions in employment is not the best outcome, but it is better than where we were a few years ago.
President Lockhart concluded in Chattanooga that
"[A]s the numbers over the last couple of months demonstrate, outcomes better than consensus expectations can happen. Let's not talk ourselves into believing that enduring weakness or recession is inevitable."
By Mike Chriszt, an assistant vice president in the Atlanta Fed's research
department