{
  "id": 3576267,
  "title": "Business Cycle Indicators: Real Consumption Is Flat",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/26/business-cycle-indicators-real-consumption-is-flat",
  "topic": "finance",
  "section": "Finance & Markets",
  "published": "2026-08-26T18:54:53.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Econbrowser",
    "slug": "econbrowser",
    "url": "https://econbrowser.com/archives/2026/08/business-cycle-indicators-real-consumption-is-flat"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Nominal consumption exceeded expectations by 0.2% month-over-month in July, surpassing the 0.1% Bbg consensus. However, real personal income without transfers remained below its recent peak. The accompanying figures illustrate employment data from the nonfarm payrolls report, industrial production, personal income excluding current transfers in chained 2017 dollars, manufacturing and trade sales in chained 2017 dollars, and monthly GDP in chained 2017 dollars. The data is log normalized to 2025M01=0.\n\nCivilian employment, adjusted for NFP concept and smoothed population controls, also showed a decline in July. This trend was observed alongside manufacturing production, ADP private nonfarm payroll employment, real retail sales excluding gasoline stations, CPI deflated, freight services indexes, and the coincident index in chained 2017 dollars. GDO is presented in blue bars, all log normalized to 2025M01=0.\n\nThe flatness in July consumption is intriguing given the rising real personal income without transfers. The S&P 500 exhibited a similar flat performance, but this correlation may not be coincidental. A comparison of consumption, durable consumption, and real retail sales, excluding gasoline stations, revealed that durable consumption had dropped. This may indicate forward-looking behavior concerning household wealth, rather than specific tariff-related issues. The most compelling aspect of the data, however, is the persistent downward trend in measures of household employment, even as population controls have remained constant.",
  "summary": "Nominal consumption beats expectations ( +0.2% m/m vs +0.1% Bbg consensus), but real personal income ex-transfers remains below recent peak. Figure 1: NFP employment (bold blue), civilian employment with smoothed population controls (bold orange), industrial production (red), personal income excluding current transfers in Ch.2017$ (bold light green), manufacturing and trade sales in Ch.2017$…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}