I am so confused, I get the market and the economy are different

[progree]

9. Personal income was up 7.3% in the 2nd quarter, and up 10.1% over Q2 2019

Last edited Tue Aug 11, 2020, 07:59 AM - Edit history (4)

Personal Income increased by 7.3% in Q2, while personal income without government support decreased by 6.1% (graph), 8/6/20
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stimulus-checks-coronavirus-personal-finance-expert-advice-201536967.html

The Bureau of Economic Analysis produces the Personal Income figures
https://www.bea.gov/data/income-saving/personal-income
Table 2: Personal Income, Q2 2019: 18,480.9 B$, Q2 2020: 20,340.4 B$ -- +1,859.5 B$ (+10.06%)

Graph from Yahoo Finance link (note the sharp increase of 2020 Q2 over 2020 Q1 compared to the previous quarter to quarter increases):


Overall, Q2 2020 was higher by 1,859.5 B$ (10.1%) than Q2 2019 per Table 2 at the bea.gov link above. Hmm, 10.1% is much more than inflation + population growth, so that's a very substantial real per-capita increase.

Graph of the month by month changes from the BEA link above:



That said, the big Q2 jump came in April, followed by month-over-month declines in May and June.

And then there's July and we're a third of the way into August -- Caligula's executive orders and memos look like shams. The $300 from the feds if matched by $100 from the states, else who knows. And the fed money is taken from FEMA, like that money isn't needed, uh huh. And then that's enough to cover what, 5 weeks IIRC? And more people are going to be exhausting their regular state unemployment benefit time limits.

We won't know the July numbers until August 28.