August 17, 2020 by

Sales Tax Revenues Decline, but not as Badly as Rumored

By: Jim Cine and Kate Kremer

If you are in or soon entering bargaining, right now it is critical to be reviewing the month to month sales tax numbers, in a way that is has never been seen before.

Two immediate takeaways: First, sales tax revenues have dramatically declined, and second, the drop is not nearly as sharp as many local budget officers have been projecting. You can’t take your budget department’s dramatic announcements of dire circumstances to be accurate without doing your own work.

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Filed Under: Economic Developments, Economics
August 17, 2020 by

CPI Drops, but Seattle Still Surpasses the All-Cities Index

By: Jim Cline and Kate Kremer

Pushed down by the COVID Recession, the important June to June CPI number showed a dramatic, though expected, drop.  We say “important” because many Washington public safety labor contracts are tied, directly or indirectly, to the June CPI numbers. As indicated in the recently released Guidebook on “Negotiation in Turbulent Times”, regardless of the CPI, we anticipate challenging bargaining in 2020 and into 2021. We are expecting most employers will at least start with 0% as their base wage proposal, and we’ve already seen one proposal for a -3%. [Read more…]

Filed Under: CPI, Economics
January 3, 2017 by

Wage Series Part 10: 2017 Economic Conditions and A Look Ahead

Wage Series Part 10: 2017 Economic Conditions and A Look Ahead

By Jim Cline and Kate Kremer

This is the final article in our 10 part economy and wage settlement series.

Even before Donald Trump was elected president indicators pointed to the return of both the local and the US CPI to a 2% + figure for the next few years, something previously discussed in this series. There are some economists that point to the bond market activity as indications of pending rising inflation. Others are not convinced that even the more dramatic actions of a new administration will have an immediate effect on inflation because there are some unchanging realities that are pushing inflation downward. Greg Ip, in his article Trumpflation: Not Now, Maybe Later, offers the following projections:

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Filed Under: CPI, Economic Developments, Economics