Tax Withholding Growth Remained Very Strong in March
Posted on March 31, 2021 Summary Tax withholding growth in March was strong on both a year-over-year basis and, more relevantly, on a year-over-two-year basis. We now look at two-year growth in withholding because the standard year-over-year measures are becoming distorted by the base period being the severely depressed amounts from a year ago. Withholding […]
Normally Federal Revenues Get Hit Hard the Year After a Recession Starts, But This Time Feels Very Different
Posted on March 25, 2021 I learned as a federal revenue estimator never to underestimate the effects of a recession on the following year’s receipts, when individuals’ final payments in April would drop sharply and refunds through the tax filing season would increase significantly. I learned those lessons in April of 2002 and 2009, well […]
The Average Indexed Wage for 2020: What Do We Know About the Likely Movement?
Posted on March 21, 2021 Summary There is still a lot of uncertainty, but my best guess at this point is that the average wage index (AWI) for Social Security purposes will be roughly flat in 2020, neither falling nor rising, which would be a better performance than projections by Stephen Goss of SSA and, […]
No Obvious Revision In Store to 2020 NIPA Wages and Salaries
Posted on March 15, 2021 We learned more from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) for the third quarter of 2020 that was released on Tuesday of last week by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The QCEW data are administrative data on employment and wages collected from nearly all employers by the […]
Growth in Economywide Wages and Salaries: Different Signals from BEA, BLS, and Tax Collections
Posted on March 10, 2021 Despite some recent modest revisions to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), we are still getting different signals on the pace of recovery in economywide wages and salaries from BEA, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), and the Treasury Department’s tax withholding data. On Friday of last week, […]