The Dividend Cafe Monday - May 6, 2024

The Dividend Cafe

Today's Post - https://bahnsen.co/44ut20E

The jobs report Friday was the talk of the town, with 175,000 new jobs being created in April, well below the 240,000 estimate. It was the government sector that most missed expectations, with the private sector representing 167,000 of the new jobs. The unemployment rate ticked up to 3.9%.

Wages were only up +0.1% on the month and are now up +3.9% year-over-year. There is a real irony in how this gets digested, because some say, “oh no, wage growth lower than we want is bad” and others say “yay, too much wage growth creates a wage-price inflation spiral so this is good to see as a disinflationary sign. I think both camps have it wrong.

29 million of the roughly 158 million people employed in the United States works for a S&P 500 company (18% or so). Some I have shared this with expressed surprise it wasn’t higher, and some were shocked it was so high. Data is in the eye of the beholder, I guess.

The bottom 50% of health care spenders account for a grand total of 3% of total health care costs (less than $390 per year). The top 5%, on the other hand, account for 51% of all health care spending.

Links mentioned in this episode: DividendCafe.com TheBahnsenGroup.com