Lab Grown Meat, Jobs, & More

Week in Review: Apr. 29-May 3

Florida became the first state to ban lab grown meat on Wednesday. One of the stated reasons for the new law is that “cultivated meat is a national security concern…concentrating protein production in factories could lead to famine if those facilities are struck by missiles.”

I’m pretty sure this has more to do with cattle-industry lobbying than concerns about coordinated missile strikes on the nation’s lab grown meat factories, but what do I know?

Speaking of, today’s jobs report couldn’t have been any better if you grew it in a lab, and you can read what Anirban had to say about that here (free for all subscribers). Beyond the jobs report, this week was loaded with economic data releases, including on consumer confidence, home prices, the manufacturing sector, construction spending, and more.

Monday

TSA Checkpoint Travel Numbers

The number of passengers screened by TSA remained pretty steady this past week and is still about 5% above 2023 levels.

Tuesday

Employment Cost Index

Compensation costs increased 1.2% in the first quarter. That equates to a 4.9% annual rate of increase. That’s faster than ideal from an inflation perspective, but this isn’t a particularly important measure, so don’t put too much weight on it. One interesting point: compensation costs increased 5.3% for union workers and 3.8% for nonunion workers over the year ending in March 2024.

Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index

This measure of consumer sentiment fell again this month and is now at the lowest level since 2021. The details here are bleak, and consumers feel worse about everything—short term income and labor market conditions, their family’s current and future financial conditions, etc.

I think consumers are lying here, especially because of the below chart. I believe that 45% of respondents want to spend less eating out. I also believe that they’re going to keep eating out just as much, if not more, than they were. Over the past year, retail sales at restaurants are up 6.5%, faster than any retail category other than online shopping).

Home prices

Home prices increased 0.6% in February and are up just 1.3% over the past 20 months (since June 2022). Over the 20 months prior to that, home prices increased 34.1%.

Gas Prices

Gas prices fell to $3.78 per gallon. We may be past peak prices now.

Diesel Prices

Diesel prices fell to $3.95 per gallon, the lowest price since the first week of February.   

Wednesday

Construction Spending