There are a number of reports that used to garner attention in the press. The Weekly Unemployment Claims Report, the monthly Jobs Report, The Monthly Housing Reports, and the Monthly Treasury Report on the Debt and Deficit. This month the top ten columns focused on real estate and jobs.

(July 12) The most read column during the month of July was the one that compared the "success" of the Obama Presidency with the successes of the Reagan, Clinton, and George W. Bush Presidency. "Four Presidents at 89 Months - Effective Unemployment Rate Between 10.26% and 12.71%" examined the Current Population Survey data and compared the participation rates, unemployment rates, and the amount of full-time and part-time jobs created at the 89 month mark for the most recent two term Presidents. This column started when one meme was showing the decline in the participation rate under President Bush versus the increasing participation rate of President Clinton. It was also inspired by another meme that said that President Obama had created more jobs than Presidents Bush 41 and Bush 43 and was only second to President Clinton. When all the data is examined President Obama is in fourth place for the number of participants added to the economy, he is in fourth place for participation, and third place for Job creation.

(July 8) Last month the June Employment Situation Report was probably the most anticipated report. The May Jobs Report showed that we took 37 steps back in order to take 38 steps forward. The April numbers were revised downward 37,000 jobs. This allowed the May jobs number to start lower and "bounce back" 38,000 jobs. We should have lost jobs during May. We did. The "June Jobs Report (Revealed) that we Lost Jobs During (May)(Part 1)" was rushed to be published when the Private Sector data was released. The Private Sector number is the basis for the "President's Job Streak" number. The seasonally adjusted CES Private Sector job level dropped from 121,797,000 to 121,791,000. This is the preliminary number. This column anticipates that that number will be revised upward with the final revision in order to keep the streak alive.

(July 4) There are other reports that garner a considerable amount of attention. People used to obsess over the weekly unemployment claims report. People still focus attention on the new home construction data, the new home sales data, and the existing home sales data. Home sales, new or existing, have synergistic impacts on consumer spending for the home and garden, electronics and appliances, as well as home furnishing sectors of the economy. The third most read column of the month of July was "April and May New Home Sales - No Fireworks Here." The data for both April and May showed rising sales prices and an increase of units sold for their respective month from 2015 to 2016. The data also reveals a consistent upward trend for both units and price since 2014. The problem is that the April and May units sold were both lower than the April and May units sold during April and May 1993 through April and May 2007. The trend was for New Home Sales to trend between the levels we saw during 1975 and 1983. Think about it. The best sales in 8 years? The past eight years we saw sales lower than we have seen since the 70s, 80s, 90s, and early 2000s..

(July 6) New Home Sales are contingent upon new home construction. New home construction continues to be sluggish. The column "April and May New Home Construction Data - Trending toward 1981, 1992 levels." Whether you examine the starts data or the completions data, we are seeing the current year data trending either between 1981, 1982, 1992 and 1998 levels. We have lost decades of new construction growth

(June 28) It was thought that the data reported for the month of May could portend a dramatic slowdown for the month of June. The column "Potential June Swoon for This Month's Jobs Report - Could Last Month's Report Look Good?" anticipated that we could have seen Unadjusted Full-time job gains, unadjusted part-time job losses, and a rise in unemployment. It was also anticipated that we could see net seasonally adjusted job losses when the seasonally adjusted part-time job changes were added to the seasonally adjusted full-time job changes. We had seen sluggish Current Employment Statistics jobs growth this year. It was projected that the monthly CES growth would be under 0.80% and that it could be under 0.50%. If this happened it was thought that the seasonally adjusted CES Private Sector Number could go negative.

(July 9) Every now and again the week in review columns or the month in review columns are one of the most read columns of a given month. This month two of the top ten columns were week in review columns. The "July 9 Week in Review" column reviewed the columns "April and May New Home Sales - No Fireworks Here" "April and May New Home Construction Data - Trending toward 1981, 1992 Levels" and "June Jobs Report Reveals that the Private Sector Job Creation Streak Ended Last Month," as well as the First-time unemployment Claims data for that week

(July 30) It is not often that a column written during the final days of a month gathers enough steam to be one of the top ten columns for a given month. The column "Second Quarter GDP, GDI: Generally Declining Product, Generally Declining Income" detailed how there were massive revisions to the Annualized GDP Data (Table 1 in the report) and the Real GDP Data (Table 8 in the report.) The economy has been in decline since the first quarter of 2015 based on the real GDP value, based on year to year same quarter data. We peaked for the Annualized GDP growth during the third quarter of 2014. Whether you look at the Annualized or Real GDP value for last quarter the economy only grew at 1.2% We have not had a final annual growth rate over 3% for any year under President Obama and at this rate we will not. The Devil is in the details. The Devil is in the revisions

(July 23) The second Week in Review Column that made the Top Ten this month was the "July 23rd Week in Review" column. This column reviewed the columns regarding the June Monthly Treasury Report (We are 19.3 trillion dollars in debt,) the June MARTS (Monthly and Annual Retail Trade Summary) Report (Three Retail Sectors have not returned to June 2006 levels,) the near record level of Multiple Part-time Job Holders (a decline from May and the second highest amount of multiple part-time job holders ever,) The June New Construction Data (The Lost Decades,) and the June Existing Home Sales Data(on track with 2014 levels - less than 5 million units,) as well as the weekly unemployment claims data, and the "Gasoline Savings Stimulus Myth."

(July 11) The June Jobs Report generated a number of columns including the aforementioned "Four Presidents at 89 Months" column, the Multiple Job Holders column, and the "June Jobs Report (Part 1)" column. The second part of the Junes Jobs Report Column revealed that over 1.3 million unadjusted full-time jobs created, nearly one million part-time jobs lost, that there was net seasonally adjusted Current Population Survey job losses for back to back June reporting periods, that unemployment spiked by almost one million workers, and that the unemployment rate and participation rate both increased from the May levels. It also revealed a larger than anticipated increase in the number of seasonally adjusted  Current Employment Statistics (CES) worker growth from May to June. How did we lose seasonally adjusted jobs and gain seasonally adjusted jobs? This is the difference between the data sets and the differences in the respective seasonal factors used to convert the recorded non-seasonally adjusted data to the reported seasonally adjusted data.

(July 14)  The last column that made it into the top ten was the column "Unemployment Claims Report - A Tale of Two Data Sets - First-time Claims Approaching 300,000." The non-seasonally adjusted First-time Unemployment (FTU) hit 298,862 workers. This went unnoticed elsewhere. The continuing claims number continued to remain over 2 million workers during the time period of this report. The title of this article references the difference between the 2 million who are continuing to draw unemployment benefits and the 8 million unemployed workers recorded in the June Jobs Report. Does anybody know how many unemployed workers we have? Does anybody care?

This week we will see the Monthly Employment Situation Report released. Will the June data be revised downward? Will the May data be revised upward to "maintain the streak?"

If a streak ends and nobody reports it did it really end?

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