Friday, January 27, 2017

Unemployment Rate Drops in Mississippi, Not in NM

Activity in New Mexico’s employment sectors churned in December but ended the month with a gain of 100 jobs. Government, mining and construction took care of losing 2,600 jobs. Private sector service sectors added 2,700 jobs to provide the 100 job gain, which, the Department of Workforce Solutions said was a “neutral percentage growth.”
Over the year, as reported last week, the state gained 2,400 jobs, bringing the wage job total to 835,400. New Mexico’s 6.6% unemployment rate was second place nationally behind Alaska. Mississippi, the nation’s unemployment leader at 6.8% in December 2015, reported 5.6% unemployed in December 2016.
For the month, leisure and hospitality led the growers with 900 new wage jobs, followed by professional and business services (+800) and education and health services (+500).
The numbers are in the DWS newsletter, Labor Market Review, which was released this afternoon. The numbers discussed here are not seasonally adjusted.
The three smaller metro areas—Las Cruces (+400), Farmington (+300) and Santa Fe (-200)—combined for a net gain of 500 jobs during 2016. The only big number among the three was 1,200 new education and health services jobs in Las Cruces, which offset the gain with 400 fewer jobs in both government and manufacturing. For Santa Fe, it was plus 100 here, minus 100 there, among the sectors.

Friday, January 20, 2017

December Job Growth is 0.3%

There are statistics and there are revised statistics. Revisions in the November job statistics turned the 2,500 job loss into a 900 job gain. No job should appear in the New Mexico Mudville as the new gain translates to 0.1%, a sum that could disappear in the blink of a statistician’s eye.
For December, the numbers released today report a 2,400-job increase from December 2015 to December 2016 to move the December 2016 wage job total to 835,400. The gain was 0.3%. Remember though, all is preliminary.
The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 6.6%, down a hair from 6.7% in November and the same as December 2015.
The state’s Department of Workforce Solutions released the December job report today.
Education and health services (EHS), driven by Medicaid, continued as the state’s fastest growing sector with 5,700 new wage jobs, year over year. EHS has led sector job growth for 2.5 years, DWS said.
Professional and business services (+2,400 jobs) and leisure and hospitality (+1,400 jobs) continued as the second and third fastest growing sectors.
Year over year jobs losses in mining (oil and gas) have eased. From December 2015 to December 2016 it was 5,000 fewer jobs.
Manufacturing dropped another 800 jobs over the year to now employ 26,500 people.
Retail didn’t have much of a holiday season if employment is the measure. Retail trade employed 93,700 in December, marking a 2,800 job loss for the year.

Saturday, January 14, 2017

Martinez Administration Tax Cuts Posted

January 14, 2017
Blog Readers: The bills listed below are those behind the Martinez administration’s oft stated brag of having cut taxes 37 times. My column for publication January 16 to 20 discusses the cuts and concludes there is less to the claim than meets the eye. My column is posted at nmopinions.com after publication week.
The notes with the bill numbers are mine. Chris Sanchez only sent bill numbers and the year of passage.
One of the bills, Senate Bill 369 from 2012, showed no tax cuts. Let’s generous and assume the administration make a typo in compiling the bill numbers. – Harold Morgan

TO: Chrisj.Sanchez3@state.nm.us

12/20/16
Chris: My weekly column goes to nine community newspapers around the state. At the lunch today (12/20/16) of the legislative outlook conference of the New Mexico Tax Research Institute, Keith Gardner said, “We’ve cut taxes 37 times.” Please send me the list of those tax cuts. Please also include the session, bill number and estimated revenue impact.
Thank you. - Harold Morgan

Was unable to access fiscal impact report. Thus, do not have the forgone revenue from these cuts.

A number of these “cuts” were extensions of previously enacted tax credits or gross receipts exemptions. Others raised the amount of sales required for a tax to be charged. Taxes tended to be very narrowly focused.

12/22/16
Chrisj.Sanchez3@state.nm.us
Hey Harold. Here you go:

2011 HB 273 Trivial. limiting the research and development small business tax credit and extending it until 2015.

2011 HB 437 More than trivial. Possibly discriminates against rural counties? A property tax exemption for veteran’s organizations.
2011 HB 440 an “advanced energy deduction” and a gross receipts and compensating tax deduction to encourage the construction and development of qualified generating facilities to sequester or control carbon dioxide emissions. Hugely speculative. Amounts potentially very large.

2011 HB 523;SB 179 a gross receipts deduction for locomotive fuel. This might be called the Union Pacific bill. A deal breaker, it was called, with regard to UP constructing its rail yard near Santa teresa. . It was also an extension of a ill passed several years before.
2011 SB 84 Extending the gross receipts and compensation tax deduction for gross receipts on fuel specially prepared and sold for use in turboprop or jet-type engines. Appears to be a very narrow interest.

2011 SB 282
2012 HB 184 – two deductions
2012 HB 184
2012 HB 10
2012 HB 116
2012 HB 123
2012 SB 32
2012 SB 369 – No cut. Just definitions.
2013 HB 106
2013 HB 641 – Film and more.
2013 HB 641
2013 SB 14 – Extending tax credit.
2013 SB 81 – Increases and decreases beer tax.
2013 SB 116 – Increases wine tax rate, increases volume limit, cuts tax amount.
2013 SB 160
2014 HB24
2014 HB14
2014 SB88
2014 HB32
2014 HB288 – Biofuels.
2014 SB106
2015 SB279
2015 SB302
2015 SB448
2015 SB506
2015, (special session) HB2 Tax package. It dealt with a hodgepodge including the angel investment tax credit, medical care expenses, selling stuff to companies dealing with thee Department of Defense, and refunding the petroleum products loading fee. (What is the petroleum products loading fee? Why do we have it?)
2015, special HB2
2015, special HB2
2015, special HB2
2015, special HB2
2015, special HB2
2015, special HB2

Thursday, January 12, 2017

Abq Home Sales Continue Month-Over-Month Growth. Las Cruces Sales Strong in 2016.

January 12, 2017

Summarizing 2016 for sales of single family detached homes in metro Albuquerque: More homes sold and sold faster for a bit more money.
Total 2016 single family sales were 11,021, plus 781, or 7.6%, from 2015. On average the homes sold in 55 days, nine days, or 14%, faster than 2016. The median price, $187,500, was up 4.5% from 2015 and the average price, $222,115, was up 4.1%.
The December results continued the trend of the year.
The sale of 875 homes closed during December. That was 30 homes, 3.6%, more than December 2016 and 77 homes, or ten percent, more than November. The December closing even beat October in defiance of the seasonal expectation of steadily declining sales during the fall as it gets colder.
The year closed with the sale of 770 homes pending, seasonally down 110, or 13%, from November, but 205, or 36% ahead of November 2016. A correlation of closed sales in one month with pending sales the previous month has been argued here, with a maximum of 90% of pending sales closed the following month. If any correlation exists, the relationship changed in December when the 875 closed sale were just five fewer than 880 sales pending during November.
The strong year-over-year increase of pending sales suggests a strong performance for closed sales during January (strong for January, anyway).
The homes sold in an average of 59 days, six days, or 7.8%, faster than December 2015. The average sales period for November and October was 54 days.
December’s median sales price was $190,000, a nice 8.6% increase from $175,000 during December 2015. The September median price was $195,000 with $189,000 during October and $185,000 for November.
The average price for December, $222,112, increased 7.8% or about $6,000 from December 2015. Average prices were flat at just under $219,000 during November and October. August and September saw average prices around $227,000.
In Las Cruces, according to the Sun-News, sales were “1,682 new and existing homes, townhomes and condominiums in 2016, making it the best production year since 2007, when 1,877 residential sales were booked. The all-time best year on record was 2006, when 2,303 homes changed hands.” The 2016 sales included 175 new homes.”
Single family detached homes “accounted for 1,405 of the total number of sales and brought an average price of $180,439, which was just $184 higher than 2015’s average price of $180,255. The homes took an average of 96-days to sell,” the Sun-News January 12 story said.