by Calculated Risk on 9/28/2014 08:21:00 PM

From CNBC: Bill Clinton: I know why US incomes are stagnant

"Median income hasn't gone up for three reasons," Clinton said. "One is the labor markets aren't tight enough, and we haven't raised the minimum wage as we should. And the second reason is we haven't changed the job mix enough, to raise the median income and have more poor people working into it. The combination of jobs has to pay, on average, higher wages."

"Gross domestic product growth doesn't lead to growth in median incomes because company after company takes more of its profits and spends it on dividends, stock buybacks, management increases … and less on sharing it with the employees broadly," said Clinton ...

Here is a graph from the Census report: Income and Poverty in the United States:

"In 2013, real median household income was 8.0 percent lower than in 2007, the year before the most recent recession."

My view is slack in the labor market is probably the main cause - and I expect real wages to increase as the unemployment rate falls further.

 Monday:
• At 8:30 AM ET, Personal Income and Outlays for August. The consensus is for a 0.3% increase in personal income, and for a 0.4% increase in personal spending. And for the Core PCE price index to be unchanged.

• At 10:00 AM, Pending Home Sales Index for August. The consensus is for a 0.3% decrease in the index.

• At 10:30 AM, Dallas Fed Manufacturing Survey for September. This is the last of the regional manufacturing surveys for September, and so far the results have been solid.

Weekend:
• Schedule for Week of September 28th

• Q3 Review: Ten Economic Questions for 2014

From CNBC: Pre-Market Data and Bloomberg futures: the S&P futures are down 3 and DOW futures are also down 15 (fair value).

Oil prices were mixed over the last week with WTI futures at $93.11 per barrel and Brent at $97.00 per barrel.  A year ago, WTI was at $103, and Brent was at $109 - so prices are down 10%+ year-over-year.

Below is a graph from Gasbuddy.com for nationwide gasoline prices. Nationally prices are around $3.34 per gallon (down about 10 cents from a year ago).  If you click on "show crude oil prices", the graph displays oil prices for WTI, not Brent; gasoline prices in most of the U.S. are impacted more by Brent prices.

Orange County Historical Gas Price Charts Provided by GasBuddy.com