Justin Lahart

speaker

1,185 appearances 22 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2017 last heard Dec 2024

Justin Lahart’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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WSJ Your Money Briefing · Strong Consumer Spending Could Spell Economic Trouble · 26 Dec 2017 podcast

So, you know, what it does is it means that there's just not a lot of – there may not be a lot of extra oomph that the economy can get. voice-verified

You know, as opposed to if the saving rate was really high, then if people got excited, then they could spend more. voice-verified

Now, if they get really excited – voice-verified

Yeah. voice-verified

I mean, ultimately, consumer spending can only grow as fast as the economy grows. voice-verified

You can only spend as much money, ultimately, as you make. voice-verified

So, you know, what has to happen is, you know, people either have to make more. voice-verified

That can make spending go up. voice-verified

Or they're going to have to spend at a slower rate. voice-verified

Right. voice-verified

So one thing that we expect is that wages are going to pick up more than they have been picking up. voice-verified

And that's because the unemployment and unemployment rate is so low. voice-verified

The problem is that the unemployment rate has been so low for a while now. voice-verified

And so far, we haven't really seen it. voice-verified

We hear a lot of people complaining about it, talking about how they can't find workers, but we don't really see a lot of wage increases in the data. voice-verified

So maybe with the unemployment rate looking like it's going to go below 4% next year, maybe we're going to start seeing those income gains, and that could feed into higher spending. voice-verified

Right. voice-verified

Because a lot of this is sort of promotional. voice-verified

And, you know, we have to see we're going to have to see the actual data to see that that people are reacting the way they say that they're reacting. voice-verified

Yeah, investment is one thing that does add to growth in the economy. voice-verified

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