CERF Blog

Introduction As CERF has previously documented, demographic and economic data indicate that Ventura County’s economy is stuck in a prolonged period of weakness. Data indicate that the county’s population peaked back in 2016 and has declined every year since. The civilian labor force peaked in 2012. Real GDP peaked in 2007, prior to the Great… Read more

Soft Landing JP Morgan’s assessment that the Federal Reserve has achieved a soft-landing for the U.S. economy is incorrect. An economic soft landing is where the Fed utilizes their policy instruments to engineer a subtle economic slowdown that brings inflation down to its two percent target from a rate that was higher than two percent… Read more

The Inaugural U.S. Latina GDP Report builds directly upon six annual U.S. Latino GDP Reports released since 2018 as well as eight State and a dozen Metro Latino GDP Reports written in partnership with Bank of America. Those reports provide a factual view of the large and rapidly growing economic contribution of Latinos living in… Read more

A Personal Story I started tracking, modeling, and forecasting Ventura County (along with the San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Los Angeles County economies) in 2000. The economic growth that was occurring in Ventura County from 1980 through 2007 would have made anyone proud. Not only was the growth explosive, but, it provided high-education jobs… Read more

Introduction The BEA published updated Ventura County Gross Domestic Product (GDP) figures Thursday, December 7, 2023. The release provides revisions to all U.S. county-level GDP measures for the years from 2017 to 2021, and provides previously unreleased estimates for 2022. Strikingly, in 2022, Ventura County’s GDP contracted by 0.4 percent, whereas Los Angeles County’s economy… Read more

Written October 16, 2023 A Review of 2023 Thus Far Earlier this year we said these things regarding the U.S. economic outlook: The U.S. economy will not experience a recession in 2023.  The economy will experience Stagflation: slow-growth and persistent inflation that is well above the Fed’s inflation target of two percent. On April 4,… Read more

GDP growth is the single most important measure of Ventura County’s economy, as it provides a breadth and depth that no other economic measure can match. The first estimate of Ventura County’s 2021 GDP was released December 8th by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). This release consists of data on every county in the U.S.,… Read more

Written October 21, 2022 The fundamental question for the U.S. macroeconomic forecast is if the pandemic recovery can continue or if the economy is heading into a recession. This outcome will be determined largely by Federal Reserve actions during the quarters ahead. Given how long the Fed waited to fight the current bought of inflation,… Read more

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The 2022 LDC U.S. Latino GDP Report seeks to provide a factual view of the large and rapidly growing economic contribution of Latinos living in the United States. We estimate the U.S. Latino GDP based on a detailed, bottom-up construction which leverages publicly available data from major U.S. agencies. The most recent year… Read more

L’Attitude Miami Business Summit: Miami Metro Latino GDP CERF and its research partners at UCLA released first-of-its-kind research which details the large and rapidly growing economic contribution of Latinos living in the Miami Metropolitan Area. The Bank of America Miami Metro Latino GDP Report was released at a live Business Summit at the historic Cardozo… Read more

Friday’s record high inflation number came as a surprise to many. At 8.6 percent, the increase in prices since a year ago represents the highest inflation rate in over 40 years. The figure was 30 basis points higher than the Wall Street Journal consensus of forecasters and, perhaps more importantly, flew in the face of conventional… Read more

  Executive Summaries New Mexico New Jersey New York Florida Arizona Texas Illinois California State Latino GDP Presentations New Mexico: Fienup      New Mexico: Hayes-Bautista New Jersey: Fienup      New Jersey: Hayes-Bautista New York: Fienup      New York: Hayes-Bautista Florida: Fienup      Florida: Hayes-Bautista Arizona: Fienup      Arizona: Hayes Bautista Texas: Fienup      Texas: Hayes-Bautista… Read more

Don’t do it. The result will be permanently lower economic growth, less upward economic mobility and greater inequality. For generations. The most urgent economic recovery strategy is one that pays down the extraordinary debt accumulated during the last year. As we stated here, many of the $1.9 trillion bill’s provisions “will be borne on the… Read more

A typical piece of financial advice is to reduce your equity allocation as you age.  When you are young, there is plenty of time to recover from a market debacle.  Not so much if the debacle occurs after you are already retired.  One rule of thumb is that your equity allocation should be 100 minus… Read more

The latest Ventura County GDP data was released Wednesday morning by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. This release consists of GDP data for every county and metropolitan area in the U.S. It includes revisions to previously released estimates from 2001 to 2018, and it provides the BEA’s preliminary estimates of 2019 county GDP. Revised… Read more