Bloomberg (03/19/15) Shobhana Chandra

The number of people applying for jobless benefits in the week ended March 15 rose by 1,000 to 291,000, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The 51 economists surveyed by Bloomberg had forecast claims of 293,000. The four-week moving average of new claims rose by 2,250 to 304,750.

Conference Board News Release (03/19/15)

The Conference Board Leading Economic Index for the U.S. increased 0.2% in February to 121.4, following a 0.2% increase in January.

“Widespread gains among the leading indicators continue to point to short-term growth,” says Ataman Ozyildirim, economist at the Conference Board. “However, easing in the LEI’s six-month change suggests that we may be entering a period of more moderate expansion. With the February increase, the LEI remains in growth territory, but weakness in the industrial sector and business investment is holding economic growth back, despite improvements in labor markets and consumer confidence.”

The Conference Board Coincident Economic Index for the U.S. increased 0.2% in February to 111.9, following a 0.2% increase in January. The Conference Board Lagging Economic Index increased 0.3% in February to 115.8, following a 0.3% increase in January.

Wall Street Journal (03/18/13) Ben Leubsdorf

Officials at the U.S. Federal Reserve now believe that the U.S. economy is not at full employment after lowering their estimate of the longer-run jobless rate to a range between 5.0% and 5.2%. They had previously projected a longer-run unemployment rate between 5.2% and 5.5%. Inflation could become an issue if the Fed tries to push the overall unemployment rate—which hit 5.5% last month—any lower. Still, projections released yesterday have the unemployment rate falling to 5.0% to 5.2% in the fourth quarter of 2015, and declining a bit further in 2016 and 2017.

Wall Street Journal (03/18/15) Paul Ziobro

Target Corp. will begin paying all of its employees at least $9 an hour in April due to increasing competition for lower wage workers. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and TJX Cos. also recently increased their minimum wages. The average hourly wage for retail workers in February was $17.33 an hour, up 2.8% from the same time last year, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Overall wage growth was 2.0% during the same time period.