Every month similar topics are covered in this column. Some months the top read articles are those that addressed jobs, other months it is housing, and some months it is the federal debt.This month you appreciated the weekly recap columns and the top ten column for the month of January

(Feb 14) Candidate Obama was commenting on the unpatriotic and irresponsible level of debt that President George W Bush had amassed. President Bush inherited a debt of roughly $5 trillion in debt. President Obama inherited a debt of Just over $10 trillion. President Trump is starting with a Debt of $19.9 trillion. The article "January Federal Debt at $19.975 trillion" digs into the monthly treasury report. Hint: Taxes are up.

(Feb 11) The week in review column sometimes cracks the top ten. The February 11th column addressed President Obama's final Jobs Report that was released Friday February 3rd.  This week this column dug into the data and found some interesting items for discussion. The week in review column is here.

(Feb 17) The most misunderstood and misrepresented data, other than the Jobs number, is the data relating to housing. We are doing better than we were doing at the depth of the recession of 2009. The problem is that new construction data is still worse than what we saw after prior recessions, plural. The Housing starts are no longer failing - they just are not getting a grade better than a "D." The same could be said regarding the completions data. "Weak January New Construction Data" examines the non-seasonally adjusted data and the revisions.

(Feb 25) The second week in review column to make the top ten this month was the February 25th week in review column. This week was a slow week for macroeconomic data. There were only three reports released which generated columns this week: The Existing Home Sales Report, The New home Sales Report, and the Weekly Unemployment Claims Report.

(Feb 7) This has been an uneven recovery . Not all job sectors have recovered to pre-recession levels of jobs. "Five Sectors Still in Recovery" details how every sector lost jobs during the month of January, how this job loss is normal, and how the Mining and Logging Sector, the Construction Sector, The IT Sector, the Manufacturing Sector and the Government Sector are not back to January 2007 levels of employment. It also details how the 2016 data was revised between the December report and the January Report.

(Feb 18) If you are watching the news or reading the paper then you know that there is a new President in the White House. You may not realize that that the government is still running and producing reports on the economy. The authors of these reports live in a seasonally adjusted, advance data, preliminary data, final data world. We saw the Treasury Report released, New Home Construction Data, Inflation data, Retail Sales data, and Unemployment Data released during the week ending February 18. . Everything except the Treasury Report has a seasonally adjusted component and a non-seasonally adjusted component.This is the third week in review column to make the top ten read articles of the month.

(Feb 3) February 3rd was Jobs Report Day. There are two data sets that are used to create the jobs report and both data sets have a non-seasonally adjusted component and a seasonally adjusted component. The devil is in the details. The seasonal factors were skewed for both the Current Population Survey data and the Current Employment Statistics data. The population data was drastically revised downward, providing an imaginary bump to the non-seasonally adjusted (NSA) workforce participation rate. The other missing story in other coverage is that part-time jobs fell dramatically. For more information read "Bogus January Jobs Numbers."

(Feb 24) The new home sales data was released this past Friday. The data came in weaker than expected for some prognosticators. We have had weak new home construction data. Low starts means low completions which means low sales. "January New Home Sales Underwhelm" details how the current pace of sale for January was better than we have seen during 2009-2016 that it was worse than almost every year between1983-2008. One month does not determine the course of the year. The problem is that we are starting at a lower annual pace of sales than we saw during January 1984 or January 1993. It does not look like we will hit the 600,000 level that the prognosticators are expecting.

(Feb 15)  Every month there is information released on the consumer price Index (CPI.) The CPI measures the changes in prices of a basket of goods and services.   The inflation rate changes from month to month and year to year fr every item in the basket. The weighting of the basket changes every month and every year.  "January Inflation Spikes, Shelter, Medicine, Energy"  digs into the data and compares the basket of goods from January 2015, January 2016, and January 2017. If you feel like you have less money at the end of the month tan you did the past two Januaries you are probably correct.

(Feb 1) Every month there are a series of columns written. Whether it is the monthly jobs report forecast article or the monthly job report result article, or the follow-up columns pertaining to men and women in the workforce, the level of dual job workers in the workforce or comparing the Four most recent two term Presidents at the same point in their Presidencies, the data keeps rolling and the articles keep flowing. Sometimes one column strikes a chord month in and month out. The month of January provides a unique opportunity for multiple "week in Review" columns, a "Top Ten Columns of December" columns and a "Top Ten of the Year" article.This column covers more than just the Jobs Report. Other items that are regularly presented in this column have to do with housing data, the consumer price index data, retail sales, and the weekly unemployment claims report. The article "Top Ten Columns of January 2017" reviews the most read columns of February.

It's the economy.