There are a number of ways to look at the top columns of the year on this website, and its sister site "Reclaiming Common Sense." The most read articles, the top ten for the year, or the top twelve articles, one for each month of the year.

(Nov. 24) The article written during Thanksgiving weekend often gets huge readership.  Anybody who remembers the 1992 election remembers H. Ross Perot and his "It's the Debt" line. If we eliminate the deficits then we can take care of the total debt. Congress is discussing "only adding"  $1.5 Trillion to the Federal debt over the next 10 year (That would be comparable to what President Obama oversaw during just one year of his presidency - talk about "unpatriotic and Irresponsible." "Federal Budget: When Off-Budget isn't Off-Budget" details how We are running on-budge deficits and off-budget surpluses. It also details how corporate revenue is a small sliver of the whole revenue pie. Isn't it convenient that people in the House of Representatives have two year terms and Senators have six year terms and they cannot balance the budget over  a period of ten years. These are children who wring up heavy debt on their parents charge cards and expect the parents to pay the bills.

(Jan 11) There was a "war of women" rallying call during the 2012 election. What was ignored during that time was that men had lost more jobs than women during the Great Recession. The column "More Men Working Part-time, Unemployed than July 2007" details how women have recovered faster and better than men. It details how men are working 2.2 million more part-time jobs and 1.4 million fewer full-time jobs than they were during July 2007.

(Sep. 20) We have seen seriously low levels of existing home inventory since the end of last year. "August Existing Homes: On-track for 5.6 million" details how the Realtors Association is forecasting fewer sales than we had during 2016 and how this column is forecasting a higher value than 2016 and possibly more homes sold than were sold during 2002 - even with historically low inventory. It also details how the Average Sales Price set a record for the month of August.

(Nov. 30) The third piece of good economic news was ignored "everywhere else." The weekly unemployment claims data was released to zero fanfare. The headline Seasonally Adjusted First time Claims number could have been reported at 190,000 claims if they used the seasonal factors for the same week of November that were used during 2013 and 2014.  The authors of the report are comparing "Apples and Pomegranates."

(Dec. 5) The article "What to expect from Nov. ADP" projected year over year November growth in all sectors other than Information Technology, and month to month growth in six sectors. It projected strength from the seasonally adjusted data.

(Nov. 25)  Not Much happened this week due to the Thanksgiving Holiday. The Week in Review looked at the Existing Home Data, the Weekly Unemployment Claims data, and the Federal Debt.

(Sept. 28)  Yes, they still produce weekly unemployment claims reports. No, we are not seeing a huge spike in unemployment claims as a result of Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Irma, or Hurricane Maria. The authors of the report have been stating that we are seeing the impacts of Hurricane Harvey and Irma - does that mean that the recent drops in non-seasonally adjusted (NSA) first-time unemployment (FTU) claims and continuing claims (CC) mean that hurricanes are "beneficial?" "Strong September Weekly Unemployment Claims" details how the NSA FTU numbers have crept up from 211,000 to 212,000 to 215,000 claims during the past three weeks. Under 300,000 Seasonally Adjusted Claims a week is considered good. This column and its predecessors have detailed that the FACTs (False Assertions Considered to be true) include the reporting of the SA FTU data.  The Continuing Claims Data are equally as strong. We have fewer continuing claims data for the third week of September than we had during the third week of September 1971.

(Sept. 26) There are a number of reports which used to garner more attention than they do today. The New home sales report, the existing home sales report, and the weekly unemployment claims reports are three of those reports. The existing home data was released last week. The new home sales report for August was released this week. This month we set a record for the August New Home Average Sales Price and Median Sales Price. We saw the units sold just about match last year's level. This August was best than August 2008, August 2009, August 2010, through August 2015. Next month the data will probably be revised higher.

(Aug 19) The Week in Review this week covered Retail Sales, Weekly Unemployment Claims, the Aging Workforce data, and Inflation.

(Jan 9)  The week started with a comparison of the four more recent two term Presidents at the 95 month mark during their Presidencies. The data for the jobs report is collected by the 12th of the month, so President Obama has one more jobs report to add to his record. Readers of this column understand that the participation rate has an impact on the unemployment rate, and the other way around. Unemployed workers are participants. The Deceptive December Jobs Report revealed Non-Seasonally Adjusted (NSA) Full-time job loss,NSA Part-time Jobs Loss, an increase in the number of unemployed workers, and a decrease in the NSA CES Private Sector worker number.We saw a drop in participation. If the unemployment rate and participation rate at the 95 month mark for President Obama is compared with Presidents Reagan, Clinton, and Bush it is found that we are missing 8.3 million to 11.6 million participants and that the effective unemployment rate is between 9.75% and 12.12%.

Obviously, some of these articles were the top articles for their given month. The top article for January was the January 11th article "More Men Working Part-time."The top ten articles of January are here.

February's top read article was "Four Presidents at 96 months." The January Jobs Report was President Obama's 96th and final jobs report. Some people thought just because President Trump was sworn into office that the January Jobs report was his. The data collection for the employment Situation Report is the 12th of every month.  The other top ten articles can be found here.

March's most read article was "February New Home Average Sales Price Soars." New home sales have a multiplier effect on the economy as they generate service job demand and retail sales demand. March's Top Ten articles are here and include multiple articles on the jobs report data, multiple week in review articles, and an article on Retail Sales.

April's most popular article was the Top Ten Article for March. The April Top Ten Article covered the Jobs data and Quantitative Tightening..

May's most popular article was "April Vehicle Sales Keep Trucking." Truck sales have been greater than automobile sales for a prolonged period of time. 

June's top article was The June 3rd Week in Review. (Where's the Covfefe?) The top ten articles of June can be found here.

July's Top Article was the July 27th "New Home Sales are Strengthening" article. This is amazing because we have a historically low level of new home inventory. What is interesting is that at the time of the writing of the article "Five Presidents at Five Months" was the most read article, followed by the Top Ten Articles of June article. . The rest of the top ten can be found here.

August's most read article was the week in review article for August 19th. This is not surprising with three week in review article in the top ten for August.

September's most popular article was the September 26th article "August Existing Home Sales on track for 5.6 Million Units." The Top Ten for September included other articles on new construction data and new home sales data.

October's top article was an article written regarding phenomenally good unemployment claims data. The October "Astonishingly Good Unemployment Claims Data" detailed, as a considerable number of weekly articles on the unemployment claims data have done, that the first-time claims data and the continuing claims data were the best, non-seasonally adjusted, since 1969. Let that sink in for a while. The rest of the top ten articles are here.

November's top article was one that focused on the budget. Written over Thanksgiving weekend. "When Off-Budget isn't Off-budget" details how entitlements are not the problem - at least Medicaid/Medicare and Social Security. These off-budget items, and their surpluses, are reducing our on-budget deficits. The other Top Ten Articles of November focused on the week in review articles and real estate, as well as the Top ten for October.   

December's top article was "What to expect from the November ADP report."The ADP report is released the Wednesday prior to the Jobs Report. All of the data is seasonally adjusted.  The top ten articles of December included five week in review articles and articles on the jobs report and unemployment.

Jobs, Unemployment, Weekly Unemployment claims, new and existing homes. Guess what this column will be researching during 2018?

Happy New Year.