It’s almost impossible to have a discussion about the consumer these days without a thorough understanding of government policy. Our recent reports and webinars have touched on tariffs, immigration and fiscal policy. This report focuses on household balance sheets with a particular emphasis on student debt. Government and the consumer are tied at the hip. Transfer payments have been accelerating and are adding a full point to personal income growth. Government employment has been responsible

Key Points: Rubinson Research has been in business for a little over three years. We were super bullish on the consumer in 2022, 2023 and most of 2024. We turned cautious last fall, but we’re striking a more neutral tone today. Join us for a webinar this Thursday to discuss the findings of this report and many other subjects. We model the risk posed by tariffs from the top down and the bottom up. Figures

Key Points: Immigration was among the markets primary concerns before tariffs stole the show. We think it’ll re-emerge as a key talking point before too long. Immigration has been contributing almost a full percentage point to population growth, triple its normal contribution. We analyze border crossings, work permit applications, and state-level employment dynamics to understand the effect reduced immigration might have on employment and aggregate demand. Traditional labor market surveys do not do a good

Key Points: “Liberation Day” sparked a dramatic selloff, but we think there are other reasons to be concerned about the consumer. Employment growth is lopsided, PCE growth has been of low quality, immigration will soon begin to weigh on aggregate demand, real wages are already slowing, and the “wealth effect” is reversing. The market’s knee-jerk reaction was to snap up consumer staples. We think housing-related stocks are the better bet. The existing home market has

Key Points: Companies have begun to signal that 2025 is off to a rough start. We’ve heard rumblings of a weaker consumer before, but our math said they would power through, and they did. This time feels different. The effects of immigration and DOGE on the job market have yet to take hold. We see a (0.5)% headwind to PCE from immigration and a (0.2)% impact from DOGE. On a probability-weighted basis, we see a

Key Points: A year ago, we penned a report on Amazon called “Squeezing Blood from a Stone”. The implication was that after years of spending aggressively, Amazon was determined to increase the productivity of its existing asset base. The theme applied equally to the retail business and AWS, but Amazon now appears to be embarking on a new investment cycle. We dive headfirst into the fundamentals of Amazon’s retail business and its AWS arm to