Fact Pack! Sentiment Index Sinks
By Hightower Las Vegas and RCG Economics on February 25, 2025
The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index showed further deterioration in the latter half of the month:
As of 2/21/25
As of 2/21/25
Inflation Expectations
Negative expectations about long-run inflation have risen in February compared January, as well as to outlooks in late 2024 — though they remain below peak readings during the post-pandemic inflation spikes. So say researchers at the University of Michigan in a February 21 update to its Pre-Pandemic Long-Run Inflation Expectations report published on October 25, 2024.
The 75th percentile (Panel A below) and the share of consumers expecting “Very High” tail inflation (Panel B) both ticked up between October 2024 and February 2025.
As of 2025
What are we to make of this? Fact Pack Co-publisher and HighTower partner Mike PeQueen:
The U of M metrics confirm substantial consumer uncertainty in February, most likely related to policy changes under the new presidential administration. Notably, the interquartile range, another measure of inflation uncertainty (Panel D in the U of M graph set) also increased considerably in January and March, confirming uncertainty over what new policies will actually be implemented — and the outcomes.
The October report presented results from seven years of parallel data collection and noted that expectations were stable in the years leading into the pandemic; worsened through mid-2022; and softened thereafter, through October 2024. Graph set:
As of October 2024
Federal Workforce
Whatever your take on the White House’s quest to reduce the ranks of the federal workforce, the parade of data on government personnel has been interesting and illuminating. Our favorite metric from the following EPI table is the inclusion of corrections officers and nuclear materials couriers in the Miscellaneous Occupations category:
As of March 2024
People between the age of 40 and 44 make up the biggest share (15 percent) of the federal workforce:
As of March 2024
Four-year or more college degree holders make up 54 percent:
As of March 2024
Nine-tenths of federal workers are based in one of the 50 states:
As of March 2024
The distribution of race and ethnicity does not align with that of the U.S. population:
As of March 2024
Census Bureau estimates of population distribution by race or ethnicity (2023):
As of March 2024
Distribution difference between general population and federal workforce:
| Race or Ethnicity | General Population | Federal Workforce |
| White | 58.4 percent | 59.5 percent |
| White alone | 75.3 percent | — |
| Hispanic / Latino | 19.5 percent | 10.5 percent |
| Black | 13.7 percent | 18.6 percent |
| Asian | 6.4 percent | 6.9 percent |
| More than one race | 3.1 percent | 2.3 percent |
| Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander | 0.3 percent | 0.6 percent |
Nevada’s stats:
As of February 18 2025
(Those curious about the reasons for the not-small margin of error may read about the methodology here.)
Federal workers in Nevada by county and city:
Source: Analysis American Community Survey and Current Employment Statistics data by Ben Zipperer @ Economic Policy Institute. As of 2023
Source: Analysis American Community Survey and Current Employment Statistics data by Ben Zipperer @ Economic Policy Institute. As of 2023
For those who may have lost count of the many spinning plates, here are the 10 things President Trump has done so far regarding workforce paring so far:
- Issued an executive order (EO) indicating he will overturn regulations to clear the way for the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which manages civil service (non-elected, non-military) employees of the federal government, to reinstate an employee classification known as Schedule F
- Issued an EO that eliminates telework and remote work options for federal employees
- Issuing an EO that places a freeze on all hiring of federal civilian employees
- Placed employees in Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility offices on administrative leave
- Required all agencies to identify and review retention needs of all probationary federal employees and firing those workers at several agencies
- Sent an email to all federal employees providing them with a “deferred resignation” option
- Terminated or ordered to retire senior officials at agencies including the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, National Labor Relations Board, FBI, U.S. Coast Guard, among others
- Terminated Inspectors General at 17 agencies
- Placing U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) employees on indefinite administrative leave, terminating the agency’s contract workers, and recalling employees who are abroad
- Revoked EOs that protected the collective bargaining rights of federal workers and protected workers’ job security on federal service contracts
Data Centers
As a chaser to last week’s Fact Pack stat on the number of data centers in various nations, we note that a South Korean investor group has plans to cobble together one of the world’s largest artificial intelligence data centers and Thailand is set to see its largest-ever data complex completed by year end.
As counties, states, and regions in the U.S. look to data centers and AI to help drive the economic bus, they also are grappling with the fact that they require lots (and lots) of land, water, and power — and often generate fewer jobs than may have been projected or promised.
Sanctions
The U.S. Department of State and Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) have designated 22 persons and 16 entities and vessels for “their involvement in Iran’s petroleum and petrochemical industry,” per two executives order issued Monday by President Trump. Key language from the EOs:
This network of illicit shipping facilitators obfuscates and deceives its role in loading and transporting Iranian oil for sale to buyers in Asia. It has shipped tens of millions of barrels of crude oil worth hundreds of millions of dollars. … We will continue to disrupt such illicit funding streams for Iran’s malign activities. As long as Iran devotes its energy revenues to financing attacks on our allies, supporting terrorism around the world, or pursuing other destabilizing actions, we will use all the tools at our disposal to hold the regime accountable.
Drilling, Baby, Drilling
U.S. drilling activity continues its rebound:
As of 2/21/2025
As of 2/21/2025
Longevity
Cameroon’s Paul Biya is on track to become the longest serving (non-royal) national leader since 1900. He has two years to go to match Cuba’s Fidel Castro, who held power for 52 years.
Seven of the 12 longest-serving (non-royal) leaders are based in Africa, with a combined tenure of 256 years. This Visual Capitalist graphic nicely sums up the stats:
As of 2025
3.69 Cents for Your Thoughts
The price of minting a U.S. penny — 3.69 cents — is due to the rising prices of metals including copper and zinc (pennies are mostly zinc with copper plating).
In contrast, higher-denomination coins such as dimes and quarters generate a profit for the Mint, but producing pennies and nickels cost the government $179 million in 2023 alone.
In 2024, the U.S. Mint produced 3.2 billion pennies at a cost of about $118 million.
As of 2024
Arguments against discontinuing the penny?
- If the penny were discontinued, prices would be rounded up to the nearest nickel, which could lead to inflation.
- The version of the penny we know today was produced and issued in 1909, in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth. Up until the redesign of the quarter in 2022, President Lincoln’s was the only presidential portrait that faced to the right on a coin.
More U.S. Mint and money-printing facts, many sourced from a special feature on the website of Texas First Bank:
- The U.S. hasn’t discontinued a coin since nixing the half-cent in 1857.
- New Zealand and Australia discontinued their pennies in 1989 and 1992, respectively. Canada discontinued its penny in 2012.
- George Washington’s face has graced the $1 bill since 1896, when paper currency was still called “United States Notes.”
- Even older: Thomas Jefferson has been on the $2 bill since 1862. The U.S. stopped printing it in 1966, but it returned to circulation in 1976 — and is still printed today.
- Ulysses S. Grant, 18th President of the United States, has been on the $50 bill since it began circulation in 1913.
- Bills no longer in circulation:
- $500 Bill: William McKinley
- $1,000 Bill: Grover Cleveland
- $5,000 Bill: James Madison
- $100,000: Woodrow Wilson was the face of this gold certificate. It was never circulated but was used to transfer money between banks during the Great Depression.
Print Order
The Board of Governors, as the issuing authority for Federal Reserve notes, each year approves and submits its calendar year (CY) print order to the U.S. Department of Treasury.
- The CY 2024 print order contained a range of 5.3 billion to 6.9 billion notes, valued at $180.5 billion to $204.4 billion.
- The year’s print order followed pre-pandemic trends in which the primary driver of the order was the need to replace unfit notes destroyed during normal processing.
2024 order:
As of Dec. 2023, Source: U.S. Treasury
On the Horizon
Mike PeQueen: The week is filled with speaking engagements from several Fed officials and will be capped off by Friday’s release of the CPE index which is, as all Fact Pack readers know, the Fed’s favorite inflation gauge.
