The District Sentinel Discontent Index fell in June by over three points to a seven-year low as the ranks of an educators’ strike in Washington State thinned.
The measure fell to 103.65 from 106.79 in June, pulled down almost entirely by a decrease in the Labor Discontent subcomponent.
The gauge of disquiet in the job market fell 2.82 points to 27.43, while Consumer Discontent and Housing Discontent fell by 0.21 and 0.09, respectively, to 32.10 and 44.13.
In May, the Discontent Index increased by more than it had in two years due to a 13,600 strong industrial action in Washington. Educators voted to walkout to protest levels of pay and funding for public education. In June, there were only 1,200 teachers left on the picket lines, and they ended their protest on the third of the month.
The smoothing out of data brought by the winding-up of the Washington work stoppages means that the Discontent Index is now lower than it was in April, when it was near a post-2008 trough.
The last time the measure fell below 104 points was in April 2008, when it increased to 101.83 as the nation and world lurched toward financial crisis.
Of note, increases in monthly earnings were mostly washed out in the Housing and Consumer Discontent subcomponents by higher prices. A slight decrease to the former was helped along by lower serious delinquency rates measured by the Federal Housing Administration, while a decrease to the latter was magnified by higher Consumer Confidence measured by the Conference Board.
Between its January 2004 baseline (DI=99.9, all three sub-indexes=33.3) and its public launch in late 2014, the Discontent Index peaked at 144.35 in Aug. 2011 – one month before the Occupy Wall Street movement started. Its record low was 87.65 in Dec. 2006 – when unemployment reached a post-tech bubble trough of 4.4 percent.
Find out more about the Discontent Index and its components and inputs here.
