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Morning Briefing: Numbers You Should Know |
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Fundraising in June: Obama Campaign, $52 million. McCain Campaign $22 million. The national committees show a different picture, however, with the Democratic National Committee having $4 million on hand, while the Republican National Committee has $68 million in the coffers.
Inflation: The Consumer Price Index (CPI), which is the most common measure of inflation, rose 1.1% in June, which means that inflation for 2008 so far is 5.5%. For comparison’s sake, the CPI for all of 2007 went up 4.1%. If you take the inflation rate of the past three months and annualized it, it comes to an annual seasonally adjusted inflation rate of 7.9%
Jobs: New claims for Unemployment benefits numbered 366,000 last week. The number of people on unemployment rolls is 3.12 million — the 12th straight week it has been over 3 million.
Troops: As the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, suggests that he may suggest some troop pullout from Iraq in the Fall depending on the security situation, these numbers to note — Number of U.S. troops in Iraq, about 150,000. Number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, about 36,000.
Any numbers that you think we should be noticing this week?
