JPM: Chase Card Spending Rises To Post-COVID High

J.P.Morgan have noted that their "tracker of spending by a panel of 30 million Chase credit and debit cardholders edged up to a new post-COVID high in the week ending August 14, showing few signs of negative effects from the recent expiration of the extra $600 per week of unemployment insurance benefits. There are reasons to expect the Chase card spending data to be less affected by the benefit expiration than overall consumer spending, but we also see little sign of decline in other high frequency spending indicators thus far. Our payrolls tracker, which combines the card spending data with a wide range of other alternative data, currently predicts an August gain of 1.2 million jobs based on partial data for the reference week, although complications around Census and education hiring could also affect the final number."