October 2013

The US Daily Cash deficit for 10/23/2013 was $11.6B as the final SS checks of the month went out totaling $12.3B. This brings the October 2013 deficit through 23 days to $66B. We did see a small trickle of those delayed payments start going out today starting with 2.6B of tax refunds and $0.5B for the Commodity Credit Corporation….whatever the heck that is.

Revenues continue to make small gains vs. 2012 and are now at +$12B. If they continue at this pace, hitting +10% seems likely, which will be good for a symbolic win if nothing else. For the rest of the month, I’ll be keeping my eyes on revenues.

Perhaps of note…though it’s not set in stone, the vast majority of SS payments have gone out, and for the second month in a row it is looking like outlays were pretty much flat. August ended up at $61.632B…October is sitting at $61.671B…only $39M higher. For reference, in a typical month, we’ve been seeing about +$300M, with some seasonal variation. Quick math tells us that +100k people at $1163 per month would add about $125M to the baseline. Very interesting…. I have SS projected to grow at about 5% per year due to COLA increases and increased enrollment at higher monthly benefits. If we see a few more months like this, I may have to think about adjusting my forecast down a bit even though I had expected this to be a bit conservative. Oh well…when the facts change…so must the forecast….fingers crossed!! For what it’s worth…last October was at $56.949B…8.3% lower, so these last 3 months might just be an aberration. COLA increases go out in December, which should be good for a $1B bump at least, so one way or another, this won’t last more than another month or two.

The US Daily Cash Deficit for 10/22/2013 was $1.6B. Revenues continue to gain ground on 2012 and while they aren’t exactly popping…outlays are starting to come back up as expected with the shutdown over…including $37M of individual tax refunds…the first to go out in about 2 weeks. On the month, refunds look to be down 7.5B over 10/2012…good for the cash deficit…not so good if you happen to be waiting on a tax refund.

There are seven business days left, and the October deficit currently stands at $55B. My original projection for the month was $91B…assuming that the shutdown either wouldn’t happen or would be brief and it’s affects contained in the calendar month. Well the shutdown did happen, and while it is possible all of the back payments are made up by next Thursday, I haven’t seen much evidence yet that it is happening. So while $91B is still possible, we may end up better than $91B if revenues continue to gain ground and our missing outlays don’t materialize in October.

The US Daily Cash Deficit for Friday 10/18/2013 was $2.6B bringing the October Deficit through 18 days to $58B with nine business days remaining.

Revenues continue to make small daily gains and are now sitting at +$7B…certainly within striking distance of the +$20B we need to see to hit out +10% target.

Outlays were stronger, but still no flood. It looks to me like we are at least $20B shy due to the shutdown, but it will probably take a few more weeks to completely catch back up on payments.

On deck for this week….the final SS payment of the month goes out Wednesday, and the monthly SS report is also released showing us how many more people are on SS than last month. Other than that, the rest of the month looks pretty mild leading up to 11/1, which should be a blowout deficit wise.