This Editorial appears in the June 3 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today. The latest financial data show that the U.S. economy has exhibited amazing resilience in recent months, despite the fear and uncertainty that some political developments in Washington have spread and that many analysts feared would paralyze the nation’s recovery from the Great Recession.
Instead of a notable stall that some had predicted would become quickly apparent thanks to sequestration and the end of the payroll tax discount, the economy has generally continued its slow growth, as consumer confidence has risen and home sales have perked up.
Just last week, the stock market hit new all-time highs as word that home prices in the first quarter surged at their fastest rate in almost seven years.
And the Conference Board’s latest survey showed that consumer confidence is now at the highest level in more than five years.
This is all good news for trucking, of course, and may signal that the second half of 2013 will be brighter than earlier feared.
While things are far from booming, the data have provided welcome relief and may help get business leaders and consumers to spend and invest more in coming months.
Recent news in Transport Topics’ pages have illustrated the situation, led by the report a few weeks ago that freight tonnage grew 4.3% in April from a year earlier, despite the difficult political situation in Washington and the run of violent weather that disrupted large parts of the nation during that month.
And while truck sales have been down in the dumps in recent months, truck orders for future deliveries have been strong, and are getting stronger.
Orders for Class 8 vehicles in April were the highest recorded in 15 months, more than 36% above the level of April 2012.
April also marked the seventh straight month that orders have exceeded 20,000 vehicles, the level many OEM executives regard as the point at which business is healthy.
The latest bit of good news came last week, when trailer manufacturers reported that April orders totaled 21,769, the best month so far in 2013 and the first month of the year in which the total exceeded last year’s corresponding month.
In all, it’s not time to declare victory over economic doldrums for the trucking industry, but it’s no longer unfashionable to be at least a little optimistic about the year’s prospects.
Let’s hope Washington doesn’t do anything new to disrupt the economy’s momentum.
