Now don’t be sad, ‘cause two out of three ain’t bad.  

So goes the lyric from the famous Meatloaf tune “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad” from 1977. The song was based on the old Elvis Presley song “I Want You, I Need You, I Love you“—with a special little ironic twist that could have made any millennial tee-shirt proud.

It takes a lot of guts to shove some verbal irony in “The King’s” face and get away with it. But that’s precisely what the heavyweight crooner, who passed away in January of this year, did with every fiber of his being.  

Meatloaf was a legend. The dude could hit every note from bass to falsetto and everything in-between. His penchant for fusing melody and opera and rock ‘n’ roll may have only been equaled by Freddie Mercury. If you were going to make a deal with the devil for a great voice, you wouldn’t pick Michael Bolton. No, you’d pick Meatloaf. Every ballad, every beautiful and resonant note, was its own bat out of hell. Which happened to be the name of Meatloaf’s best album, which also to this day is one of the top-10 selling albums of all time.

This month’s indicators are a little bit like Meatloaf’s famous song. Two out three in this economy are wages and employment. Wages continue to hover at all-time highs, and employment continues to hover at all-time lows. However, gross sales fell from last month, despite being almost 10% higher than a year ago.  

Another concern continues to be the labor force participation rate, which now stands at 62.1%. We are often asked how unemployment can be so low while also seeing record-low labor participation. Rapid City has historically had this problem because it has traditionally had more workers over the age of 60 (read: potential retirees) who have chosen not to work either full- or part-time. In fact, the only state in the country that has seen a rising labor-force participation rate is Utah. This means Elevate needs to continue to think creatively about what it does to engage our older workforce in the population (more on this in a later issue).

Finally, we would be remiss if we didn’t continue to remind everyone about inflation. The Fed didn’t do nearly enough to curb inflation this month, with its paltry 250 basis-point increase. And data from February that shows inflation at 7.9% could be low because it doesn’t include the cost of housing, which is almost always 1/3 of a person’s living expenses. 

So, if one out of three for you is the rising cost of everything, you took the words right out of our mouths.

Stay safe and God-speed,

Tom Johnson

Elevate Rapid City President & CEO

View past economic indicator reports here.