Monthly Withholding-Tax Receipts

Since the end of the Great Recession, the economy has set records for withholding-tax collections every March and December – the two most seasonally strong months of the year for payrolls. That streak has come to an end; the economy has failed to rack-up new records in December 2015 and March 2016. Both months were very strong, but not quite as strong as March 2015 (click chart to enlarge):

So, we might conclude that while the economy was still strong going into 2016, growth had lost momentum.