Articles

"Inflation is falling faster than expected across advanced economies, marking a turning point in central banks’ two-year battle against surging prices,” reports the Wall Street Journal. “Declines in consumer price growth, to below 5% in the U.K. last month and around 3% in the U.S. and eurozone, are fueling expectations that central banks could take their feet off the brakes and pivot to cutting interest rates next year. Read More

Builder confidence in the market for newly built single-family homes in November fell six points to 34 in November, according to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI). Read More

A then-obscure think tank named the Roosevelt Institute released a report in 2015 that called for a new approach to economic policy. It was unabashedly progressive, befitting the history of the institute, which was created by trusts honoring Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. The report called for higher taxes on the rich, a higher minimum wage, more regulation of Wall Street, more support for labor unions, more aggressive antitrust enforcement and more government investment in economic growth. National news outlets covered the report while also noting how much of a break it represented with decades of economic policy by both the Democratic and Republican Parties. There was ample reason to be skeptical that much would change. Read More

Retail sales kept up a long streak of year-over-year gains in October even though the rate of growth continued to slow, National Retail Federation chief economist Jack Kleinhenz said in response to the U.S. Census Bureau’s release of monthly retail sales data today. “Fourth-quarter consumer spending stepped off on a more moderate pace, as expected,” Kleinhenz said. “The staying power of the American consumer has been the story of 2023, but financial conditions have tightened appreciably in recent months, curbing the purchasing power fueled by job and wage gains. Nonetheless, continued consumer resilience is still expected for the holiday season.” Read More

The Home Depot reported sales of $37.7 billion for Q3 2023, a decrease of 3.0% from Q3 2022. Comparable sales for Q3 2023 decreased 3.1%, and comparable sales in the U.S. decreased 3.5%. Read More

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) was unchanged in October on a seasonally adjusted basis, after increasing 0.4% in September, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. Read More

Goldman Sachs Research expects the global economy to outperform expectations in 2024-just as it did in 2023. Read More

Like most sectors of our economy, the construction industry is suffering from a shortage of workers. The U.S. Department of Labor reports that there are over 350,000 unfilled construction positions at present, and since the unemployment rate for construction workers has been below four percent for well over a year, it is difficult to see where these workers will come from. Read More

Consumer sentiment declined 5.3% to 60.4 in early November, according to preliminary results from the University of Michigan Survey of Consumers. Read More

Rising mortgage rates, elevated construction costs and limited existing inventory helped push housing affordability in the third quarter of 2023 to its lowest level in more than a decade. Read More