I know it's not what we're all focused on today, but the Fed is out with the Survey of Consumer Finances -- its once-every-three-years snapshot of Americans' finances. This data is for *2019*, so it's a look back in time to life before the pandemic. nytimes.com/2020/09/28/bus…
The incomparable @jeannasmialek has our story, which has the key numbers and analysis. So start there! I'm still looking through the report, and will offer a few other tidbits in the thread below as I go.
Full data is here: federalreserve.gov/econres/scfind…
The biggest takeaway for me: Strong labor markets are good! The decade-long expansion brought the unemployment rate to its lowest level in half a century, and the result was rising incomes and rising net worth for low- and middle-income households.
The gloomier take: It took a record-long expansion to deliver broad-based economic gains, which were wiped out overnight by Covid. This is why economists are so worried about repeating the mistakes of the last recession: We don't want it to take another decade to get back here.
Key stat given the recent divergence between the stock market and the rest of the economy: 53% of families owned *any* stock in 2019, including holdings in retirement accounts, etc. Among families in the bottom half of the income distribution, only 31% owned any stock.
Even that stat probably overstates how much the stock market matters to most everyday Americans. The median stock holdings (including retirement accounts) among families in the bottom 50% of earners is < $10,000. (Note: That's excluding the 2/3 of families with no stocks at all.)
Among those in the 50th to 90th percentile of earners, median stock ownership in 2019 was $40,000.
Among the top 10% of earners, it was ***$438,500.***
This stat is always striking: Median net worth for Black families with a college degree ($72k) is roughly the same as for white families *without a high school diploma.*
Here it is another way: The typical white family in the middle of the income distribution (~$60k in income) has a net worth of about $150,000. The average Black family *in the same earnings category* has a net work of less than $50,000.
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Good news on inflation! U.S. consumer prices FELL 0.1 percent in June, and were up just 3 percent from a year earlier. "Core" prices, stripping out volatile food and fuel, were up 0.1 percent from May and 3.3 percent from last June. Data: …Live coverage: bls.gov/news.release/c… nytimes.com/live/2024/07/1…
This is the second straight month where there has been effectively no inflation on a month-to-month basis. Prices were flat in May, and down in June.
If you take a longer view here: At 3% year-over-year, inflation is no longer outside historical norms (though it is still higher than immediately prepandemic). And over the past three months, rents have risen at an annual rate of ***just 1.1%.***
Job openings ticked up in May (but only because April was revised down). Layoffs edged up. Quits basically flat. All consistent with a gradually slowing, but not collapsing, job market. #JOLTS
Full data: bls.gov/news.release/j…
There were 8.1 million job openings on the last day of May. That's up from 7.9 million in April, revised down from the 8.1m originally reported.
Larger story here is that openings are clearly falling quickly, even if they're still high in absolute terms. #JOLTS
There were 1.2 job openings for every unemployed worker in May. That's more or less where things stood immediately before the pandemic (when the labor market was widely viewed as strong but not overheated).
The U.S. economy slowed in the final three months of the year, but only because the Q3 number was so strong -- the 3.3% growth rate in Q4 was well above expectations and certainly offered no hints of a brewing recession. (Belated charts thread)
This is not a case where the volatile components of G.D.P. made a weak quarter look strong, as sometimes happens. Measures of underlying demand were also very strong.
For all the predictions of a recession, G.D.P. growth actually *accelerated* in 2023, and topped the prepandemic average growth rate as well.
Job openings, quits and layoffs all edged down slightly in November. Consistent with a gradually cooling labor market, but definitely no sign things are falling off a cliff. #JOLTS
Data: bls.gov/news.release/j…
There were 8.8 million job openings on the last day of November. That's down a touch from October, but only because October was revised up. Big picture: Openings are trending down (and quite quickly, at that), but are still high by historical standards. #JOLTS
The number of job openings per unemployed worker actually ticked up in November (because unemployment fell), but ignore the noise. The labor market is becoming more balanced, though the ratio is (again) high relative to the prepandemic period.
The big increase in unemployment is mostly for "good" reasons: More people working, but also more people *looking* for work. Labor force grew by 736,000. Participation rate up by 0.2 percentage points.