FEATURED POST
November 19, 2024
Flipping the housing-labor dynamic
By most accounts, the U.S. economy is doing well. Last week, we learned that inflation is rising more slowly than it was a year ago, and consumers are continuing their brisk spending. Lurking beneath this upbeat data, however, is housing, which continues to put a squeeze on the economy.
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August 15, 2022
MainStreet Macro: Inflation-Tag team
Main Street received good news last week. Not only did we see a slight cool-down to our national summer heat wave, we learned that inflation dipped, to 8.5 percent over the last 12 months ending in July from 9.1 percent for the same period in June.
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August 8, 2022
MainStreet Macro: Time well spent
.Something happened last quarter that most economy watchers missed. Labor productivity as measured by output per worker dropped like a rock. In the first quarter of this year, U.S. labor force time was not well spent. Productivity fell by 7.3 percent, the biggest drop since 1947. People worked 2.3 percent more hours and produced 5.4 percent less output.
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August 1, 2022
MainStreet Macro: Are we or aren’t we? The three Ds of recessions, and how to prepare
Are we in a recession? Maybe, maybe not. What we know for sure is that the economy is running hot this summer – and not just because of the temperatures. Today we explain how downturns are measured, why this one is unique, and what you can do to prepare.
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July 25, 2022
MainStreet Macro: Hot Summer Housing Market
With most of the country withering in the summer heat, one sector of the economy appears to be cooling. After home prices took off in the early days of the pandemic, the white-hot housing market now appears to be cooling as sales slow.
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July 18, 2022
MainStreet Macro: Wages Go Prime Time: Part 2
My kids are into memes and have been since, well, the beginning of meme history. Given that my husband and I both are economists, it was only natural that a recent family dinner conversation centered around which meme would best represent inflation.
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July 11, 2022
MainStreet Macro: Wages go prime time: Part 1
Wages are the bridge between job growth and rising inflation, and their trajectory will determine whether the Federal Reserve can put the brakes on rising prices without skidding the economy into recession. To that end, the central bank is eying one particular data point with new intensity.
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June 27, 2022
MainStreet Macro: A Penny Saved
Savings accounts were the unsung heroes of the pandemic recovery.
The personal saving rate – the share of a person’s disposable income left after taxes and spending on necessities and everything else – soared to a record of almost 34 percent in April 2020. That means people saved 34 cents for every dollar earned in the early days of the pandemic.
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June 21, 2022
MainStreet Macro: The New World of Inflation
by Nela Richardson, Ph.D.
The Federal Reserve met last week and raised short term interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point. That’s the biggest rate hike since 1994. At that time year-over-year CPI inflation was just shy of 3 percent gas prices were around a $1 a gallon and house price growth was up 2.5 percent from the previous year.
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