The combined cost of housing and transportation expenses accounted for one-half (49.8 percent) of all monthly household expenditures in 2019 (prior to the pandemic) according to the Annual Consumer Expenditures Study by the U.S. Census Bureau. Included in both of those are energy costs. On a simple average across the 50 states, monthly energy costs …Read more
Want to know why we still have high unemployment despite a record number of job openings? Just read to the end. Jobs Are Everything Jobs are everything to the economy and the ultimate source of effective demand (purchasing power) for residential and commercial real estate. Period. Good news is that the U.S. had a record …Read more
The U.S. added 850,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in June 2021 according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Most jobs added monthly since August 2020 when 1.583 million jobs were brought back from the 22.4 million jobs lost in March and April 2020 at the onset of the pandemic The 880,000 job expectation from …Read more
The same degrees from differing colleges and universities, just as all students from a given school with the same degree, are not equal. Every college, university, course, person, employer and locale are different. As usual the TINSTAANREM Axiom is invoked — There Is No Such Thing As A National Real Estate Market or economy. Ditto …Read more
Yesterday this Blog discussed state employment metrics for May 2021. See https://blog.stewart.com/stewart/2021/06/28/may-2021-state-job-metrics-in-a-recovering-pandemic-landscape/ Today the same metrics are presented but at the Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) level. While the U.S. has 392 MSAs, data are available for only 380 from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) based on seasonally adjusted data which allows comparison of …Read more
In March and April of 2020 the U.S. lost the most and greatest percentage of jobs in history due to the pandemic. The record federal government stimulus, however, muted the immediate economic impact and even resulted in the highest savings rate in the history of the country. Recovery is underway, but like the job losses …Read more
While the country is heading towards the best U.S. GDP growth rate in decades, the same is not true across all states. As usual the TINSTAANREM Axiom is invoked — There Is No Such Thing As A National Real Estate Market or economy. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the value of all the goods and …Read more
Yesterday this blog talked about state employment levels using fairy tale rhetoric. Today that discussion rachets down the to the Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) level. Reiterating from yesterday, imagine if the past 14 months had just been a bad fairy tale rather the most severe global pandemic in more than 100 years. But, that is …Read more
We could only wish the past 14 months had been a bad fairy tale rather the most severe global pandemic in more than 100 years. The U.S. lost 22.4 million jobs in 2020 in just March and April. That equates to 14.7 percent of all jobs, or 1-out-of-every-7. Good news is that the country has …Read more
Incomes and poverty rates vary across the U.S., with some states better off while others struggle. Once again the TINSTAANREM Axiom is invoked — There Is No Such Thing As A National Real Estate Market or economy. Nor is the typical household income similar across states. To present and discuss the disparity of incomes in …Read more