By Alice Seeley Housing affordability in America has fallen to its lowest level since 1989, according to the newest data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). The Association’s housing affordability index, calculated using median single-family home prices, mortgage rates, and median family incomes, dropped by 3.6% to 98.5 in June. The index has been steadily declining since October [...]
By Alice Seeley U.S. consumer sentiment rose to a three-month high in early August, according to the University of Michigan. The university’s consumer sentiment index jumped to 55.1 this month, which is up 3.6 from July’s index reading of 51.5. Just two months earlier, consumer sentiment reached a record low of 50. This increase surprised economists, who predicted a reading [...]
By Alice Seeley The U.S. Department of Labor announced on Aug. 11 that U.S. producer prices fell unexpectedly last month. This is the first time producer prices have fallen since April 2020. In July, the Producer Price Index (PPI) for final demand decreased by 0.5% from June. However, the PPI is still 9.8% higher than in July 2021. The core [...]
By Alice Seeley The U.S. Department of Labor reported that last month inflation slowed down more than predicted, resulting in lower gas prices and potentially leading the Federal Reserve to slow its planned interest rate hikes. The department also reported that the consumer price index did not change in July, but overall the consumer price index [...]
By Alice Seeley On Aug. 8, The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Center for Microeconomic Data released its monthly Survey of Consumer Expectations report, which showed consumers believe inflation will stop increasing in the U.S. The news comes after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates four times this year to combat inflation. Expectations for inflation in America one year [...]
By Alice Seeley Since Netflix started offering video games as part of its subscription plan in November 2021, less than 1% of Netflix's 221 million users have played them. According to app analytics company Apptopia, Netflix's video games have only been downloaded 23.3 million times. On average, 1.7 million users play the games daily. One reason for this bad performance is [...]
By Alice Seeley Across the country, gas prices have declined for 51 consecutive days, according to the White House and AAA. On average, gas prices have lowered by 17 cents to $4.35. According to AAA data, the average gas prices are still 28.9% more expensive than last year. Only 19 states have average gas prices below [...]
By Alice Seeley On Aug. 4, the U.S. Department of Labor released its weekly unemployment report, which showed that applications for unemployment for the week ending July 30 increased by 6,000 to 260,000 from the prior week’s 254,000. This is above the pre-COVID pandemic average of 218,000 applications and almost beat the eight-month high record of 261,000 in mid-July. This is the highest level of unemployment [...]
By Alice Seeley After hundreds of users disagreed over edits of its “recession” page, Wikipedia announced it would change editing permissions to make the page “semi-protected.” The conflict started after the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) fell for the second quarter in a row. According to Wikipedia, the “recession” page received dozens of edits that violated its [...]
By Alice Seeley On Aug. 2, The Federal Reserve Bank of New York announced that U.S household debt exceeded $16 trillion for the first time during the second quarter of 2022. This is a 2% ($312 billion) increase from the first quarter of 2022. Currently, debt is now $2 trillion more than it was before the COVID-19 pandemic. The [...]
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