CNBC Surveys
- 70% of Americans are feeling financially stressed, new CNBC survey finds
- Most Americans are using tax refunds to boost savings or pay off debt
- 58% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck: CNBC survey
“People are worried that the money they’ve saved won’t last and are worried they’re going to have to lean more on their credit cards and other sources of debt just to get by,” said Bruce McClary, a senior vice president at the National Foundation for Credit Counseling.
Cost of Shelter Still Rising Sharply
Shelter Costs Surge Again
For 14 consecutive months, the cost of shelter has risen at least 0.5 percent from the preceding month.
For discussion, please see The Tame March CPI Numbers Deceive as the Price of Rent Surges Again
Shelter Notes
- Shelter comprises 34.47 percent of the CPI
- Rent of primary residence is standard rent (not owner occupied), unfurnished without utilities.
- Owners’ Equivalent Rent (OER), is the estimated price one would pay to rent one’s own house, unfurnished and without utilities. It is the single largest CPI component at 25.41 percent.
- The shelter index increased 8.2 percent over the last year, accounting for over 60 percent of the total increase in all items less food and energy.
Consumers Are Having a Much Harder Time Getting Credit Than a Year Ago
A New York Fed survey shows Consumers Are Having a Much Harder Time Getting Credit Than a Year Ago
What’s Going On?
- The inverted yield curve and QT act to restrict lending
- Banks are fearful of a recession and credit losses
- All the banks that leveraged into duration are suffering mark-to-market losses on their Treasury and MBS portfolios. The banks know this (and knew this even before Silicon Valley Bank was taken over).
Fed Minutes Now Predict a Recession This Year Along With Higher Unemployment
Please note Fed Minutes Now Predict a Recession This Year Along With Higher Unemployment
The Fed forecasts a recession, calls for higher unemployment and below trend growth, with risks to the downside.
The staff’s projection at the time of the March meeting included a mild recession starting later this year, with a recovery over the subsequent two years.
The unemployment rate was projected to rise above the staff’s estimate of its natural rate early next year.
The Fed has never predicted a recession in advance. Is this a first or has a recession already started?
Perhaps you think there won’t be a recession. Those 58% living paycheck to paycheck, sure hope hope there won’t be one.
Meanwhile, President Biden is doing everything humanely possible with regulations, energy mandates, and support for unions to create more inflation.
The dilemma for the Fed, and it’s a huge one, is that credit conditions are very deflationary, but the economic policies of this administration coupled with trade wars everywhere are very inflationary.
This post originated at MishTalk.Com
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Mish
Deeper fulfillment can’t easily be monetized, so we’re taught to replace it with Amazon fulfillment centers, pretty much from birth. Some variation on this has been going on for 4 generations now, and it’s ingrained in our culture and religion.
Grasshoppers have been getting pretty beaten up the last couple decades. The ants might have a point.
Seems the stock market has only been focused on inflation.
… and the lenders feast on the puss like honey!
This is an example of how something that is true, is also misleading. I’ve looked at that particular data set and they do indeed use actual savings accounts as their source of information.
However, using myself as an example:
1. I have 53k in liquid cash that is currently NOT in a savings account.
2. I have a net worth of around 500k that includes over 120k in various stock investments, any one of which could easily be sold to quickly cover a 500.00 expense, even if I did not have the 53k in liquid cash.
Yet, because I have no savings account, I would be counted as being unable to cover a 500.00 expense, something that is definitely NOT true.I feel financially stressed right now and would check the financially stressed box if asked. How am I financially stressed? Because I am not saving 4k a month this year like I was last year. I’m only saving 3k a month now because of inflation and everything being more expensive but my income has not gone up at all.
I’d argue that most people would not consider me to be financially stressed at all, but I do feel a sense of stress that I’ve slowed down my financial goals and can’t seem to make up for past progress.
It makes me doubt the veracity of many of these sorts of things.