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Key Points:
- U.S. consumer spending rose by 0.4%, or $83.6 billion, in August, after rising 0.9% in July.
- Personal income increased by 0.4%, or $87.6 billion, in August, after rising 0.2% in July.
- The overall personal consumption expenditures price index rose 0.4% in August and is up 3.5% from a year prior.
- The core personal consumption expenditures price index, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.1% in August and is up 3.9% from a year prior.
- The Right Facts will continue to monitor spending, prices, and income.
Key Points:
- The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index, which measures average home prices in major metropolitan areas across the nation, rose 1.0% in the year that ended in July after a series of declines and a 0% reading in June.
- The 20-City Composite posted an increase of 0.1%, improving from a loss of -1.2% in the previous month.
- The 10-City Composite posted an increase of 0.9%, which improves from a -0.5% loss in the previous month.
- Chicago, Cleveland, and New York led the way for the third consecutive month reporting the highest year-over-year gains among the 20 cities in July.
- Chicago reported the highest gains among the 20 cities in July with a 4.4% year-over-year price increase, followed by Cleveland with a 4.0% increase, and New York with an 3.8% increase.
- Eight of 20 cities reported lower prices and 12 reported higher prices in the year ending July 2023 versus the year ending June 2023.
- The Right Facts will continue to monitor home prices.
Key Points:
- Existing-home sales fell 0.7% in August from July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.04 million.
- Existing-home sales fell 15.3% from one year ago.
- The median existing-home sales price for August rose 3.9% from one year ago to $407,100.
- This is the fifth time the monthly median sales prices eclipsed $400,000 and the third consecutive month.
- First-time buyers were responsible for 29% of sales in August, down from 30% in July, and the same as August 2022.
- “Home prices continue to march higher despite lower home sales,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist. “Supply needs to essentially double to moderate home price gains.”
- The Right Facts will continue to monitor home sales.
Key Points:
- In 2022, the U.S. poverty rate increased 4.6% from 2021 to 12.4% according to the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM), which looks at government programs and tax credits designed to help low-income families.
- This was the first increase in the poverty rate in 13 years.
- The poverty rate among children more than doubled from 5.2% in 2021 to 12.4% last year.
- The Right Facts will continue to monitor poverty in the United States.
Key Points:
- Unemployment rates rose in 10 states, fell in two states, and remained stable in 38 states and the District of Columbia in August.
- The U.S. unemployment rate rose unexpectedly to 3.8% in August.
- Two states and the District of Columbia had unemployment rates above the U.S. average in August, 27 states were lower, and 21 states were not appreciably different from that of the nation.
- Twenty-five states had jobless rate decreases from a year earlier, nine states and the District had increases, and 16o states had little change.
- Maryland had the lowest jobless rate in August at 1.7%, followed by New Hampshire and Vermont at 1.8%.
- The rates in Louisiana (3.3%), Maryland (1.7%), and North Dakota (1.9%) set new series lows.
- Nevada has the highest unemployment rate again at 5.4%, followed by the District at 5.0%, and California at 4.6%.
- In August, 10 states had over-the-month unemployment rate increases, the largest of which were in New Jersey and Wisconsin (+0.3% each).
Key Points:
- Real average hourly earnings are hourly earnings adjusted for inflation. They are one measure of real wages, which represent the economic return to work.
- Despite average hourly earnings trending up, wages are still down after adjusting for inflation.
- The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 0.6% in August from July and is up 3.7% in the last year, an increase from 3.2% in the year ending in July.
- Real average hourly earnings have fallen from $34.89 in January 2021 to $33.82 in August 2023, a 3.1% decline.
Key Points:
- The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 0.6% in August after rising 0.2% in July.
- CPI increased 3.7% from a year ago, up from 3.2% in July.
- The index for energy rose 5.6% over the month, food rose 0.2%, and shelter increased by 0.3%.
- This marks the 40th consecutive month of increases in the shelter index.
- The core CPI, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.3% in August and is up 4.3% from the previous year.
- The energy index is down 3.6%, the food index is up 4.3%, and shelter is up 7.3% from the previous year.
- The Right Facts will continue to monitor CPI.
Key Points:
- Revisions to monthly job gains have erased 330K job gains in the first seven months of the year.
- Total jobs added from January to July were revised down from 2.1M to 1.7M, a 16.1% decline.
- June had the highest revision from 209K to just 105K, a nearly 50% decline.
- Before revisions, nonfarm payroll employment rose by 187,000 in August and the unemployment rate rose to 3.8%.
- The Right Facts will continue to monitor jobs revisions.
Key Points:
- Gas prices climbed to an average of $3.81 a gallon nationally over Labor Day weekend, $0.02 higher than last year, and near the all-time Labor Day record of $3.84.
- Diesel prices have jumped $0.27 in the last month.
- 16 States and D.C. have prices above the U.S. average and 34 states have lower prices.
- The highest gas prices are in California ($5.29), Washington ($5.10), Hawaii ($4.79), Oregon ($4.76), Alaska ($4.61), Nevada ($4.51), Arizona ($4.32), Utah ($4.32), Idaho ($4.16) and Illinois ($4.06).
- The lowest gas prices are in Mississippi ($3.29), Louisiana ($3.36), Texas ($3.38), Arkansas ($3.39), Alabama ($3.41), Tennessee ($3.41), South Carolina ($3.46), Missouri ($3.47), Kentucky ($3.48) and Oklahoma ($3.49).
- The Right Facts will continue to monitor gas prices across the country.
Key Points:
- Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 187,000 in August and the unemployment rate rose to 3.8%.
- Consensus among economists was a gain of 170,000 jobs.
- The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for June was revised down by 80,000, from +185,000 to +105,000, and the change for July was revised down by 30,000, from +187,000 to +157,000.
- With these revisions, employment in June and July combined is 110,000 lower than previously reported.
- In August, health care added 71,000 jobs, leisure and hospitality added 40,000 jobs, social assistance increased by 26,000, and construction increased by 22,000.
- Transportation and warehousing lost 34,000 jobs in August.
- Employment showed little change over the month in other major industries, including mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction, manufacturing, wholesale trade, retail trade, financial activities, other services, and government.
- In August, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by $0.08 to $33.82.
- The average workweek for all private employees edged up by 0.1 hour to 34.4 hours.
- The labor force participation rate rose by 0.2% to 62.8% after being flat since March and is 0.5% below its February 2020 level.
- In August, the unemployed population rose to 6.4 million and job openings fell to 8.8 million in July.
