Flat: Americans as a whole have experienced two years in a row of flat or declining household income, new government data showed this morning, reflecting the pandemic’s lingering economic pain as inflation is also taking the largest bite out of pocketbooks in four decades. In its annual assessment of the nation’s financial well-being, the Census Bureau said median household income of about $70,800 in 2021 wasn’t different in a statistically significant way from the inflation-adjusted 2020 estimate of about $71,200. Read the full story from The Wall Street Journal.
Falling demand: Mortgage demand appears to have nowhere to go but down, as interest rates go up, CNBC reports. Application volume dropped 1.2% last week compared with the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s seasonally adjusted index. Since last year, homebuyers’ demand for mortgages has fallen by nearly one-third. Read the full story.
Still inflated: Inflation at the wholesale level jumped 8.7% in August from a year earlier, a slowdown from July yet still a painfully high level that suggests prices will keep spiking for months to come. This morning’s report from the Labor Department also showed that on a month-to-month basis, the producer price index—which measures inflation before it reaches consumers—declined 0.1% from July to August, the second straight monthly decline. Read more.
