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During an interview with CNBC released on Monday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that “Some low-income consumers are perhaps exhausting their buffers of saving[s] that they built up during the pandemic, we’re seeing a little bit more distress at the household level there.” But despite that, “we’ve got a good, strong economy” with “very strong domestic demand” that is “on a solid track” and “generally, households are in very good financial shape.” CNBC host Sara Eisen said, “I guess I’m just wondering if the economy continues to hold up, no matter what happens on the Fed.”

To quote Bill Paxton’s character from Twister: “It’s Already Here!” The feared recession, that is. The year-over-year growth rate in Household Net Worth has been negative for 3 consecutive quarters, the worst growth since The Great Recession and Financial Crisis of 2008/2009. Of course, the Biden family household net worth is off the charts. As is the household net worth for other Washington DC politicians like Nancy Pelosi (Communist-CA). And AOC (Communist – NY).

The cost of living crisis in the United Kingdom has seen nearly three-quarters of a million Britons miss a housing payment last month, according to data compiled by a leading consumer body. Research conducted by the British consumer advocate agency Which? found that an estimated 700,000 people in the UK missed or defaulted on a rent or mortgage payment in April. The consumer body reported that the problem paying for housing was “particularly high” among renters, with their figures finding that among those surveyed, one in 20 tenants had difficulties paying their housing bills, including energy costs and local council...

Utility companies in the U.S. have disconnected customers an estimated 5.7 million times since 2020, according to a new report. The disconnections have come even as those companies have paid billions to shareholders and executives, according to a report published on Monday by the Center for Biological Diversity, BailoutWatch and the Energy and Policy Institute. “No one should ever have to choose between having food on the table and keeping the heat on,” Selah Goodson Bell, a campaigner with the Center for Biological Diversity’s energy justice program, said in a statement. “It’s inexcusable for utility executives and shareholders to profit...

Welcome to the wonderful world of Bidenomics, giving the US 40 year highs in inflation leading The Federal Reserve to remove its enormous monetary stimulus (known as “The Punch Bowl.” I previously pointed out that US Real GDP was actually less than 1% year-over-year (YoY) in 2022, hardly a fantastic number given the trillions in Biden/Pelosi/Schumer spending (Omnibus, Infrastructure, etc) and Powell/Fed’s whopping monetary stimulus in 2020. But real disposable income, the amount households have left to spend after adjusting for inflation, had been falling for 7 straight months. In fact, REAL disposable personal income peaked in March 2021, shortly...

American households' real wealth fell $13.5 trillion in the first three quarters of 2022, ... The 8.6 percent drop from January to September is the second fastest decline on record, behind the financial crisis of 2008/2009. Record-high inflation under the Biden administration is causing a decrease in the purchasing power of assets and liabilities, MarketWatch reports: Nominal net worth fell 4.6% to $143.3 trillion, as the market value of assets fell by $6 trillion and liabilities rose by about $900 billion. Households’ balance sheets—assets minus liabilities—were propped up by a 10% increase in home equity, which is the greatest source...

Soaring commodity prices have been financially devastating for households, devoting larger and larger shares of disposable income to pay for energy. For instance, at nine California filling stations, the price of regular gas is higher than the federal minimum wage. Patrick De Haan of GasBuddy said several gas stations in Los Angeles and San Francisco metro areas had recorded pump prices over the federal minimum wage ($7.25). One station in Los Angeles is now $7.83. Ed Yardeni of Yardeni Research told CBS News that record-high fuel costs are denting workers’ paychecks. He estimated that the typical US household would spend...

Every quarter, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York releases data on how much household debt Americans are accumulating. Here’s everything you need to know about American debt in Q2 2019.TOTAL HOUSEHOLD DEBT, Q2 2019 – Total household debt level at $13.86 trillion, up 1.4% ($192 billion) from Q1– 20th consecutive quarter with increase in debt– Mortgage household debt rose by $162 billion in the second quarter to $9.4 trillion– Total mortgage debt the highest it’s been since Q3 2008– Mortgages and refis increased by $130 billion to $474 billion, the highest since Q3 2017– $17 billion increase in auto...

What Is the State of the U.S. Gun Business? By Marcelo Prince and Carlos A. Tovar After several years of strong sales to civilians worried about new regulations, big U.S. firearms makers have recently reported lower sales. The overall number of American households with guns is declining..

This could be the scariest chart in the world, from Deutsche Bank's Torsten Sløk. Nearly half of American households don't save any of their money. If it it isn't obvious, this has a broad range of implications. People who don't save won't have any buffer should the economy turn and they lose their jobs. Longer term, people who don't save won't have the capacity to retire. It's not good.

Here's a look at some interesting demographics, comparing 2003 vs. 2013. Number of Households by Age of Head of Household 2013 vs. 2003 The next chart shows the change in number (in thousands), in the age of the head of household. Change in Households by Age Group (2013 Minus 2003) click on any chart for sharper view I created the above charts from spreadsheet data reader Tim Wallace sent. The data is from the Census Department 213-page PDF 2013 Annual Social and Economic (ASEC) Supplement. Two Key Points 3,516,000 more heads of households in age group 60-64 than in 20033,989,000...

Hm. In newly published findings that challenge earlier research, Dalton Conley of New York University and Emily Rauscher of the University of Kansas found that having more daughters than sons and having a daughter first “significantly reduces the likelihood of Democratic identification and significantly increases the strength of Republican Party identification.”Not only is the daughter effect statistically significant, it’s substantively large. They found that overall, “compared to those with no daughters, parents with all daughters are 14% less likely to identify as a Democrat….[and] 11% more likely to identify as a Republican than parents with no daughters,” they write in...

(CNSNews.com) - In the fourth quarter of 2011, 49.2 percent of Americans received benefits from one or more government programs, according to data released Tuesday by the Census Bureau. In total, the Census Bureau estimated, 151,014,000 Americans out of a population then estimated to be 306,804,000 received benefits from one or more government programs during the last three months of 2011. Those 151,014,000 beneficiaries equaled 49.2 percent of the population. This included 82,457,000 people--or 26.9 percent of the population--who lived in households in which one or more people received Medicaid benefits. Also among the 151,014,000 who received benefits from one...

Household net worth rose to $74.8 trillion in the second quarter, helped by the stock market, housing market and government accounting. Household wealth in the U.S. increased from April through June, supported by gains in the stock and housing markets that are improving Americans’ finances. Net worth for households and non-profit groups climbed by $1.34 trillion in the second quarter, or 1.8 percent from the previous three months, to $74.8 trillion, the Federal Reserve said today from Washington in its financial accounts report, previously known as the flow of funds survey. Here is a chart of household net worth since...

We know that the employment situation in the US is terrible with 70% of jobs created since January 2009 being low-paying, part-time jobs. And median household income keeps declining. 20130816_mainstreetmisery After reading James Hamilton’s horrifying paper on the size of off-balance sheet liabilities for America, I thought I would put together the following table to you could see the household share of government debt, entitlements and The Federal Reserve Balance Sheet. householdshare There are 115,310,000 households in America. Government spending in the U.S. as of Q2 2013 was a little over $5.8 trillion. That equates to $50,328.68 per household. The...

While hardly presented by the mainstream media with the same panache dedicated to the monthly ARIMA-X-12 seasonally-adjusted, climate-affected, goal-seek devised non-farm payroll data, the three month delayed Foodstamp number is according to many a far greater attestation to the "effectiveness" of the Obama administration to turn the economy around. And far greater it is: since his inauguration, the US has generated just 841,000 jobs through November 2012, a number is more than dwarfed by the 17.3 million new foodstamps and disability recipients added to the rolls in the past 4 years. And since the start of the depression in December...

Young US households — those aged 35-to-44 — lost a stunning 59 percent of their wealth during the recession, a government report released yesterday revealed. That’s the stiffest hit of any age group, said the report from the US Census Bureau. The age group — typically struggling with mortgages, tuition bills and rising tax bills — makes up the backbone of America’s middle class. The losses were mainly due to the drop in the value of their homes during the 2005 through 2010 period, the report said

The Fix Is In: Washington's Planned Social Contract Destruction Politics / US Politics Jul 24, 2011 - 06:17 AM By: Stephen Lendman The criminal class in Washington is bipartisan, united against working household interests. In fact, lawmakers yield on virtually everything big money wants, notably when banks and other corporate favorites are affected. Last December, Obama capitulated to Republicans, rigging a deal for up to $1 trillion dollars in handouts, mostly to corporate giants and America's wealthy with working households almost entirely left out. They still are, enduring a protracted Main Street depression, stiff-armed by Obama-led bipartisan crooks. In fact,...

Households headed by immigrants have a substantially higher rate of welfare use than native-headed households, according a report released by the Center for Immigration Studies this week. The report examined census data about the use of welfare programs – cash assistance, food assistance, housing assistance, and Medicaid – and compared usage by immigrant headed households with at least one child – those headed both by legal and illegal immigrants – with usage by native headed households with at least one child. 57 percent of immigrant headed households participate in at least one welfare program, compared to 39 percent of native...

Almost 15% of US households experienced a food shortage at some point in 2009, a government report has found. US authorities say that figure is the highest they have seen since they began collecting data in the 1990s, and a slight increase over 2008 levels. Single mothers are among the hardest hit: About 3.5 million said they were at times unable to put sufficient food on the table. Hispanics and African Americans also suffer disproportionately. The food security report is the result of an annual survey conducted by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). Households deemed "food insecure" experienced a...