Category: TRENDS ON THE U.S. ECONOMIC FRONT – Jun 2 2026

“I place little ​stock in assuming that the most recent runup in [energy] prices is transitory within an ⁠acceptable time horizon,” Jeffrey Schmid, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, said at a conference in Iceland last month. 

About 6.1 million homes were sold in the U.S. in 2021. The number slipped to barely five million in 2022 and stagnated at roughly four million in 2023, 2024, and 2025, according to research service Statista.

New home sales dropped at an annualized rate of 6.2 percent in April from March, with interest rates remaining high, the U.S. census bureau said. The decline was 11.3 percent from April 2025. 

After rising 0.7 percent in March from February, the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index (PCE), the U.S. Federal Reserve’s favorite inflation gauge, moved up 0.4 percent in April to 3.8 percent.

American workers’ pay and benefits increased 0.8 percent in this year’s first quarter from the one before. In the same period, corporate profits went up 2.7 percent, The Wall Street Journal noted.

Some U.S. government bonds are paying the highest interest rates since 2007 when the Great Recession loomed. Rates have risen to try to hold investors, who have been fleeing the bonds in expectation that interest rates will rise further as the Iran War enters its fourth month.

The U.S. economy grew just 1.6 percent in this year’s first quarter, the commerce department said last week, revising its earlier estimate of a 2-percent expansion.

In April, the U.S. savings rate – the amount of money a household has left after expenses and paying taxes – fell to 2.6 percent of income, one of the smallest proportions since the 1960s.

American households are spending an average of $447.19 a month more in engine fuel since the Iran War began, Moody’s Analytics told CNBC. That totals an extra $60 billion out of pocket nationwide.