Category: TRENDS ON THE U.S. ECONOMIC FRONT

Yesterday, the Dow gave up a 500-point gain to end the day up 10 points. The NASDAQ also reversed a nearly 2 percent spike, hitting a new record, before closing down more than 2 percent. Today, on the “good news” that Wells Fargo shares tumbled 8 percent after posting a $2.4 billion loss, Delta posted...

Looming Mideast Recession Could Ignite Social Unrest. The economies of the Middle East and North Africa will collectively shrink 5.7 percent this year, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has forecast. In April, the IMF had forecast a regional contraction of 3.3 percent. The Arab Gulf oil-exporting nations will lose 7.1 percent of their GDP in...

$18 Billion Plan to Fund COVID Vaccine. The World Health Organization (WHO) and two nonprofit organizations have drafted a plan that will spend $18 billion to distribute an eventual COVID virus vaccine equitably among nations. The U.S. and other rich countries are funding various vaccine projects in exchange for early access to successful formulas. The...

Canada’s GDP Takes Record Plunge. The country’s economic output fell 11.4 percent from March through April, a record month-to-month plunge, to C$1.63 trillion, or about U.S.$1.19 trillion, according to Statistics Canada. The nation’s GDP contracted 7.5 percent in March. If annualized, the April figure represents the equivalent of a 40-percent GDP crash for the year....

Delta to Lay Off Pilots Amid Ongoing Cost-Cutting. Delta Airlines has sent letters to more than 2,500 pilots warning the company will furlough some of them in an ongoing attempt to cut costs. The company and its pilots’ union have agreed on terms of early retirement offers that would trim the payroll and reduce the...

Home Prices Up, Sales Down in April. Home prices in major U.S. metropolitan areas edged up in April for the second consecutive month, according to data from the S&P CoreLogic Case-Schiller National Home Price Index. Prices in March gained 4.6 percent, followed by a 4.7-percent bump in April. Sales of existing homes – the majority...

Local, state, and federal bans on evictions are expiring, leaving millions of unemployed people at risk of falling off a “rent cliff” and becoming homeless in the midst of a public health crisis. To prevent that, on 29 June, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that extends a federal ban on all evictions...

Lingering high unemployment rates, falling prices, and a slowed inflation rate will hobble growth in U.S. incomes to its slowest pace in history, according to the Conference Board’s Labor Market Institute. In April, 40 percent of companies responding to a Conference Board survey had deferred bonuses and raises or were planning to do so by...

The U.S. economy will remain weak for years under current spending and tax policies, while unemployment will remain above pre-pandemic levels for as long as a decade, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has forecast. The ten-year economic scenario has “deteriorated significantly” since the agency’s last predictions in January. The U.S. economy will grow quickly in...

Consumer spending in the U.S. rose 8.2 percent in May, more than doubling previous one-month spending increases dating back to 1959 when records began being kept. Shoppers splurged on cars, appliances, and furniture as well as restocking staples. Consumers took advantage of historically low interest rates to make big-ticket purchases, analysts report. May spending, however,...