More people are making hardship withdrawals from their 401(k) accounts, raiding retirement funds to cover emergency medical expenses or to avoid losing a home.

Hardship withdrawals from Fidelity Investments 401(k) accounts have tripled in five years, according to a report from the investment firm. The share of plan participants withdrawing money rose from 2.1% in 2018 to 6.9% in 2023.

“It’s a big problem, and it’s a growing problem,” said Kirsten Hunter Peterson, vice president of thought leadership at Fidelity.

Vanguard reports that hardship withdrawals have doubled in a four-year span, from a monthly rate of 2.1 transactions per 1,000 participants in 2018 to 4.3 in 2022.

Read it all.

Hardship withdrawals from 401(k) accounts have tripled in five years, according to Fidelity Investments. The share of plan participants withdrawing funds rose from 2.1% in 2018 to 6.9% in 2023. https://t.co/ktQZtj4Fus

— Stephen Miller, CEBS (@smiller_cebs) October 26, 2023

America’s commercial property collapse is becoming a danger to the financial system.

Office blocks purchased with debt remain half empty, 18 months after the end of the pandemic. Thousands of buildings will have to be torn down. Hundreds of regional banks are sitting on crippling losses that they yet to acknowledge.

“It’s a trainwreck in slow motion,” said Professor Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, a property and finance expert at Columbia University.

“The return to the office isn’t happening. Data from turnstile swipes shows that occupancy levels are still just 49pc of where they used to be. It has been stable for a year and a half,” he said. Sensors tracking physical presence in offices tell the same story. Hybrid work is here to stay.

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DT (£) A rising wave of property defaults threatens US banks. “We are starting to see distressed sales every day. Offices are selling for 50pc, 60pc or 70pc discounts. At these values the equity holders are wiped out, and lenders take a 30pc loss,” https://t.co/3JGKK29ku4

— Peter Bill (@peterproperty) October 27, 2023

Paying for health care is increasingly straining US adults as escalating medical costs converge with rising prices throughout the economy.

More than half of working-age Americans said they had difficulty paying for health care in 2023, according to a Commonwealth Fund survey published Thursday. Among people without insurance, more than three-quarters reported trouble affording care. But 43% of people with employer health plans said they had difficulty paying, and the rate was even higher among people on public health plans like Medicare and Medicaid.

The results highlight a fundamental problem in the $4.3 trillion US health system: Despite spending more on medical care than any other wealthy country, the US fails to make it broadly accessible to much of the population. The rising financial burden squeezes families and leads people to delay care, which can hurt their health over the longer term, researchers said.

“As a primary care provider I’ve seen the impact of this grow over the past several years,” said Joseph Betancourt, president of the Commonwealth Fund, a health research nonprofit. “These affordability challenges are real, they’re getting worse and they’re a clear and present danger.

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More than half of working-age Americans said they had difficulty paying for health care in 2023, according to a Commonwealth Fund survey https://t.co/AJeM5fubBQ

— Bloomberg (@business) October 26, 2023

A Walworth bakery and cafe is baking its loaves from the bowels of a Georgian church after saying its rent became unaffordable.

Independent eatery Louie Louie has renamed itself Saint Louie after relocating to the crypt inside St Peter’s Church, on Sunday, October 15.

The cafe’s owners have said they are “delighted” by the move and that its products will be cheaper thanks to a more affordable rent.

Read it all.

#Walworth cafe and bakery moves into church crypt@LouieLouie_Ldn @StPeterWalworthhttps://t.co/IA0r9isuFS pic.twitter.com/0mJIZ0BMti

— Southwark News (@Southwark_News) October 19, 2023

In a year when the US economy exceeded almost everybody’s expectations, the underlying federal deficit roughly doubled, spotlighting a dire fiscal trajectory likely to only worsen the partisan budget battles in Washington.

The government ran a $2.02 trillion deficit for the fiscal year through September, after adjustments to remove the impact of President Joe Biden’s student-loan forgiveness program, which was scotched by the Supreme Court. The gap is $1.02 trillion more than the prior year.

The surge is a powerful illustration of a fiscal path that’s triggered warnings from economists, politicians and credit rating agencies. It also helps explain why yields on longer-term US Treasuries are reaching highs unseen since before the global financial crisis, with the government needing to issue ever more debt to cover the shortfall of revenues relative to spending. Ten-year yields surpassed 5% on Monday.

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The US government had a $2 trillion budget deficit for the fiscal year through September, a gap that's $1 trillion more than the prior year. https://t.co/M69cTCs6Yl pic.twitter.com/LMOoK3Nxen

— Lisa Abramowicz (@lisaabramowicz1) October 24, 2023

US borrowers who took on new debt in the middle of the pandemic are falling behind on repayments at unusually high rates, after lenders extended more credit to households helped by government stimulus. 

Federal programmes sent cash and froze certain loan repayment requirements for US consumers strapped by the economic shock of Covid-19. 

One effect was to drive up the median consumer credit score by 20 per cent to a peak of 676 in the first quarter of 2021, according to a report by TransUnion, a credit reporting agency. Credit scores above 670 are considered “good”. 

Lenders became more willing to provide consumer credit. Credit card and unsecured loan originations rose by more than half between 2020 and 2022, TransUnion said.

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Shocking news: the borrowers whose credit scores were inflated due to pandemic handouts are defaulting on after effects of binge borrowing.@FT: Late payments rise on US loans tied to inflated pandemic credit scoreshttps://t.co/hhppqjLfih

— Axel Merk (@AxelMerk) October 19, 2023

Fifty-eight percent of employees say their organization has asked workers to take on additional responsibilities, according to Gallup’s first-quarter survey of the U.S. workforce.

This comes in the middle of a tight labor market. Job openings remain high, and layoffs have fallen below 2019 levels, according to the BLS.

One consequence of a labor shortage is a higher demand for individual worker productivity. Employers look to their current workforce to fill the gaps of essential job openings that remain unfilled.

However, the risk is increased employee stress and burnout. When employees say that their organization has asked them to take on additional responsibilities, they are also:

–2.5x as likely to feel burned out at work very often or always
–55% more likely to watch for or actively seek a new job
–39% less likely to be engaged at work
–half as likely to think their employer cares about their wellbeing

Read it all.

In a Tight Labor Market, Employees Bear the Burden https://t.co/SSNQzgaz5e

— Bradley Kreit (@bkreit) October 18, 2023

The grand bargain between the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia is already a dead letter. This has large implications for oil at a time when the crude market is already in deficit and prices are at the upper band of their historical range – pushed higher by Saudi and OPEC production cuts of two million barrels a day (b/d), otherwise known as cartel price manipulation.

The unspoken terms of the deal were that Saudi Aramco would feed back one million b/d as a unilateral gesture. But this depended on Israel beefing up the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank, one reason why Hamas was so determined to thwart it. The accord is now almost unthinkable.

One can only assume that Hamas intended to provoke total conflagration by decapitating women and children in the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Events must now follow their Sophoclean script with a haunting inevitability.

There must be a high risk that the unstoppable chain of events will trigger an assault by the Lebanese Hezbollah, backed by Iran and armed with 150,000 missiles on the northern Blue Line, in turn spreading to Syria. Israel bombed Damascus and Aleppo airports in a preemptive strike on Thursday. “The longer the war, the greater the probability that Hezbollah joins in,” said Dr Walid Abdel Hay, a Jordanian political analyst.

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We are one miscalculation short of a Middle East firestorm and the next world #oil crisis, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writes: The strange calm on world oil markets is unlikely to survive blockade of Gaza. The only way to knock out Hamas is house-to-house, block-to-block, urban… pic.twitter.com/ZhFXBl0zo4

— Holger Zschaepitz (@Schuldensuehner) October 14, 2023

When it comes to the size of the federal government’s annual deficit, appearances can be deceiving.

The gap between spending and revenue for fiscal year 2023, which ended on Sept. 30, was $1.7 trillion, the Congressional Budget Office projected ahead of the official Treasury Department figures. That would be a roughly $300 billion widening in the shortfall from fiscal year 2022.

But the gap was actually much larger. That is because of the odd way President Biden’s attempt to broadly cancel student debt shows up in budget figures.

Read it all.

The Federal Deficit Is Even Bigger Than It Looks: Student-debt cancellation complicates the numbers as higher interest rates make borrowing costlier https://t.co/UnnEwiCbb6 pic.twitter.com/WqwpDVfUfn

— Jesse Felder (@jessefelder) October 13, 2023

But the biggest consequences will be for the biggest borrower — namely the US government. As Greg Ip put it in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal, “Rising Interest Rates Mean Deficits Finally Matter.” It is no coincidence, he argued, that “the recent rise in bond yields came as Fitch Ratings downgraded its US credit rating, Treasury upped the size of its bond auctions, analysts began revising upward this year’s federal deficit, and Congress nearly shut down parts of the government over a failure to pass spending bills.”

US fiscal policy has long been on an unsustainable trajectory — for more than 20 years, in fact. But under President Joe Biden it has jumped the shark. The federal deficit looks like it will exceed 7% of GDP in fiscal 2023, after the Congressional Budget Office adjusts for the vagaries of policy on student debt forgiveness. That is a truly shocking number for an economy that is running at close to full employment. And, as I pointed out here a month ago, there is no scenario the CBO can devise in which the total debt relative to GDP does not keep growing, with spending driven up partly by the rising burden of interest payments.

The key problem, as Brian Riedl of the Manhattan Institute has pointed out, is that the average maturity of the federal debt is just 76 months. So even if the CBO is right, and long-term interest rates average 4% over the next three decades, the result will still be budget deficits rising to 10% of GDP. And each additional percentage point on interest rates would add an additional $2.8 trillion of debt service costs over 10 years.

This disastrous outcome is a perfect illustration of the law of unintended consequences.

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“In terms of total returns, this is the biggest bond market rout in 150 years.”https://t.co/ufQO76ioX6 via @opinion

— Bruce Mehlman (@bpmehlman) October 10, 2023

It is sobering to think that the US federal government was running a large budget surplus in 2000 and the gross debt ratio was 54pc of GDP.

A quarter of a century later the ratio is 120pc and vaulting past the 1945 peak. This is partly due to two big recessions and Covid, to be sure, but mostly due to three sets of unfunded tax cuts, two unfunded 21st-century wars and no serious effort to control ballooning middle-class entitlements.

David Kelly from JP Morgan says the US is looking at annual fiscal deficits of $2 trillion this year, next year, and as far as the eye can see. This is at a time of effectively full employment and what should be bumper tax revenues. The deficit could hit $3.5 trillion in the next downturn.

The US Treasury must roll over $8 trillion of existing debt and raise $2 trillion of fresh debt this fiscal year, even as the Fed tosses another $1 trillion onto the heap under its QT programme.

Investors have belatedly, and suddenly, woken up to the shocking implications of a structural budget deficit heading for 8pc of GDP even before any trouble starts. It is this that has driven up yields on US Treasuries by 100 basis points since July.

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If rates continue to rise the way that they’ve been rising, eventually there’s going to be a financial accident, eventually something will break, said JP Morgan’s David Lebovitz on Bloomberg Surveillance. https://t.co/ZsQ8NfcD3n must-read. we thank AEP & David Lebovitz @jpmorgan

— tom keene (@tomkeene) October 7, 2023

Carbon emissions from the global electricity sector may peak this year, after plateauing in the first half of 2023, because of a surge in wind and solar power, according to a climate thinktank.

A new report on global electricity generation found that the growth of renewables was so rapid that it was close to the incredibly fast rate required if the world is to hit the tripling of capacity by the end of the decade that experts believe is necessary to stay on the 1.5C pathway.

It also noted that there had been only a slight increase in emissions in the first six months of the year, compared with the same period a year before.

The findings suggest the world may be close to reaching the peak of the global power sector’s carbon emissions, and they could soon even begin to fall in line with global climate targets.

Read it all.

Global carbon emissions from electric power may peak this year, report says https://t.co/AVuFVBYBDq

— Guardian news (@guardiannews) October 4, 2023

Read it all.

A study just published in JAMA finds that people who stay seated for long hours at work and home are at much higher risk of developing dementia than people who sit less. https://t.co/nfGYd5RgBV

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) September 27, 2023

Federal government shutdowns have become so common in recent years that forecasters have a good read on how another one would affect the American economy. The answer is fairly simple: The longer a shutdown lasts, the more damage it is likely to inflict.

A brief shutdown would be unlikely to slow the economy significantly or push it into recession, economists on Wall Street and inside the Biden administration have concluded. That assessment is based in part on the evidence from prior episodes where Congress stopped funding many government operations.

But a prolonged shutdown could hurt growth and potentially President Biden’s re-election prospects. It would join a series of other factors that are expected to weigh on the economy in the final months of this year, including high interest rates, the restart of federal student loan payments next month and a potentially lengthy United Automobile Workers strike.

A halt to federal government business would not just dent growth. It would further dampen the mood of consumers, whose confidence slumped in September for the second straight month amid rising gas prices. In the month that previous shutdowns began, the Conference Board’s measure of consumer confidence slid by an average of seven points, Goldman Sachs economists noted recently, although much of that decline reversed in the month after a reopening.

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“There’s a reason shutdowns tend to be pretty short. They end up causing disruptions that people don’t like.”
New from @nytimes, Equitable Growth’s Senior Policy Fellow @MichaelSLinden on the potential government shutdown. 👇https://t.co/etQF4cRgyh

— Equitable Growth (@equitablegrowth) September 27, 2023

Investors overseeing $23.6 trillion of funds have kick-started a campaign to pressure 100 companies to ramp up the fight against biodiversity loss.

Axa Investment Managers, Robeco, the Church Commissioners for England, Storebrand Asset Management and 186 other participants in the Nature Action 100 initiative have written to companies demanding “urgent and necessary actions” to protect and restore ecosystems, according to a statement released Tuesday.

The targeted companies include BHP Group Plc, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, Nestle SA, Bayer AG, Amazon.com Inc. and Unilever Plc. They were selected based on their market values and participation in industries ranging from mining, food and pharmaceuticals to chemicals and forestry that are considered vital to reversing biodiversity loss by 2030.

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Investors overseeing $23.6 trillion of funds have kick-started a campaign to pressure 100 companies to ramp up the fight against biodiversity loss https://t.co/YBXl6RtBou

— Bloomberg (@business) September 26, 2023

Nearly half of all young adults are living with their parents — and they’re not ashamed to say it.

Moving out and living on your own is often seen as a marker of adulthood. But dealt an onerous set of cards — including pandemic lockdowns, decades-high inflation, soaring student debt levels and a shaky job market — young people today are increasingly staying put. What’s more, it’s no longer seen as a sign of individual failure.

Almost 90% of surveyed Americans say people shouldn’t be judged for moving back home, according to Harris Poll in an exclusive survey for Bloomberg News. It’s seen as a pragmatic way to get ahead, the survey of 4,106 adults in August showed.

“We’re in an economy where it’s harder to live independently,” said Carol Sigelman, professor of social psychology at George Washington University. “Adults recognize that it’s tough these days.”

Read it all.

Nearly half of young adults in the US are living with their parents — they're not ashamed to say it https://t.co/V4VNmKsIe1

— Bloomberg (@business) September 20, 2023

For the United Auto Workers, it makes perfect sense to demand more pay and better work-life balance from Detroit’s three automakers. After all, workers throughout this historically tight labor market are getting exactly that. But what makes sense to striking factory workers makes no sense for manufacturing as a whole.

Pay is ultimately tied to productivity: the quantity and quality of products a company’s workforce churns out. And here, American manufacturing companies and workers are in trouble.

The issue isn’t with labor-intensive products such as clothing and furniture, which largely moved offshore long ago. Rather, it’s in the most advanced products: electric cars and batteries, power-generation equipment, commercial aircraft and semiconductors. President Biden might be celebrating a manufacturing renaissance based on new factories, but the share prices of former manufacturing icons Ford Motor, Intel, Boeing and General Electric suggest skepticism is warranted about the durability of this renaissance: All are at a fraction of all-time share-price highs.

Read it all.

Pay is ultimately tied to productivity, and here, American manufacturing companies and workers are in trouble, says chief economics commentator @greg_ip https://t.co/CNFmEeraou

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) September 20, 2023

BIR REBAA, Algeria—Once-obscure corners of the energy world, from offshore Congo to Azerbaijan, are booming as Europe finds new sources of natural gas to replace the Russian supplies that once powered the continent. The shift is redrawing the world’s energy map at a rapid clip.

In Bir Rebaa, deep in the Sahara, the Italian energy company Eni and Algeria’s state-owned energy company are drilling dozens of wells, producing gas from previously untapped fields in a matter of months.

Three pipelines beneath the Mediterranean Sea connect Algeria’s vast gas reserves to Europe. For much of the last decade, Russian gas giant Gazprom had kept prices low, pushing suppliers like Algeria out of the European market.

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A burst of drilling in the Sahara is part of the West’s rapid pivot toward remote parts of the globe to replace Russian energy https://t.co/arcbo9gZJw

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) September 19, 2023

As another legislative session draws to a close in Sacramento, the problem lawmakers failed to fix is one of the most urgent facing Californians: the slow-moving collapse of the property insurance market as costs from climate disasters mount.

It “is not even a yellow flag issue. This is a waving red flag issue,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said Tuesday night when asked about the failure of the Legislature to act.

This year, multiple companies, including the state’s largest home insurer, State Farm, have announced they are no longer taking on new residential and commercial properties, citing wildfire risk. In fact, seven of the 12 insurance groups operating in California — together, responsible for about 85% of the market — have pulled back.

Read it all.

Read it all.

Anglican Diocese of #SouthCarolina Moving to Purchase Land for Camp and Retreat Center https://t.co/DldUEvojnd #faith #parishministry #anglican #religion #retreatcenters #realestate [Diocesan picture] pic.twitter.com/9KTEUErDPO

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) September 15, 2023

Inflation, interest rates, and GDP growth might be valuable historical economic statistics, but they don’t capture the voice of the American consumer in real time. This was the motivation for the Suffolk University Sawyer Business School/USA TODAY national survey of adults on kitchen table issues.

We opened the survey by asking respondents to summarize in a word the state of the economy today. A total of 22% used words like “excellent,” “good,” “growing,” “improving,” “getting better,” “fair,” “average,” and “fine.” That’s more than 1 in 5 feeling pretty good about the economy.

However, nearly 3 in 4 (72%) used words like “horrible,” “terrible,” awful,” “bad,” “poor,” “weak,” “sad,” “dismal,” “crashing,” “struggling,” “disastrous,” “shambles,” “chaotic,” “messy,” “confusing,” “unequal,” “expensive,” “inflation,” “unstable,” “volatile,” “unpredictable,” “anxiety,” “worried,” and “scary.” Those are their words, not ours, and they come from a wide range of demographics, including people at all income levels.

Read it all.

From food costs to holiday spending: Americans say they're being pummeled by the economy in dire new poll https://t.co/kEAhkK2YCy via @Yahoo

— Marlene T. Diaz (@academicknight) September 15, 2023

The world is at “the beginning of the end” of the fossil fuel era, according to the leading global energy watchdog, which for the first time has forecast that demand for oil, natural gas and coal will all peak before 2030.

The International Energy Agency projected that the consumption of the three major fossil fuels will start to decline this decade because of the rapid growth of renewable energy and the spread of electric vehicles.

“We are witnessing the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era and we have to prepare ourselves for the next era,” IEA head Fatih Birol said of the projections, due to be published next month in the body’s World Energy Outlook. “It shows that climate policies do work.”

Read it all (registration or subscription).

Today the Episcopal Church commemorates John Henry Hobart, Bishop of New York, 1830

Rector of Trinity Wall Street, 3rd Bishop of New York (1816-30) and founder of General Theological Seminary, he helped promote the extension of the Episcopal Church in Central & Western New York pic.twitter.com/wIkunzNNCd

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) September 12, 2023

Car insurance is a growing burden for Kalisa Hobbs.

Hobbs, who lives near the northern shore of Louisiana’s Lake Pontchartrain, said the cost of her auto coverage jumped almost 30 percent this year when State Farm added hundreds of dollars to her annual premium, raising it to $1,806. “I’m not going to go hungry or homeless, but like everybody else I live on a budget, and when that budget gets interrupted, it’s difficult,” said Hobbs, 56, who works as a communications manager at a paper mill. “It’s just on my credit card, and I’ll pay it off when I can.”

Hobbs has been swept up in a larger trend affecting hundreds of thousands of American drivers: soaring car insurance rates, with some states seeing increases above 50 percent in the past year.

Premiums have kept climbing even as other types of inflation have cooled. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, car insurance for U.S. drivers in July was 16 percent more expensive than in July 2022, and 70 percent more expensive than in 2013.

Read it all.

The value of claims submitted has risen because repairs and replacements have become more expensive, companies say.

And natural disasters make things worse. https://t.co/8QJ6slriE6

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) September 6, 2023

Two years of high inflation has many Americans shopping in places they wouldn’t normally, scouring for coupons and discounts and learning to do without.

The hit to the average budget is huge: The typical household spent $202 more in July than they did a year ago to buy the same goods and services, tweeted Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi. “And they spent $709 more (in July) than they did two years ago.”

People, especially those with annual earnings less than $100,000, are trying multiple strategies to stretch their dollars, according to the Dallas Fed – from delaying major purchases and medical treatment to decreasing the use of utilities and tapping charities.

Read it all.

Two years of high inflation have ravaged most American households. Here's what resilient Americans have to do to get by, https://t.co/15QLDLp0Rd

— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) September 6, 2023

The unexpected deficit surge, which comes amid signs of strong growth in the economy overall, is likely to shape a fierce debate on Capitol Hill about the nation’s fiscal policies as lawmakers face a potential government shutdown this fall and choices over trillions of dollars in expiring tax cuts. The Senate will return this week from August recess, and the House will be back the following week. Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) approved a deal in June to raise the nation’s borrowing limit, but it did little to alter the long-term debt trajectory.

Read it all.

🇺🇸 U.S. deficit explodes even as economy grows – Washington Posthttps://t.co/IAXBFZ66WK pic.twitter.com/AEnOvk8hVP

— Christophe Barraud🛢🐳 (@C_Barraud) September 4, 2023

On this three day weekend, when we rest from our usual labors, loving Father, we pray for all who shoulder the tasks of human laboring the marketplace, in factories and offices, in the professions, and in family living.

We thank you, Lord, for the gift and opportunity of work; may our efforts always be pure of heart, for the good of others and the glory of your name.

We lift up to you all who long for just employment and those who work to defend the rights and needs of workers everywhere.

May those of us who are now retired always remember that we still make a valuable contribution to our Church and our world by our prayers and deeds of charity.

May our working and our resting all give praise to you until the day we share together in eternal rest with all our departed in your Kingdom as you live and reign Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

–-The Archdiocese of Detroit

Happy #LaborDay! We’re honoring the many contributions workers have made to America’s strength, prosperity and well-being. https://t.co/Ub7b8FOSMh pic.twitter.com/NLWdJmpBTg

— U.S. Department of Labor (@USDOL) September 4, 2023

I am pleased to update you that we have crossed another important milestone in the progress we are making towards our church sanctuary construction. Since the beginning of the initiation of our contract with Habersham Land Company, the transfer of the property has been contingent upon the financing.

As you know, we have raised the pledge commitments over a number of years, therefore a bridge loan from a lending institution was needed. More specifically, we needed to provide a loan commitment letter from a Bank to prove we could, in fact, build the building.

We have believed for a few months now, that we had enough money in pledges and cash on hand to prove that a bank would want to enter into a loan relationship with us. However, this past Wednesday, the first bank did extend a commitment letter to us. Therefore, what we hoped for and saw good reason to believe would happen, has happened. We have satisfied the conditions to close on the property.

Read it all.

The Parish Church at Habersham in the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina nears groundbreaking for new Common Worship building https://t.co/CszGrBO217 #southcarolina #parishministry #anglican #acna #religion #lowcountrylife #stewardship #realestate #beginnings #worship pic.twitter.com/4KgndQ4GKl

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) July 27, 2023

A record number of children are living in temporary accommodation, as the level of homelessness in England soars.

The housing department revealed on Tuesday that 104,510 households were in temporary accommodation by the end of March this year — a 25-year high.

The total number of children in the same situation is at the highest level since records for that measure began in 2004, with 131,370 children living in temporary accommodation.

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A record number of children are living in temporary accommodation, as the level of homelessness in England soarshttps://t.co/KOTwx7L29i

— The Times and The Sunday Times (@thetimes) July 25, 2023

The development is owed partly to a rebound in immigration as the United States has eased pandemic-related restrictions, cleared processing backlogs and enacted more permissive policies. Labor supply has also received a boost as some demographic groups — including women in their prime working years — have returned to the job market in bigger numbers than anticipated, pushing their employment rates to record highs.

That influx has made the Fed’s job a little less painful. Hiring has been able to chug along at a solid clip without further overheating the labor market because job seekers are becoming available to replace those who are getting snapped up. Unemployment has held steady around 3.5 percent, and some data even suggests that staffing is becoming less strained. Wage growth has begun to slow, for instance, and workers are no longer pulling such long hours.

“Monetary policy is part of the story to get demand moving towards supply, but any help we can get from supply increasing, that’s good news,” John C. Williams, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said in an interview with The Financial Times this month.

Read it all.

The expanding supply of workers has allowed the Fed to accept the faster-than-expected hiring without slamming the brakes on the economy even more aggressively.

A Flood of New Workers Has Made the Fed’s Job Less Painful. Can It Persist? https://t.co/mvAz3MCsYF

— Sean Graf (@seangraf) July 24, 2023

There is less theater in America these days. Fewer venues. Fewer productions. Fewer performances.

Cal Shakes, a Bay Area favorite that staged Shakespeare in an outdoor amphitheater, is producing no shows this year. Chicago’s Lookingglass Theater, where Mary Zimmerman’s “Metamorphoses” had its premiere before coming to Broadway, has halted programming until next spring. The Williamstown Theater Festival, known for its star-studded summer shows, has no fully staged productions at its Western Massachusetts home this season.

The coronavirus pandemic and its aftermath have left the industry in crisis. Interviews with 72 top-tier regional theaters located outside New York City reveal that they expect, in aggregate, to produce 20 percent fewer productions next season than they did in the last full season before the pandemic, which shuttered theaters across the country, in many cases for 18 months or more. And many of the shows that they are programming will have shorter runs, smaller casts and simpler sets.

Seattle’s ACT Theater has reduced the length of each show’s run by a week. In Los Angeles, the Geffen Playhouse will no longer schedule performances on Tuesdays, its slowest night. Philadelphia’s Arden Theater Company expects to give 363 performances next season, down from 503 performances the season before the pandemic.

Read it all.

As they struggle to recover after the pandemic, regional theaters in the U.S. are staging fewer shows, giving fewer performances, laying off staff and, in some cases, closing. https://t.co/UzrmbK5BL4

— The New York Times (@nytimes) July 23, 2023