The consumers powering U.S. economic growth are increasingly those who are higher up the income ladder and likely enjoying a wealth effect from asset-price gains, according to research by Federal Reserve economists.

In the two pre-pandemic years, average household consumption was growing at a similar pace across all income groups, the new Fed study of retail spending shows. But since then, spending patterns have diverged sharply.

In the initial Covid period through mid-2021, low-income households increased spending faster than others with the help of public stimulus programs. But their consumption fell back after the last pandemic checks went out, while middle- and especially higher-income Americans have powered ahead. Overall, since the start of 2018, high-earning households raised spending more than twice as much as the low-income group. 

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The consumers powering US economic growth are increasingly those who are higher up the income ladder, according to research by Fed economists https://t.co/ypEjW5Buyz

— Bloomberg Economics (@economics) October 11, 2024

Inflation in the United States is down significantly from its recent highs, falling from an annual rate of 9.1% in June 2022 to 2.5% in August 2024. But actual prices remain elevated and, absent a recession, are likely to stay that way.

On average, consumer prices in August 2024 were 22.0% above where they were in January 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic scrambled the U.S. economy and much of the rest of American life. Today, 74% of Americans say they are very concerned about the price of food and consumer goods, while 69% say the same about housing costs, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey.

Of course, people don’t live on national averages. They live in particular places and buy particular things, and their experiences of inflation depend greatly on those particulars. The cost of apartments in Atlanta, bananas in Boston and sportswear in Seattle all factor into the national average inflation rate but can – and do – vary considerably from it….

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NEW from @pewresearch: While *inflation* has eased, consumer *prices* are still much higher than before the pandemic, especially in certain metro areas. That may be why ~7 in 10 Americans are "very concerned" about prices. https://t.co/tI4k5ZyLU7 pic.twitter.com/sgAe9ziZ6c

— John Gramlich (@johngramlich) October 7, 2024

Firms that manage drug benefits, which promise to keep a lid on high drug costs, instead steer patients away from less expensive medicines and overcharge for cancer therapies, Federal Trade Commission investigators found.

The FTC, in a report released Tuesday, detailed a number of actions that it said large pharmacy-benefit managers use to boost their profits and increase the spending of the health plans and employers that hired them to control costs. The actions can also lead to higher outlays for patients at the pharmacy counter, the agency said.

The findings follow a two-year investigation into the firms, known as PBMs, and calls from some lawmakers to rein in the firms’ business practices.

FTC Chair Lina Khan said the agency planned further scrutiny of big PBMs with the goal of making healthcare affordable. “Dominant pharmacy-benefit managers can hike the cost of drugs—including overcharging patients for cancer drugs,” she said. 

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PBMs are a paradigmatic example of how a middleman meant to reduce costs and enhance efficiency becomes so bloated and powerful that it adds to costs and reduces efficiency. Great to see FTC addressing this issue!https://t.co/q0s3VC638W

— Kate Judge (@ProfKateJudge) July 9, 2024

US consumer confidence eased this month on a more muted outlook for business conditions, the job market and incomes.

The Conference Board’s gauge of sentiment decreased to 100.4 from a downwardly revised 101.3 reading in May, data out Tuesday showed. June’s measure of expectations for the next six months fell nearly 2 points to 73, while present conditions increased from a downwardly revised May reading.

Confidence has been subdued over the past few years as consumers contend with a higher cost of living, elevated borrowing costs and, more recently, a softening in the labor market. Only 12.5% of consumers expect business conditions to improve in the next six months, the smallest share since 2011.

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US consumer confidence eased this month as Americans’ outlook for the economy deteriorated. https://t.co/Ma7ORsFUwm

— Bloomberg (@business) June 25, 2024

US consumer sentiment unexpectedly fell to a seven-month low in early June as high prices continued to take a toll on views of personal finances.

The sentiment index dropped to 65.6 in June from 69.1, according to the preliminary reading from the University of Michigan. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for the measure to rise to 72.

Consumers expect prices will climb at an annual rate of 3.1% over the next five to 10 years, up slightly from the 3% expected in May, the data out Friday showed. They see costs rising 3.3% over the next year, the same as in the previous month.

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Pretty rotten UoM Consumer Sentiment reading. Expectation was for 72.1, and we got 65.6 instead:

"Assessments of personal finances dipped, due to modestly rising concerns over high prices as well as weakening incomes." pic.twitter.com/Lpl8CXbJqQ

— Markets & Mayhem (@Mayhem4Markets) June 14, 2024

Almost two-thirds of Americans considered middle class said they are facing economic hardship and don’t anticipate a change for the rest of their lives, according to a poll commissioned by the National True Cost of Living Coalition.

By many traditional measures, the US economy is strong, with robust labor, housing and stock markets, as well as solid gross domestic product growth. But the data don’t capture the financial insecurity of millions of households who worry about their future and are unable to save, according to the group, created this year to come up with cost-of-living tools that help gauge economic well-being.

In the large poll of 2,500 adults, 65% of people who earn more than 200% of the federal poverty level — that’s at least $60,000 for a family of four, often considered middle class — said they are struggling financially.

Almost two-thirds of Americans considered middle class said they are facing economic hardship, according to a poll. In the survey, 65% of people who earn at least $60,000 for a family of four said they are struggling financially https://t.co/hwHmjJCI6y

— Lisa Abramowicz (@lisaabramowicz1) June 4, 2024

One reason U.S. inflation is still high: Increases in prices for procedures to prop open clogged arteries, provide intensive care for newborns and biopsy breasts.

Hospitals didn’t raise prices as early in the pandemic as supermarkets, retailers and restaurants. But they have been making up ground since then. Their increases have contributed to stubbornly high inflation readings from the consumer-price index, which in April increased 3.4% from a year ago.

Hospital prices specifically jumped 7.7% last month from a year ago, the highest increase in any month since October 2010, the Labor Department said Wednesday.

Among the procedures with hefty recent price increases are angioplasties placing stents in arteries to improve blood flow, which grew $670, or 4.5%, to $15,640 in the first three months of the year from the same period a year ago, according to Turquoise Health.

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Surging Hospital Prices Are Helping Keep Inflation High https://t.co/en50uqXMV4

— Edward Marx (@marxtango) May 17, 2024

First popularised by a 2017 article in Cosmopolitan magazine, it describes a casual romance between two people that has some of the hallmarks of a formal relationship but without the commitment.

Dating experts say situationships are the natural result of apps such as Tinder, which make it easier for those seeking convenience rather than commitment. And big brands are attempting to capitalise on the trend.

Ahead of February 14, the US makers of Sweethearts — a treat similar to the Love Hearts sold in the UK — released “Situationships” boxes with the usual loved-up messages such as “true love” and “only you” printed in a blurry font.

The Spangler Candy Company said it wanted to “speak to all the people out there in hard-to-read relationships”, and judging by the sales there are plenty of customers. A limited first run of the sweets went on sale last month and was snapped up in four minutes, while another batch made available on Thursday also quickly sold out.

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'“The ambiguous territory that lies between friendship and a committed relationship offers a preferable alternative to the stark solitude of being entirely single and alone.”

Chan said this apprehension has led to the creation of new terms such as “hesidating” and “Foda” (fear…

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) February 5, 2024

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.

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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.

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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

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.

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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.

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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

Simon Mackenzie, a security officer at the discount retailer QD Stores outside London, was short of breath. He had just chased after three shoplifters who had taken off with several packages of laundry soap. Before the police arrived, he sat at a back-room desk to do something important: Capture the culprits’ faces.

On an aging desktop computer, he pulled up security camera footage, pausing to zoom in and save a photo of each thief. He then logged in to a facial recognition program, Facewatch, which his store uses to identify shoplifters. The next time those people enter any shop within a few miles that uses Facewatch, store staff will receive an alert.

“It’s like having somebody with you saying, ‘That person you bagged last week just came back in,’” Mr. Mackenzie said.

Use of facial recognition technology by the police has been heavily scrutinized in recent years, but its application by private businesses has received less attention. Now, as the technology improves and its cost falls, the systems are reaching further into people’s lives. No longer just the purview of government agencies, facial recognition is increasingly being deployed to identify shoplifters, problematic customers and legal adversaries.

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British retailers are increasingly using AI facial recognition technology to combat shoplifting, raising questions about its spread as AI rapidly improves and falls in cost.https://t.co/8EH6oebJyp

— The New York Times (@nytimes) June 28, 2023

We all receive scam messages — and I cannot be alone in noticing that they are becoming more frequent. Last month, several UK banks gave warnings about a sharp increase in online fraud.

It disturbs me that anyone will go to such lengths to steal my money; but what has chilled me to the core is learning that the person on the other end of a scam call or message could be a victim of human trafficking — forced into involvement in fraud by the threats of beatings and electrocution.

My colleagues at International Justice Mission (IJM) in Cambodia were some of the first people to respond to this sinister new form of modern slavery, forced scamming. Human traffickers are luring people with false job offers online, paying their transport costs, and then trapping them in heavily guarded compounds in places such as Cambodia, Myanmar, and Laos.

Under the threat of extreme violence, the victims must scam people all around the world. Survivors whom we have helped have shown us bruises the size of watermelons caused by being beaten, and burns from electrocution — the result of not hitting their scamming targets.

Disturbingly, forced scamming is one of the most complex and fast-growing forms of modern slavery in the world.

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"It disturbs me that people go to such lengths to steal my money, " @IJMUK CEO @DavidWestlake, writes in the @ChurchTimes, "but what has chilled me to the core is learning that the person on the other end of a #scam could be a victim of #humantrafficking."https://t.co/bq0hY5SsDj

— International Justice Mission (IJM UK) (@IJMUK) June 30, 2023

Headline rates of inflation across most of the world’s economies have fallen back sharply since the autumn but core rates — which exclude volatile categories such as energy and food — remain at or close to multi-decade highs.

These rates, seen as a better gauge of underlying price pressures, have sparked concern that central banks will struggle to hit their targets without wiping out growth.

“The next leg of the improvement in the inflation numbers is going to be harder,” said Carl Riccadonna, chief US economist at BNP Paribas. “It requires more pain, and that pain likely involves a recession in the back half of the year.”

Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management, added: “The only way to get inflation down to 2 per cent is to crush demand and slow down the economy in a more substantial way.”

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“The next leg of the improvement in the inflation numbers is going to be harder. It requires more pain:” BNP's Riccadonna

Apollo's Torsten Slok: “The only way to get inflation down to 2% is to crush demand.”
https://t.co/8BVmtH9pdm

— Lisa Abramowicz (@lisaabramowicz1) June 23, 2023

A better way to think about the moral import of gambling, and by extension the ubiquity of online sports betting, is to consider what it reveals about the gambler. The Hebrew and Christian scriptures warn many times against the excessive desire for wealth. It is remarkable, for example, that the last of the 10 commandments forbids the inward, private act of coveting: that is, the desire for what rightfully belongs to someone else. Jesus asserted—similarly referring to an unseeable sin—that a man cannot serve both God and mammon. The apostle Paul called the love of money “the root of all kinds of evil.”

Most forms of gambling, it’s fair to say, manifest a desire for money so inordinate that one is willing to take stupid risks to get more of it. Heavily investing in a stock you haven’t researched, putting your savings in a Ponzi scheme, betting on the Chiefs or the Eagles with money you can’t afford to lose—these are follies of the human heart. Or, to use a plainer word, sins.

Of course, the Bible doesn’t forbid risky investments. Jesus himself encourages a certain kind of them. “The kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.”

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Sports betting is no longer taboo. Even the Manning boys say it’s OK. But is it wrong? asks Barton Swaim https://t.co/QHnmzXzURL

— Wall Street Journal Opinion (@WSJopinion) February 10, 2023

Economists will spend hours poring over US inflation data released on Tuesday. But their calculations mostly obscure the experience of American families trying to make ends meet.

In 1985, an American man working the typical full-time job could support a family of four on 40 weeks of income, and be able to afford a range of nutritious foods, a three-bedroom house, a comprehensive health insurance plan, a family car, even saving to put both kids through the state university. In 2022, paying for all that would require 62 weeks of his income, which is a problem, there being only 52 weeks in a year.

These figures come from the Cost-of-Thriving Index (Coti), which compares the rate at which wages are rising to the rate of cost increases for middle-class staples. They show starkly the effect on household budgets of a decades-long stretch in which housing prices, health insurance premiums, college tuition, and more skyrocketed much faster than wages.

Traditional measures of inflation miss this fact. When inflation-adjusted figures report that a 2022 earner could afford roughly what a 1985 earner could, that assumes the 2022 earner still wants to drive a 1985 car, live in a 1985 house, watch a 1985 television, and receive 1985 medical care — and that we would call that “middle class”. 

Think about healthcare, where economists (rightly) celebrate extraordinary but costly breakthroughs in medical technology while families (also rightly) notice that insurance premiums keep eating a larger share of their salary.

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US inflation data is out today and economists will be poring over it. But their calculations hide the real experience of ordinary Americans trying to make ends meet, says Oren Cass https://t.co/01hAdmzLAo

— FT Opinion (@ftopinion) February 14, 2023

State laws tend to allow the gambling industry to regulate itself, which means that these companies are expected to identify and exclude their steadiest customers. This has been as unsuccessful as one might expect; as much as 50 percent of revenue comes from “problem gamblers,” while one study showed that in 1998, only 4 percent of gambling revenue from video lottery games came from “responsible” gamers. Just as tobacco companies would go out of business if people used their products responsibly, gambling wouldn’t be a multibillion-dollar industry if it weren’t for addicts.

Marijuana has a more complicated legacy, especially because it has real (but rather modest) benefits for medicinal use. However, careful analyses show that marijuana legalization has contributed to a rise in opioid-related deaths, especially when dispensaries can legally sell all sorts of cannabis products. Permitting dispensaries also increases referrals for addiction treatment, which is unsurprising considering that higher-potency products are more dangerous. The best evidence we have suggests that marijuana is harmful to teenage brains as they develop and that more teenagers use marijuana when it is legalized in their state.

The industries that profit off addiction want to frame the question of access around “responsible use” and occasionally suggest that some people might have a genetic predisposition to addiction. This individualistic framing allows them to avoid talking about how much effort they’re putting into making their products as accessible as possible. Even more important, it elides the question of whether we are all better off when it’s easier to start an addiction and harder to escape one.

There’s a richer and more compelling vision, one that is drawn from philosophical traditions across the ages. It recognizes that our life together isn’t merely a series of contracts we negotiate, and that our ability to make good decisions isn’t based simply on our rationality. Virtue is not simply doing good deeds, but also a set of dispositions and habits that must be practiced in order to flourish. Just as people can be sucked into addictions, we can also work to develop the virtues inside us so that we can be kind, generous, and self-controlled throughout our lives.

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America Has Gone Too Far in Legalizing Vice https://t.co/b8WnbgFO49

— Matt Lewis (@mattklewis) February 13, 2023

Americans are more likely to predict negative rather than positive outcomes for five key aspects of the U.S. economy over the next six months. Higher inflation, unemployment and interest rates, as well as reduced economic growth and stock market values, are all expected.

A majority of U.S. adults (67%) expect inflation to rise, although more (79%) predicted that it would last year. At the same time, the public’s outlook for unemployment and the stock market have become more pessimistic and are now negative on balance. Expectations for economic growth and the stock market are the most pessimistic in Gallup’s periodic trend.

Gallup first asked Americans in October 2001 what they expected would happen with these five aspects of the economy and updated them monthly until 2006. Since then, Gallup has asked about them eight times, though not during the late 2007-early 2009 Great Recession. The latest results are from the Jan. 2-22 Mood of the Nation poll, which also found that Americans’ confidence in the economy remains low, mentions of inflation as the nation’s most important problem are still elevated and perceptions of the job market are positive but weakened compared with a year ago.

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Americans are more likely to predict worsening rather than improving conditions for five economic aspects, including inflation, unemployment, economic growth, the stock market and interest rates. https://t.co/xsV2WlFSyE

— GallupNews (@GallupNews) February 6, 2023

When Debbie Ricks lost her job as a server in March 2020, she decided to chase a long cast-aside ambition: She would try to become a photojournalist, and get away from her undertipping customers. Last year seemed to be the time for a professional leap.

She had unemployment checks coming in, $1,200 a month. She could supplement food stamps with the pasta and applesauce cans she found on the streets. Most important, every restaurant in Washington, D.C., seemed to be hiring; at any moment, she figured, she could line up a job. But this summer, as her savings dried up and the cost of food rose, she began to feel that many of those backup opportunities had evaporated.

“I do kind of feel like, ‘Oh, Debbie, you should’ve jumped on that,’” Ms. Ricks, 44, said. “But I wanted to get back into journalism, which is what I love.”

After months of a booming job market, which prompted workers to quit and raised wages across industries, the job openings rate declined in August. Layoffs rose slightly, to 1.5 million, though they were still below their historical average. With fears of a recession looming, workers who were flush with opportunities are beginning to feel the anxieties of tightened corporate budgets.

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The Job Market Has Been Like Musical Chairs. Will the Music Stop?: https://t.co/kXOMZjalDA

— Cameron Sebastian (@crsfinance) October 7, 2022

It is hard not to feel a sense of foreboding. As the Federal Reserve has tightened policy, asset prices have plunged. Stocks, as measured by the Wilshire 5000 all-cap index, have shed $12trn of market capitalisation since January. Another $7trn has been wiped off bonds, which have lost 14% of their value. Some $2trn of crypto market-cap has vanished over the past year. House prices adjust more slowly, but are falling. Mortgage rates have hit 7%, up from 3% last year. And this is all in America—one of the world’s strongest economies.

Rising rates will slow the American economy and should break the back of inflation. But what else will they break? Since the Federal Reserve raised rates again on September 22nd, global markets have been in turmoil. When the British government announced unfunded tax cuts a day later, fire-sales by pension funds caused the yield on government bonds (or “gilts”) to spiral out of control. Contagion then spread to the American Treasury market, which is as volatile and illiquid as it was at the start of covid-19. The cost to insure against the default of Credit Suisse, a global bank, has risen sharply. These ructions indicate the world is entering a new phase, in which financial markets no longer just reflect the pain of adjusting to the new economic context—pricing in higher rates and lower growth—but now also spread pain of their own.

The most catastrophic pain is felt when financial institutions fail. There are two ways they do so: illiquidity or insolvency. Tighter monetary policy is likely to prompt or reveal both.

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Rising rates will slow the American economy and should break the back of inflation. But what else will they break? https://t.co/9jMyduKXBk

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) October 5, 2022

The importance of the economy in the upcoming election is underscored by measures showing how poorly Americans rate economic conditions today. Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index is at one of its lowest points over the past 30 years (although not as low as in 2008). About eight in 10 Americans rate the economy as “only fair” or “poor,” and over two-thirds say the economy is getting worse, not better.

Americans’ low confidence in the economy persists despite the fact that about seven in 10 U.S. adults say it is a good time to find a quality job, among the highest such readings across Gallup’s history of asking this question.

That seeming contradiction — inflation and the economy as major concerns at a time when employment is recognized as being robust — highlights one of the difficulties in assessing what the public wants to be done about the economy. I will have more on that below.

Surveys show that Americans are personally feeling the negative effects of inflation, highlighting its potency as an issue this fall. My colleague Jeff Jones recently summarized Gallup data on the personal impact of inflation, noting that “a majority of Americans now say they are experiencing financial hardship from higher prices.” Jeff goes on to review a variety of actions the public is having to take in efforts to deal with the issue, including cutting back on spending and reducing travel.

An NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll conducted earlier this month similarly shows that twice as many Americans say their personal finances have gotten worse over the past year as say they have gotten better. And over seven in 10 report they “have had to cut back on, at least, one necessity or nicety in the past six months to meet their monthly expenses.”

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U.S. Public Opinion and the Election: the Economy https://t.co/UBcd3WJ34U

— Carlos Obrador Garrido (@carlobrador) September 23, 2022

The world can kiss goodbye to an economic soft landing. Western central banks are on a misguided mission to restore their damaged credibility, tightening monetary policy violently after the post-pandemic recovery has already wilted and output is nearing contractionary levels.

Britain’s fiscal blitz has the luck of timing. It is a counter-cyclical stimulus, cushioning some of the blow, even if it risks rattling bond vigilantes, and even if it is wasteful in subsidies for the affluent.

Critics say the energy bailout will cap inflation in the short run but stoke more inflation in the long run, to which one can only reply, like Keynes, that in the long run we are all dead. World events are going to wash over such quibbling with a torrential deflationary force.

The central banks are pushing through with triple-barrelled rate rises after the inflation fever has broken; after the commodity boom has deflated; and after key monetary indicators on both sides of the Atlantic have turned negative. They are prisoners of lagging indicators.

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✍️"Inflation will abate gradually of its own accord across the Atlantic world, without the need for a punishment beating by central banks with bad models. Boom-bust monetary policy is frankly a scandal," writes Ambrose Evans-Pritchard https://t.co/InfJuu0hpD

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) September 23, 2022

US consumers are standing firm in the face of hot inflation and rising interest rates — even if they’re spending with a little less gusto and a lot more frustration.

Retail sales excluding a price-induced drop in gas station receipts and a drop in motor vehicle purchases rose a better-than-expected 0.7% in July, Commerce Department data showed Wednesday. Building-materials outlets, electronics and appliances stores and online merchants were among those with firm gains in receipts before adjusting for inflation…..

“The most important takeaway is that consumer spending on goods is continuing to increase, even as the bulk of their energies have shifted to services,” said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Amherst Pierpont Securities.

With China’s economy slowing down, Europe likely heading into a recession amid skyrocketing energy prices, the resilience of the American consumer so far is all the more remarkable….

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US consumers are standing firm in the face of hot inflation and rising interest rates — even if they’re spending with a little less gusto and a lot more frustration https://t.co/APS1iHi80I via @markets

— Robert Burgess (@BobOnMarkets) August 17, 2022

Already frustrated and angry about high gasoline prices, many Americans are being hit by rapidly rising electricity bills, compounding inflation’s financial toll on people and businesses.

The national average residential electricity rate was up 8 percent in January from a year earlier, the biggest annual increase in more than a decade. The latest figures, from February, show an almost 4 percent annual rise, reaching the highest level for that month and approaching summer rates, which are generally the most expensive.

In Florida, Hawaii, Illinois and New York, rates are up about 15 percent, according to the Energy Department’s latest figures. Combined with a seasonal increase in the use of electricity as people turn on air-conditioners, the higher rates will leave many people paying a lot more for power this summer than they did last year.

The immediate reason for the jump in electric rates is that the war in Ukraine has driven up the already high cost of natural gas, which is burned to produce about 40 percent of America’s electricity. And supply chain chaos has made routine grid maintenance and upgrades more expensive.

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Already frustrated and angry about high gasoline prices, many Americans are being hit by rapidly rising electricity bills, compounding inflation’s financial toll on people and businesses. https://t.co/AsipYsBeKW

— Yasir Mahmood (@MofaYasir) May 3, 2022

….in rationalizing our gambling regime by making it ever more universal, we’re following the same misguided principle that we’ve followed in other cases. With pornography, for instance, where the difficulty of identifying a perfectly consistent rule that would allow the publication of “Lolita” but not Penthouse has led to a world where online porn doubles as sex education and it’s assumed that the internet will always be a sewer and we just have to live with it. Or now with marijuana, where the injustice and hypocrisy of the drug war made a good case for partial decriminalization, but stopping at decriminalization may be impossible when the consistent logic of commercialization beckons.

The reliability of this process doesn’t mean that it can never be questioned or reversed. Part of what we’re witnessing from #MeToo-era feminism, for instance, is a backlash against the ruthless logic of an unregulated sexual marketplace, and a quest for some organic form of social regulation, some new set of imperfect-but-still-useful scruples and taboos.

But it’s a lot easier to tear down an inconsistent but workable system than it is to build a new one up from scratch — and the impulse to rebuild usually becomes powerful only once you’ve reached the bottom of consistency’s long slope.

I’m not sure where we are with gambling’s cultural trajectory. But every time this playoff season served up another ad for Caesars Sportsbook, it felt like a sign that we’ve accelerated downward, with a long way yet to fall.

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The damage from a growing gambling industry "is likely to fall disproportionately on the psychologically vulnerable and economically marginal, the strong preying on the weak,” writes @DouthatNYT. https://t.co/yST3quRFMM

— New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) February 13, 2022

In early february Jim McIngvale, a businessman from Houston, crossed Texas’s border with Louisiana to place a $4.53m bet on his phone. In making America’s biggest-ever online bet, Mr McIngvale is pinning his hopes on the victory of the Cincinnati Bengals, the underdogs, in the Super Bowl on February 13th. He is the boldest among tens of millions of Americans who will place bets this weekend. His staggering wager reflects a broader trend: the market for legal betting is surging in America—along with attendant risks.

Since the Supreme Court struck down a law that banned sports gambling outside Nevada in 2018, 33 states as well as Washington, DC have legalised it. Seven more states have legislation in the works. The betting landscape is rapidly changing: 45m more Americans than last year can now legally bet on the 2022 Super Bowl in their home state. Many more, like Mr McIngvale, can travel to a neighbouring state to do so.

In less than four years, $97bn has been wagered in legal bets across America, yielding over $7bn in revenue for gambling operators and $923m in taxes. In October 2021 alone, Americans put down a record $7.5bn, 87% of it online. That was an eight-fold increase on the same month in 2018. Experts anticipate that the sports-betting market will keep growing. By 2028 it is expected to be worth $140bn.

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A new post in 'That Was The Week'
Sports betting in America is explodinghttps://t.co/fVYn1SeWj2

— Keith Teare (@kteare) February 10, 2022

American families are feeling the financial squeeze of soaring inflation and a persistent pandemic as fractious Democrats return to Washington this week no closer to a deal on a tax and spending bill party leaders hoped would by now provide relief.

Despite gangbusters growth at a 6.9% annual rate during the final quarter of 2021, other economic measures tell a very different story. Average wages are falling behind inflation and consumer sentiment plummeted in January to the lowest in more than a decade.

More Americans are having trouble paying their bills than at any time since last March, shortly before the Biden administration began distributing stimulus checks and other relief measures. Hunger is rising again.

It’s an ominous start to a midterm election year for Democrats struggling to hold on to razor-thin majorities in Congress. President Joe Biden began his term with ambitions to address long-festering economic inequalities and lift prospects for the poor and middle class but an intra-party rift has halted progress on his centerpiece tax and social spending plan.

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“We’re learning once again the pandemic is hitting families hard financially. It’s the people who have the least that continue to suffer the most.”
—@Claudia_Sahm, @JainFamilyInst https://t.co/ZbI6cLKsMO via @bpolitics @MikeDorning @elwasson

— Steve Matthews (@SteveMatthews12) January 31, 2022

When America’s Bureau of Labor Statistics released data this month showing that consumer price inflation had surged to 7 per cent, many investors were shocked. No wonder: this marks the fastest jump since 1982.

But here is another number that should spark concern: 17 per cent. That was the annual inflation rate for overall trucking costs last month, according to a (deeply buried) section of the bureau’s data. For the long-haul trucking sector, the number was even scarier: 25 per cent.

That is bad news for business — and consumers — given that almost three-quarters of freight in America is moved by trucks. Or to put it another way, if you want to understand what lies behind that scary 7 per cent inflation number, don’t just track raw material, energy or cross-border shipping costs; watch those oft-ignored truckers too.

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Gillian Tett: if you want to understand what lies behind that scary US 7 per cent inflation number, don’t just track raw material, energy or cross-border shipping costs; watch those oft-ignored truckers too https://t.co/pjoTTvixvr pic.twitter.com/NVm8tsQ0Lb

— FT Opinion (@ftopinion) January 21, 2022

The Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge of inflation climbed in August at the quickest pace in 30 years, data released on Friday showed, keeping policymakers on edge as evidence mounts that rapidly rising prices are poised to last longer than practically any of them had expected earlier this year.

The numbers come at a pivotal moment, as inflationary warning signals abound. Used car prices show signs of picking up again, costs for raw goods like cotton and crude oil are increasing and companies continue to experience pain from persistent supply chain disruptions.

That is stoking fears in Washington and on Wall Street that although rapid price gains will eventually fade, the adjustment could drag on for months. A longer burst of inflation raises the chances that consumers will change their expectations and behavior, paving the way for more permanent price increases.

It is a high-stakes juncture for policymakers. The Fed is preparing to withdraw some of its support for the economy soon, but it would prefer to do so only gradually, given the millions of Americans who remain out of work. The White House is trying to pass two big policy packages at the core of President Biden’s economic agenda, and Republicans have begun wielding every new inflation data point as an argument against more federal spending.

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The August rise in the Personal Consumption Expenditures index is stoking fears that although rapid price gains will eventually fade, the adjustment could drag on for months, @jeannasmialek writes. https://t.co/PmlzSdu1kN

— NYT Business (@nytimesbusiness) October 2, 2021