6 thoughts on “Households under Debt Stress: Two Pictures”
Macroduck
Today’s jobs numbers show a 130,000 gain in January, almost entirely due to hiring in health care, social services and construction (think data centers), though more industries hired than fired in the month, including manufacturing. That’s quite a bit stronger job gain than ADP’s count. Here’s a comparison of private job changes, ADP and BLS:
The other big news is that job gains in the year through March 2025 were revised lower by 862,000. Revision to job gains in Q1 of last year bring the full-year job gain down to 181,000, the weakest since 2020. Prior to revisions, 2025 job gains were reported at 584,000.
The fed funds market took more note of January’s good headline number than to downward revisions, though the modal estimate for the year-end funds rate is unchanged at a 50 basis point reduction from the current range.
By the way, the population control adjustment normally carried out in January was delayed till February, so there may be more sizable revisions just around the corner.
• Real (inflation adjusted) income: Search Assist (Safari AI)
“Real income for many Americans has struggled to keep pace with inflation during Joe Biden’s presidency, leading to a decline in purchasing power despite nominal wage increases. While nominal wages rose, inflation outpaced these gains, resulting in a 1.5% decline in real wages from January 2021 to December 2024.”
Same old Brucey, spewing partisan nonsense instead of looking at the facts.
Brucey seems to have forgotten that the Fed has cut rates. Recently, both term premium and inflation premium have risen, adding to mortgage rates, while Fed rate cuts have worked to reduce mortgage rates:
If Brucey’s point is that Fed rate cuts, no matter how reckless, would lower mortgage rates, just remember what happened after Nixon dictated lower Fed rates. Our political culture’s insistence on Fed independence was largely a response to what Nixon wrought.
Funny how Brucey asked a bot about real incomes under Biden, but not under the Mad King. Funny also that Brucey didn’t pull the data instead of asking a bot. Here’s real personal income in the final year of Biden’s presidency vs the first year of the Mad King’s second term:
In January, 2025, real income was up 2.9% y/y. By November, 2025, just 1.5%. Seems pretty dishonest to ask a bot to say something bad about Biden while ignoring that real income growth has been cut nearly in half under the Mad King.
Brucey also cherry-picked research to find one study that said what he wanted. Here’s research which finds that supply-chain disruptions, easy monetary policy (which Brucey, in his hypocrisy, now favors) along with expansionary fiscal policy, drove inflation.
Here’s another, from BLS, which finds s tightening labor market accounted for much of the rise in core inflation in 2022 and 2023:
I guess Brucey doesn’t want to think about the splendid turnaround in hiring undee Biden.
Same old Brucey – no care for the truth, only for his political dogma. No wonder Brucey supports the Mad King.
Bruce Hall
Talk about cherry picking and partisan propaganda. You excel there. You simply can’t accept the facts about Biden’s “great” economy and how it has and will distort economic activity for years. Nothing like getting drunk on government spending and watching the bricks fall. I’ll take the Sloan-MIT analysis on the 2021-22 inflation causes over the Biden Administration propaganda.
Your juvenile tone says everything I need to know about you.
Donald Epstein
” the Joe Biden impact on prices” – amazing how Joe Biden’s policies caused inflation around the world.
Conwing
Main street isn’t doing well and we all see it. You can gaslight all you want. We all know it’s BS
Today’s jobs numbers show a 130,000 gain in January, almost entirely due to hiring in health care, social services and construction (think data centers), though more industries hired than fired in the month, including manufacturing. That’s quite a bit stronger job gain than ADP’s count. Here’s a comparison of private job changes, ADP and BLS:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1RC1f
The other big news is that job gains in the year through March 2025 were revised lower by 862,000. Revision to job gains in Q1 of last year bring the full-year job gain down to 181,000, the weakest since 2020. Prior to revisions, 2025 job gains were reported at 584,000.
The fed funds market took more note of January’s good headline number than to downward revisions, though the modal estimate for the year-end funds rate is unchanged at a 50 basis point reduction from the current range.
By the way, the population control adjustment normally carried out in January was delayed till February, so there may be more sizable revisions just around the corner.
We haven’t had deflation to counter the Joe Biden impact on prices, so moderate inflation seems intolerable.
https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/federal-spending-was-responsible-2022-spike-inflation-research-shows
• Real (inflation adjusted) income: Search Assist (Safari AI)
“Real income for many Americans has struggled to keep pace with inflation during Joe Biden’s presidency, leading to a decline in purchasing power despite nominal wage increases. While nominal wages rose, inflation outpaced these gains, resulting in a 1.5% decline in real wages from January 2021 to December 2024.”
Sure, some prices have declined: gasoline, some foodstuffs, but without the fed moving on interest rates to reflect the reality of lower inflation, the cost of mortgages and automobile financing remains prohibitively high for many.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MORTGAGE30US
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RIFLPBCIANM72NM (72-months minimum at today’s prices)
Speaking of housing costs and mortgages…
https://www.hud.gov/news/hud-no-25-146
Same old Brucey, spewing partisan nonsense instead of looking at the facts.
Brucey seems to have forgotten that the Fed has cut rates. Recently, both term premium and inflation premium have risen, adding to mortgage rates, while Fed rate cuts have worked to reduce mortgage rates:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1RGUg
If Brucey’s point is that Fed rate cuts, no matter how reckless, would lower mortgage rates, just remember what happened after Nixon dictated lower Fed rates. Our political culture’s insistence on Fed independence was largely a response to what Nixon wrought.
Funny how Brucey asked a bot about real incomes under Biden, but not under the Mad King. Funny also that Brucey didn’t pull the data instead of asking a bot. Here’s real personal income in the final year of Biden’s presidency vs the first year of the Mad King’s second term:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1RGVx
In January, 2025, real income was up 2.9% y/y. By November, 2025, just 1.5%. Seems pretty dishonest to ask a bot to say something bad about Biden while ignoring that real income growth has been cut nearly in half under the Mad King.
Brucey also cherry-picked research to find one study that said what he wanted. Here’s research which finds that supply-chain disruptions, easy monetary policy (which Brucey, in his hypocrisy, now favors) along with expansionary fiscal policy, drove inflation.
Here’s another, from BLS, which finds s tightening labor market accounted for much of the rise in core inflation in 2022 and 2023:
https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2023/beyond-bls/what-caused-inflation-to-spike-after-2020.htm
I guess Brucey doesn’t want to think about the splendid turnaround in hiring undee Biden.
Same old Brucey – no care for the truth, only for his political dogma. No wonder Brucey supports the Mad King.
Talk about cherry picking and partisan propaganda. You excel there. You simply can’t accept the facts about Biden’s “great” economy and how it has and will distort economic activity for years. Nothing like getting drunk on government spending and watching the bricks fall. I’ll take the Sloan-MIT analysis on the 2021-22 inflation causes over the Biden Administration propaganda.
Your juvenile tone says everything I need to know about you.
” the Joe Biden impact on prices” – amazing how Joe Biden’s policies caused inflation around the world.
Main street isn’t doing well and we all see it. You can gaslight all you want. We all know it’s BS