How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

Post by Kraken »

It also reflects the declining middle class. You have your paycheck-to-paycheck folks with little-to-no savings, and your supersavers, and not a whole lot in between. I would imagine it's still a bell curve, but probably a flatter bell than one would expect.

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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

Post by pr0ner »

There's also that class of people close to my age who feel like this is the time to spend money traveling the world. I wonder if they actually save any money, or if they just spend everything filling their passports.
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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

Post by RunningMn9 »

coopasonic wrote: Tue Apr 24, 2018 1:50 pm $6200 is median for the mid to upper 40s folks. Mean is $81k for the same group which is better, but not by much.
Sorry, I flipped median/mean there. But I was looking at the 38-43 bracket because it made me feel younger. :)

That group is $4200 / $67270, both numbers are ludicrous.
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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

Post by RunningMn9 »

pr0ner wrote: Tue Apr 24, 2018 3:46 pm There's also that class of people close to my age who feel like this is the time to spend money traveling the world. I wonder if they actually save any money, or if they just spend everything filling their passports.
See, I think there is *some* merit to that idea. Sacrificing 40 years of my adult life to make that last ? years fancy seems like a fools errand. Who knows if I'll even live to retirement?

But I still have what I feel is a lot of money saved for retirement. Out of fear I guess. But I don't have any desire to be the richest corpse on the block.

There's got to be a good balance I think.
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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

Post by Smoove_B »

RunningMn9 wrote: Tue Apr 24, 2018 5:08 pm See, I think there is *some* merit to that idea. Sacrificing 40 years of my adult life to make that last ? years fancy seems like a fools errand. Who knows if I'll even live to retirement?
Imagine graduating college and being $100K in the hole - and you're not a doctor. The idea of retirement would likely seem impossible, so you can't really blame a generation that's looking to enjoy whatever they can right here and now. I do fear they're going to get into their 50s though and have a scary realization that they've traded their future away on passport stamps.

I'm not wired that way; I am compelled to squirrel away money in a way that would confuse most and repeatedly confounds my local bank. As much as I'd like to be able to trade experiences for security, I just can't do it - and that's despite not having soul-crushing debt attached to my college degree.

Either way, I'm convinced once the robots take over, noting will matter any more.
Last edited by Smoove_B on Tue Apr 24, 2018 5:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

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I could save a lot more if I wasn't maxing my out of pocket on medical costs each year.
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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

Post by stessier »

Zarathud wrote: Tue Apr 24, 2018 5:28 pm I could save a lot more if I wasn't maxing my out of pocket on medical costs each year.
As I recall, if you stopped maxing, you'd also get rid of some of that dead weight in your life. Win/win!

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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

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April Unemployment - 3.9% (0.2%)

Table A-4 - >= Age 25 by education level
CategoryPercentChangeYOY Change
Less than a high school diploma5.80.70.6
High school graduates, no college4.10.60.3
Some college or associate degree3.30.40.2
Bachelor's degree and higher1.90.30.4

Table A-1 - Unemployment Rate Ages 16-19 - 11.7% (1.1, 1.7 YOY)

Table A-11 - Reasons for unemployment
Job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs1.7
Job leavers0.5
Reentrants1.1
New entrants0.3

Table A-12 - Unemployed persons by duration of unemployment
WeeksChangeYOY Change
Average Duration24.20.61.5
Median Duration11.91.73.1
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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

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May Unemployment - 3.8% (0.1%)

Table A-4 - >= Age 25 by education level
CategoryPercentChangeYOY Change
Less than a high school diploma4.61.20.9
High school graduates, no college3.60.50.8
Some college or associate degree3.00.30.8
Bachelor's degree and higher1.80.10.3

Table A-1 - Unemployment Rate Ages 16-19 - 12.9% (1.2, 1.4 YOY)

Table A-11 - Reasons for unemployment
Job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs1.5
Job leavers0.5
Reentrants1.2
New entrants0.3

Table A-12 - Unemployed persons by duration of unemployment
WeeksChangeYOY Change
Average Duration21.82.43.9
Median Duration9.92.01.4
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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

Post by Isgrimnur »

WaPo
This time, however, it’s not households using cheap debt to take cash out of their overvalued homes. Rather, it is giant corporations using cheap debt — and a one-time tax windfall — to take cash from their balance sheets and send it to shareholders in the form of increased dividends and, in particular, stock buybacks. As before, the cash-outs are helping to drive debt — corporate debt — to record levels. As before, they are adding a short-term sugar high to an already booming economy. And once again, they are diverting capital from productive long-term investment to further inflate a financial bubble — this one in corporate stocks and bonds — that, when it bursts, will send the economy into another recession.

Welcome to the Buyback Economy. Today’s economic boom is driven not by any great burst of innovation or growth in productivity. Rather, it is driven by another round of financial engineering that converts equity into debt. It sacrifices future growth for present consumption. And it redistributes even more of the nation’s wealth to corporate executives, wealthy investors and Wall Street financiers.
...
The most significant and troubling aspect of this buyback boom, however, is that despite record corporate profits and cash flow, at least a third of the shares are being repurchased with borrowed money, bringing the corporate debt to an all-time high, not only in an absolute sense but also in relation to profits, assets and the overall size of the economy.
...
In recent years, moreover, a greater part of corporate borrowing has come in the form of bank loans that are quickly packaged into securities known as CLOs, or collateralized loan obligations, which are sliced and diced and sold off to sophisticated investors just as home loans were during the mortgage bubble. Bloomberg News recently reported that pension funds and insurance companies, particularly those in Japan, can’t get enough of the CLOs because of the higher yields that they offer. Wells Fargo estimates that a record $150 billion will be issued this year, roughly double last year’s issuance. And as happened with the late-cycle home mortgages in 2007 and 2008, analysts are noticing a marked decline in the quality of loans in the CLO packages, with three-quarters of them now without the standard covenants designed to reduce the chance of default.

As a result of all this corporate borrowing, Daniel Arbess of Xerion Investments calculates that more than a third of the largest global companies now are highly leveraged — that is, they have at least $5 of debt for every $1 in earnings — which makes them vulnerable to any downturn in profits or increase in interest rates. And 1 in 5 companies have debt-service obligations that already exceed cash flow — “zombies,” in the felicitous argot of Wall Street.
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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

Post by gilraen »

Isgrimnur wrote: Thu Dec 07, 2017 11:37 am GE layoffs
General Electric plans to cut 12,000 jobs in its power division as the industrial conglomerate's new CEO institutes sweeping changes and the company grapples with a decline in business for coal and natural gas products.
General Electric is being dropped from the Dow Jones Industrial Average as of June 26th.
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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

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MarketWatch
Believe it or not, 1 in 3 Americans say their financial stability is dependent on inheritance. That’s according to a survey released last week by Merrill Edge, an online discount brokerage service provided by Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Some 36% of Generation X-ers, 32% of millennials and 20% of baby boomers say they’re relying on their family fortunes. It’s hard to read that without feeling something, somewhere in America has gone horribly wrong.
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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

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Isgrimnur wrote: Mon Jun 25, 2018 3:34 pm MarketWatch
Believe it or not, 1 in 3 Americans say their financial stability is dependent on inheritance. That’s according to a survey released last week by Merrill Edge, an online discount brokerage service provided by Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Some 36% of Generation X-ers, 32% of millennials and 20% of baby boomers say they’re relying on their family fortunes. It’s hard to read that without feeling something, somewhere in America has gone horribly wrong.
But we already knew that something, somewhere has gone horribly wrong, don’t we? I’m frankly shocked that more people aren’t curled in the fetal position, gibbering in terror every day over how easily everything could go from somewhat decent to completely fucked.
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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

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MHS wrote: Mon Jun 25, 2018 3:43 pm
Isgrimnur wrote: Mon Jun 25, 2018 3:34 pm MarketWatch
Believe it or not, 1 in 3 Americans say their financial stability is dependent on inheritance. That’s according to a survey released last week by Merrill Edge, an online discount brokerage service provided by Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Some 36% of Generation X-ers, 32% of millennials and 20% of baby boomers say they’re relying on their family fortunes. It’s hard to read that without feeling something, somewhere in America has gone horribly wrong.
But we already knew that something, somewhere has gone horribly wrong, don’t we? I’m frankly shocked that more people aren’t curled in the fetal position, gibbering in terror every day over how easily everything could go from somewhat decent to completely fucked.
You assume we're not?
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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

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Skinypupy wrote: Mon Jun 25, 2018 3:53 pm
MHS wrote: Mon Jun 25, 2018 3:43 pm
Isgrimnur wrote: Mon Jun 25, 2018 3:34 pm MarketWatch
Believe it or not, 1 in 3 Americans say their financial stability is dependent on inheritance. That’s according to a survey released last week by Merrill Edge, an online discount brokerage service provided by Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Some 36% of Generation X-ers, 32% of millennials and 20% of baby boomers say they’re relying on their family fortunes. It’s hard to read that without feeling something, somewhere in America has gone horribly wrong.
But we already knew that something, somewhere has gone horribly wrong, don’t we? I’m frankly shocked that more people aren’t curled in the fetal position, gibbering in terror every day over how easily everything could go from somewhat decent to completely fucked.
You assume we're not?
Everyone types very well for fetal position gibberers, then. 😀
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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

Post by LordMortis »

Are you saying I now have an excuse for my typing?

Also I don't want my parents money and I'm doing everything I can to make sure I am in a position to be happy they spend it all before they die. I can't say the same for my siblings. The expense of having children is amazing to me. I don't know how anyone does it.

It's been my "feeling" for a long time that the dividing lines between the haves and have not's is essentially being a trust fund baby. You work for every inch in life or you don't. And it also "feels" like the trust fund baby percentage is going down and not up. Like less people are able to give their children "the college experience" or their first car new or used or set them on the way with help for their first mortgage or of course... a trust fund to pull from. And I don't know how people do it without that hand. I do it because I'm paid well and have dependents and while I'm saving to retire before 60 if it all possible, I still type from the fetal position and live a life of simple means so I can meet that goal.
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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

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Jobs report: wages flat, unemployment up from 3.8 to 4.0 but mostly due to increase in people returning to the job market.
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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

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They should probably pull this off the DOL front page slideshow, then.

Image
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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

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June Unemployment - 4.0% (0.2%)

Table A-4 - >= Age 25 by education level
CategoryPercentChangeYOY Change
Less than a high school diploma4.80.21.0
High school graduates, no college3.90.30.4
Some college or associate degree3.20.20.5
Bachelor's degree and higher2.40.60.0

Table A-1 - Unemployment Rate Ages 16-19 - 14.9% (2.0, 1.1 YOY)

Table A-11 - Reasons for unemployment
Job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs1.9
Job leavers0.5
Reentrants1.3
New entrants0.5

Table A-12 - Unemployed persons by duration of unemployment
WeeksChangeYOY Change
Average Duration19.42.43.5
Median Duration6.63.31.0
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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

Post by LawBeefaroni »

Isgrimnur wrote: Fri Jul 06, 2018 9:06 am They should probably pull this off the DOL front page slideshow, then.

Image
They had to wait for Trump to leak it to friends and family.
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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

Post by Isgrimnur »

WaPo
Prices rose at their highest clip since 2012 over the past year, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

The 2.9 percent inflation for the twelve-month period ending in June is a sign of a growing economy, but it’s also a painful development for workers, whose tepid wage gains have failed to keep pace with the rising prices.

The cost of food, shelter and gas have all risen significantly in the past year. Gas skyrocketed more than 24 percent, rent for a primary residence jumped 3.6 percent and meals at restaurants and cafeterias rose 2.8 percent.

Prices have risen roughly at the same rate as wages, erasing any gains workers may have hoped to realize via bigger paychecks.
...
For workers, more pain may be coming, as economists are concerned that prices could rise further due to President Trumps tariffs on many foreign imports. Trump put a 20 tariff on foreign washing machines earlier this year, and the inflation report Thursday showed more than a 13 percent spike in laundry equipment over the same period last year.
...
Wage growth has been lackluster since the Great Recession. Recently, unemployment fell to one of the lowest levels since 1969 and business leaders keep complaining they can’t find enough workers. Typically, companies raise wages sharply in this kind of environment, but average hourly earnings are still stuck below 3 percent, a low level historically.
...
Rising inflation puts the Fed in a difficult position. After years of low inflation, the Fed wants to see prices rises a bit more because it’s a sign of a healthy economy, but the Fed doesn’t want to see the economy overheat, which typically happens when inflation jumps too quickly.
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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

Post by malchior »

Freight infrastructure shortages are almost entirely behind the inflation jump with some energy price input. We are bumping up against a capacity limit at this point which is interesting because the solutions are not short-term. It is a shame that we've been neglecting infrastructure investment for years...
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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

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I can provide anecdotal evidence of a trucking shortage. We are routinely 5 days behind on shipments because we can't get enough trucks.
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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

Post by Grifman »

Hasn't the "recent economic turmoil" been over for several years now? I guess this thread will just continue through the next recession, recovery, boom, into infinity :)
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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

Post by Isgrimnur »

Flat wage growth, no strong economic growth, lack of consumer confidence, etc. These are not boom years. Couple that with a complete lack of stock market growth this year and worries about global economic instability.
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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

Post by Zarathud »

Wait for the lawsuits over the Trump tariffs.
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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

Post by Isgrimnur »

July Unemployment - 3.9% (0.1%)

Table A-4 - >= Age 25 by education level
CategoryPercentChangeYOY Change
Less than a high school diploma4.70.12.1
High school graduates, no college4.00.10.5
Some college or associate degree3.30.10.6
Bachelor's degree and higher2.50.10.1

Table A-1 - Unemployment Rate Ages 16-19 - 13.4% (1.5, 0.3 YOY)

Table A-11 - Reasons for unemployment
Job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs1.9
Job leavers0.5
Reentrants1.2
New entrants0.5

Table A-12 - Unemployed persons by duration of unemployment
WeeksChangeYOY Change
Average Duration22.02.61.6
Median Duration8.82.20.3
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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

Post by noxiousdog »

Grifman wrote: Fri Jul 13, 2018 3:02 pm Hasn't the "recent economic turmoil" been over for several years now? I guess this thread will just continue through the next recession, recovery, boom, into infinity :)
Of course it will. And every time it will be The Worst Recession Evar With No Possible Way Out.
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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

Post by Kraken »

noxiousdog wrote: Mon Aug 06, 2018 3:44 pm
Grifman wrote: Fri Jul 13, 2018 3:02 pm Hasn't the "recent economic turmoil" been over for several years now? I guess this thread will just continue through the next recession, recovery, boom, into infinity :)
Of course it will. And every time it will be The Worst Recession Evar With No Possible Way Out.
Financial panics like the Time of Shedding and Cold Rocks are usually deeper and longer-lasting than garden-variety business-cycle recessions because they break the capitalists as much as the hoi polloi. Recoveries from them are correspondingly longer and stronger.

That said, the usual ways out of the next one -- deficit spending and interest-rate cuts -- are going to be harder to implement due to already high deficits and still-low (albeit rising) rates. We had better hope that it's a routine downturn rather than another big bursting bubble. Coming on the heels of a record expansion, there's potentially farther to fall.

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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

Post by Kraken »

Excellent (and very big) package about the impact of the recent economic turmoil from NY Mag. Lots of diverse viewpoints (I will bet dollars to donuts that Steve Bannon and Barney Frank have never appeared under the same cover before).
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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

Post by Isgrimnur »

WaPo
Inflation is back. What do we do about it? For starters: Don’t ignore it.

The latest consumer price index (CPI) — the government’s best-known inflation indicator — reported a 2.9 percent increase from July 2017. The last time the year-over-year gain was higher was in December 2011. Though hardly a cause for panic, it suggests intensifying price and wage pressures in an economy straining at its productive capacity. The Trump administration and its critics should be watching closely.

Consider. Rents rose 3.6 percent from a year earlier; hospital prices increased 4.6 percent, gasoline 25 percent and eating out 2.8 percent. Still, some price increases were small or nonexistent, offsetting some gains. New vehicle prices edged up a mere 0.2 percent, electricity was down 0.8 percent and airline fares dropped 4.1 percent.

The reason for paying attention to inflation is that, once it accelerates, it’s hard to stop. That’s what happened in the 1960s and 1970s. The quest to reduce unemployment led to easy money that spawned double-digit inflation. CPI inflation went from about 1 percent in 1960 to 6 percent in 1969 to 13 percent in 1979. It was crushed only in the early 1980s when the Federal Reserve raised interest rates sharply.
...
Since late 2015, the Fed has been gradually raising interest rates in hope of heading off future inflation increases. This focus is surely justified. But it’s not clear whether the Fed’s moves amount to too little too late, or too much too soon. The Fed’s forecasting record is at best spotty. If we get this wrong, it could kill the economy.
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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

Post by Isgrimnur »

The decline of the $5 footlong:
Subway franchisees will no longer be required to sell the $5 footlong after a franchisee revolt broke out earlier in the year.

When the sandwich chain announced in December that it would be bringing back a new take on the deal, charging $4.99 rather than $5 for a footlong sandwich, it was met with mixed reactions. At the time, 400 angry franchisees signed a petition in protest, saying that the company's strategy for discounting was eating into already-slim profit margins.

"The national promotional focus over the past five years … has decimated [us] and left many franchisees unprofitable and even insolvent," petitioners, led by Virginia franchisee Mitesh Raval, wrote in a letter to Subway in December, The New York Post reported.
...
Now, management is backing down. The company's new CEO, Trevor Haynes, told USA Today on Monday that franchisees will no longer be required to offer the deal. Franchisees can still offer the deal at their stores if they want.
...
The chain has struggled in recent years. Its US store count dropped by more than 900 in 2017, which was almost three times as many locations as closed the year before.

Sales declined at Subway stores across the US last year, people with knowledge of the situation told Business Insider's Kate Taylor. Its former CEO, Suzanne Greco, announced she would be retiring after 45 years at the company in May.
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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

Post by malchior »

Sounds like their business model is fuct. Sales definitely won't increase if you increase prices. And they can't stay solvent at $5 a sandwich...so...good luck.
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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

Post by GreenGoo »

malchior wrote: Mon Sep 10, 2018 12:58 pm Sounds like their business model is fuct. Sales definitely won't increase if you increase prices. And they can't stay solvent at $5 a sandwich...so...good luck.
That's what the pesky little supply/demand chart is for.

Presumably demand is down and probably has nothing to do with the 5 dollar price point

When I brought up Subway here on OO there were a number of haters who either couldn't stand it or they found better options in their local market.
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Exodor
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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

Post by Exodor »

I think Subway could use to reduce the number of franchisees - even now there are 3 within a ~5 mile radius of us.
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Scuzz
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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

Post by Scuzz »

Well, my business is now closed, the building is about as clean as I can get it and I am waiting to put it up for sale. I will be doing what little work needs to be done from home now.

I was happy to find out the realtor we talked to thinks our building and property are worth more than I thought, but I hope that doesn't make my brothers hold out for that amount. I would just as soon sell it and move on.

On the good side, the state has deemed me eligible for unemployment. So there is about $1,400 a month that doesn't have to come out of my IRA.
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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

Post by Isgrimnur »

WaPo
Middle-class income rose to a record level in 2017 as the strong economy lifted the fortunes of more Americans, the U.S. Census reported Wednesday.

The median U.S. household earned $61,372 last year, meaning half of the families in the country brought in more income than this and half earned less.

Middle-class household income has been rising steadily in recent years as the economy has rebounded from the deep recession and millions of Americans have found jobs again. The extra pay from having another person in the home working is the largest factor contributing to the increase in income.

The Census also reported that the U.S. poverty rate declined modestly to 12.3 percent, the lowest level in years and a sign the economic devastation from the Great Recession is subsiding.

Economists have been worried about why wage growth has been so sluggish lately, but Americans appear to be compensating for that by working longer hours or having another family member find employment. Job openings hit a record high in July, the Labor Department reported this week, and there are now more jobs available than unemployed workers.
It's almost as if people are the problem.
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GreenGoo
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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

Post by GreenGoo »

Tariffs ftw!
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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

Post by Isgrimnur »

September Unemployment - 3.7% (0.2%)

Table A-4 - >= Age 25 by education level
CategoryPercentChangeYOY Change
Less than a high school diploma4.90.11.0
High school graduates, no college3.50.40.6
Some college or associate degree3.10.60.4
Bachelor's degree and higher2.00.30.2

Table A-1 - Unemployment Rate Ages 16-19 - 12.3% (0.0., 0.5 YOY)

Table A-11 - Reasons for unemployment
Job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs1.5
Job leavers0.5
Reentrants1.2
New entrants0.3

Table A-12 - Unemployed persons by duration of unemployment
WeeksChangeYOY Change
Average Duration24.72.52.2
Median Duration9.40.40.9
It's almost as if people are the problem.
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Re: How has the recent economic turmoil affected you?

Post by LawBeefaroni »

Isgrimnur wrote: Wed Sep 12, 2018 10:44 am WaPo
Job openings hit a record high in July, the Labor Department reported this week, and there are now more jobs available than unemployed workers.
Gig economy, baby.
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