"Renters need to make $46,500 a year to comfortably afford the average two-bedroom apartment in San Antonio""Rents in San Antonio average $1,085 per month, or $13,020 a year, according to SmartAsset, which calculated how much someone would need to earn in each city to spend only 28 percent of their income on rent.In New York as well, residents would need to make 3 ½ times the salary required to live in San Antonio, Smart-Asset found. To afford the $3,789 a month rent in New York requires an annual salary of $162,386.San Antonio’s average cost of $1,085 for a two-bedroom unit is among the lowest of the Texas cities ranked.It’s below the monthly average of $1,324 in Dallas, $1,431 in Austin, $1,205 in Houston and $1,124 in Fort Worth."
"The studies suggest prices might climb faster, but not too much, if unemployment falls a bit more. And inflation might become worrisome if joblessness falls a lot more."Related posts:
"In one scenario, inflation accelerates once unemployment falls to very low levels, requiring more-aggressive rate increases to keep price pressures in check.
In the other, a period of sustained low unemployment draws more workers into the labor force while inflation pressures stay under control."
"Fed officials want to raise rates enough to prevent the rapidly expanding economy from overheating, but not so much that they choke off healthy growth prematurely."
"Excluding volatile food and energy categories, inflation rose 2% in May from one year earlier."
"Fed researchers recently examined the possibilities of the two inflation scenarios.
One study analyzed data for U.S. metropolitan areas to see what happens to inflation when unemployment is very low.
Economists have long held that inflation rises as unemployment falls, and vice versa. But the relationship, called the Phillips curve, has appeared very weak in recent decades. Inflation has remained tame even as the jobless rate fell to 4% in June from 10% in 2009. The Fed economists found, however, that inflation picked up more quickly once the jobless rate fell below 3.75%."
"In the late 1960s, the last time unemployment fell below 4% for a sustained period, inflation steadily accelerated. By the 1970s, if inflation rose one year, consumers expected it to rise at least as much the following year—and it did. Fed officials believe expectations of future inflation can be self-fulfilling as workers demand pay increases and businesses raise prices in anticipation.
Separate Fed research published in 2016 used data from the 1960s to measure the level at which inflation pressures begin to harm the economy. The researchers concluded this happens when core consumer prices rise by 3% on a sustained basis, according to the Fed’s preferred gauge.
Economists say that inflation accelerates when unemployment falls below a so-called natural level, which Fed officials estimate at 4.1% to 4.7%.
The “point at which you can get a large inflation overshoot” approaching 3% is when the jobless rate falls 1.5 percentage points below the natural level"
"Fed officials are also eager to know how much workers might benefit when unemployment is very low. The policy makers wonder whether people at the margins of the labor market might more easily find jobs, gain skills and become more productive—permanently improving their chances of employment. This would lower the natural unemployment rate and reduce the prospect of the economy overheating."
"“It’s difficult to forecast the economy and these concepts that we have,” Mr. Powell said in a radio interview in July. “It’s not like the fact that water boils at 212 degrees. The economy doesn’t boil at 4% unemployment.”"
"It is difficult for us to reconstruct the violent tenor of much of feudal life, but one investigator has provided a statistic that may serve to make the point: Among the sons of English dukes, 46 percent of those born between 1330 and 1479 died violent deaths. Their life expectancy when violent death was excluded was 31 years; when violent death was included, it was but 24 years."That came from T. H. Hollingsworth, “A Demographic Study of the British Ducal Families,” Population Studies, XI (1957–58). Imagine if someone told you that 46% of the sons of senators or Fortune 500 CEOs were going to die violently over the next 150 years.
"Writing in the journal American Antiquity, Washington State University archaeologist Tim Kohler and colleagues document how nearly 90 percent of human remains from that period had trauma from blows to either their heads or parts of their arms.
"If we're identifying that much trauma, many were dying a violent death," said Kohler. The study also offers new clues to the mysterious depopulation of the northern Southwest, from a population of about 40,000 people in the mid-1200s to 0 in 30 years."
"It wasn't just violent deaths that poke holes in the harmony with the land and each other myth. A paper in June in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that the Southwest also had a baby boom between 500 and 1300 that likely exceeded any population spurt on earth today. The northern Rio Grande also experienced population booms but the central Mesa Verde got more violent while the northern Rio Grande was less so.
Kohler has conjectures on why. Social structures among people in the northern Rio Grande changed so that they identified less with their kin and more with the larger pueblo and specific organizations that span many pueblos, such as medicine societies. The Rio Grande also had more commercial exchanges where craft specialists provided people both in the pueblo, and outsiders, specific things they needed, such as obsidian arrow points.
But in the central Mesa Verde, there was less specialization.
"When you don't have specialization in societies, there's a sense in which everybody is a competitor because everybody is doing the same thing," said Kohler. But with specialization, people are more dependent on each other and more reluctant to do harm."
"The U.S. economy grew at the strongest pace in nearly four years during the second quarter, powered by a rebound in consumer spending, strong exports and firm business investment.
Gross domestic product—the value of all goods and services produced across the economy—rose at a seasonally and inflation-adjusted annual rate of 4.1% from April through June, the Commerce Department said Friday. That was a pickup from the first quarter’s revised growth rate of 2.2%.
The bounce back in consumer spending “was more powerful than anticipated and speaks to the impact of an increasingly tight labor market and strong job growth on consumer income and households’ confidence,” Brian Coulton, chief economist at Fitch Ratings, said in a note to clients, adding the “numbers really bring the possibility of 3% growth for 2018 as a whole into the frame.” Compared with the second quarter a year ago, output grew 2.8%.
President Donald Trump said Friday that the U.S. economy is growing at a “very sustainable” pace and predicted that it will expand at least 3% for the year.
The president touted his own track record since taking office, saying that the economy is growing at a pace 10 times faster than during the presidencies of George W. Bush or Barack Obama.
Actually, the U.S. economy grew faster than a 4.1% annual rate in four quarters of Mr. Obama’s presidency and four quarters of Mr. Bush’s. In the second quarter of 2014, GDP rose at an annual rate of 5.1%—the peak quarterly growth rate of the current expansion so far.
Messrs. Bush and Obama were in office for eight years each, and the economy experienced both expansions and recessions during their tenures."
"In the sliver of room between a new pair of shoes and the books you ordered online, retailers have found a different way to monetize the empty space in your packages.
Saks Fifth Avenue, Zulily and Barnes & Noble College are among several businesses that have joined a new marketplace allowing advertisers to buy and insert paper ads in customers’ boxes. More than 25 retailers have listed slots for sale in their packages in the weeks since the website, called UnDigital, went live.
The rise of online shopping has taken a toll on retailers as shipping costs and investments in e-commerce capabilities have cut into profits. Retail margins on average fell to 8% last year from 10.2% in 2012, according to consulting firm AlixPartners. Over that period, e-commerce sales expanded to 17.6% of total sales from 10.5%.
Retailers hope they have a remedy: Wring more money out of the space inside the box.
For years, companies have been adding product samples or targeted coupons in their packages in hopes of encouraging shoppers to place another order at their stores. Some retailers brokered occasional deals with existing vendors or advertisers. With UnDigital, retailers are offering their packages to a broader range of potential advertisers.
On the UnDigital platform, retailers post monthly listings with a number of packages and the maximum number of inserts per package. Advertisers can specify the number of packages in which they want inserts at a price set by the retailer. The average price per insert is between 10 and 12 cents, and the average number of inserts per box is two to three."
"Though the cost of an insert ad is much higher than a digital ad, an insert can be a more efficient way to reach a shopper, said Ian Yung, senior director of business development at Touch of Modern. “It’s rare that someone will order something online and not open the package.”
Some shoppers say they open packages but don’t bother looking at the inserts."
"But Bureau of Labor Statistics data show only a small minority of Americans work multiple jobs. That percentage has been around 5% of working Americans since 2010, though it was higher before then. Last month 7.6 million, or 4.9%, of the 155.5 million working Americans had multiple jobs.
Are people working “60, 70, 80 hours a week”? Rarely. But for a brief dip during the recession, private-sector employees have worked an average of 34.2 to 34.6 hours a week since BLS began tracking the data in 2006. The average stood at 34.5 hours in June.
BLS considers 35 hours a week “full time,” so working 70 or 80 hours would be equivalent to two full-time jobs. Only 360,000 people worked two full time jobs in June—0.2% of the workforce. There may well be people working 60 hours a week or more on one job—but if that were common, the overall average for hours worked would be well above 34.5."
"In June, wages increased 3.8% year over year for retail-sector employees. It was their highest percentage increase since 2001 using June as the base year. Wages in the hospitality-and-leisure sector, including restaurants, rose 3.3% year over year—on top of a 4.3% increase in 2017. In a fast-growing economy, the demand for labor increases, and more employers have to pay above the applicable minimum wages to get employees."
