Thirty years ago, Americans with a college degree accounted for roughly 20% of the population and held the same percentage of household wealth as those without a degree. Today, Americans with a college degree account for 38% of the population and 73% of household wealth.
The Labor Department on Wednesday reported that consumer prices in October rose 2.6% from a year earlier. That marks a pickup in the pace of inflation from September, when the consumer-price index was up 2.4% on the year. Core prices, which exclude food and energy items in an effort to better reflect inflation’s underlying trend, were up 3.3% from a year earlier.
After showing remarkable strength and resilience since the pandemic, the job market has started to cool off significantly. The unemployment rate has risen to 4.1% from 3.6% in June 2023, and the number of job openings continues to trend downward.
Roughly a third of people who financed their vehicles have negative equity on their auto loans which means their loan is larger than the value of their car. That share would amount to some 31 million of the more than 100 million auto-loan accounts.
U.S. Consumer confidence is declining as the election nears. The survey showed a continuing frustration with high prices.
Goldman Sachs this month sold $475 million of public asset-backed securitization, or ABS, bonds backed by loans the bank makes to fund managers that tide them over until cash from investors comes in. The first-of-its-kind deal is a lucrative byproduct of the New York bank’s push into loans to investment firms, such as these so-called capital-call lines.
Some 64% of job-switchers got a raise, but only 44% maintained or increased their 401(k) savings rate.
