The housing market is not immune from inflationary woes as buyer’s purchasing power has significantly diminished in four years. Home buyers in 2024 need 80% more income to purchase a home than they did in 2020, according to a new report by Zillow.
“The income needed to comfortably afford a home is up 80% since 2020, while median income has risen 23% in that time,” the report states. That equates to $47,000 more than four years ago.
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If you were the owner of a professional football team, and you had just finished in last place for the third year in a row, one would expect management to implement serious personnel changes before the following season—that is if the team actually cared about winning.
Maybe the team needs a new coach that the players respect and trust to make the right play calls. Maybe they need a quarterback that doesn’t lead the league in interceptions and can run outside the pocket. Maybe they need an offensive line that will actually protect the quarterback from hitting the deck on every third and long. Maybe they need a kicker who doesn’t choke under pressure. Or maybe they just need their star wide receiver to stay healthy.
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It is no mystery that the core demographics for the Democratic Party include single women, blacks and Hispanics. In 2020, Biden won unmarried women 63 percent to 36 percent over former President Donald Trump, blacks 87 percent to 12 percent and Latinos 65 percent to 32 percent, according to the CNN exit poll.
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New jobs data shows that a significant number of Americans saw their income shrink last month even as prices continue to rise.
Morning Consult released new economic data showing that the number of Americans reporting lost pay or income rose from 11 to 11.7% in July.
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As millions of families across the country grapple with the fact that the expanded child tax credit could lapse for months, if not permanently, those in few states stand to hurt more than those in West Virginia.
The monthly credit, amounting to as much as $300 per child, has been a lifeline to many across the state, which ranks 49th out of 50 in average income. The expansion, adopted in March as part of the coronavirus relief package, has especially helped those earning the lowest, many of whom were once partially or completely excluded from receiving it because their incomes were too low to qualify.
West Virginia had already struggled as coal mining declined and drug overdose deaths rose, but after being decimated by the coronavirus pandemic, economic recession that resulted and subsequent inflation as the state recovered, residents said that the expanded payments provided a sense of financial security when so much seemed uncertain.
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A prominent Democratic dark money group funneled nearly $6 million into bail funds in 2020, some of which have a history of helping allegedly violent criminals back onto the street, tax records show.
Among the bail funds that received funding from the Tides Center in 2020 include the Minnesota Freedom Fund, which helped post bail for a man accused of sexually assaulting an eight-year-old girl in July 2020, and the Massachusetts Bail Fund, which helped post bail for a woman accused of stuffing her newborn baby in a garbage can outside a Boston pizza shop in February 2021.
The Tides Center reported in its 2020 Form 990 that it provided a sum total of $5.97 million to 23 bail funds in 2020, a dramatic increase from the year prior when it reported donating just $216,000 to eight bail funds.
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A survey released Monday found that business experts expect prices and inflation to rise at elevated levels for years to come.
The National Association for Business Economics released the results of a survey of 48 economic experts who downgraded their growth predictions and projected elevated inflation through the second half of 2023, if not later.
“NABE Outlook survey panelists have ramped up their expectations for inflation significantly since September,” said NABE Vice President Julia Coronado, founder and president, MacroPolicy Perspectives LLC. “The core consumer price index, which excludes food and energy costs, is now expected to rise 6.0% from the fourth quarter of 2020 to the fourth quarter of 2021, compared to the September forecast of a 5.1% increase over the same period.”
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Democrats have argued that the tax reforms implemented through the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) only benefited the rich, and that the Build Back Better Act (BBBA) will help middle-and working-class Americans the most.
But several nonpartisan groups found that the TCJA reduced the tax burden for the middle- and working-class by up to 87% and, they argue, the $2.4 trillion BBBA – before the U.S. Senate this week – would increase taxes on the middle- and working-class by up to 40%.
A new analysis published by the Heartland Institute found that the TCJA reduced the average effective income tax rates for taxpayers in every income tax bracket – but the lower- and middle-class saw the greatest benefits – with the lowest-income filers receiving the largest tax cuts.
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Almost half of Americans said soaring prices created some form of financial hardship for their households, while 10% reported that they are experiencing “severe hardship,” according to a Gallup poll released Thursday.
As Americans enter a busy holiday season, 45% of consumers reported hardship at the hands of the recent surge in inflation, according to a Gallup poll. Roughly 35% of respondents reported “moderate” financial hardship in their homes and just 54% reported “no hardship” at all.
Lower-income households suffered the most, according to the pole, with over 70% of respondents earning less than $40,000 a year saying price hikes have negatively impacted their families.
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