We learned 5 important things about the economy this week

Filed 1w ago · Via NPR · The Buffoon Desk

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Parisian

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Jack de Nijs for Anefo · CC0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Consumer prices rose just 0.1% from June to July, with annual inflation at 3.4%, cooling for a second straight month after spring spikes tied to the U.S.-Iran conflict. Gas prices dipped slightly but remain up nearly 25% year-over-year, while grocery prices ticked down but beef keeps climbing. Wage growth has slowed to 3.2% annually, meaning pay is once again failing to keep pace with prices after a stretch when it briefly outran inflation.

Retail sales fell 0.6% in July, partly because June's Amazon Prime Day pulled forward online spending, though year-over-year spending on clothes, restaurants and gas stations all rose. Bank of America data shows lower-income shoppers increased spending in July while higher earners pulled back, a reversal of the long-running 'K-shaped economy' pattern. Congressional forecasters now expect this year's federal deficit to exceed $2 trillion, about $200 billion higher than projected six months ago, pushing cumulative federal debt toward $40 trillion with interest costs alone now topping $1 trillion annually.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

A deficit ballooning past $2 trillion while wages fail to outrun prices is not exactly the soft landing anyone was promised, but at least lettuce is cheaper, mostly because people are afraid to eat it. The economy, per official reports, is simultaneously cooling, resilient, and quietly setting fire to the credit card statement — a neat trick if you can avoid actually being the one holding the bill.

Source: Read the original at NPR → Scored: Parisian · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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