Sep 20, 2023
Executive Summary
U.S. Economic and Regulatory Highlights
- August unemployment increased to 3.8% from 3.5% in July and is the highest since February 2022. (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics)
- Low unemployment continued to drive wages up with August wages reaching $29 per hour. (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics)
- The U.S. economy added 187K jobs in August, up from 157K in July. (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics)
- The second estimate of Q2 GDP was 2.1%, adjusted down from the original 2.4% but still higher than the Q1 level of 2.0%. (Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis)
- August Consumer sentiment was 69.5, down from 71.6 in July but 19.4% higher than a year ago. (Source: University of Michigan)
- Small Business optimism was 91.9 in July, up 0.9 from June and the highest level since Nov 2022. However, July was the 19th consecutive month below the survey’s 49-year average of 98. (Source: NFIB)
- In the week ending August 26, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial unemployment claims was 228K, 4K lower than the previous week. The 4-week moving average was 237.5K, a slight increase from the prior week and 13% higher than a year ago. (Source: U.S. Department of Labor)
- The average 30-year mortgage rate declined slightly to 7.18%, after the previous week’s 7.23% which had been the highest level since June 2001. (Source: FreddieMac)
- There were 4.07MM existing home sales in the U.S. in July on a seasonally adjusted annualized basis. That is down 2.2% from June and 16.6% lower than a year ago. (Source: National Association of Realtors)
- Diesel fuel prices are down significantly from a year ago but have been increasing over the past month. Regular unleaded fuel prices have leveled off around $3.80 per gallon. (Source: AAA)
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