American’s Wealth at Fresh High
Americans’ wealth hit the highest level ever last year reflecting a surge in the value of stocks and homes. A record-setting rally of +30% in the U.S. stock market drove most of the past year’s gains.
According to a Federal Reserve report released today, the net worth of U.S. households and nonprofit organizations rose 14% last year.
The Fed’s report shows that Americans have made good progress on repairing the damage caused by the housing crash and the recession (Dec 2007 – Jun 2009). Americans have been reducing their debt loads and regaining equity in their homes.
Source: Wall Street Journal
“The Twelve Days of Christmas” Tab Costs $27,393
The collective cost of items featured in the “The Twelve Days of Christmas” rose 7.7% over last year, according to PNC Financial, to $27,393.
For 30 years PNC has compiled the Christmas Price Index. Since the index was first compiled in 1983, year-over-year inflation increases have averaged 2.9%.
For this year, the price to hire nine ladies dancing rose the most, 20%, while 10 lords a-leaping jumped 10%.
Here’s a breakdown of the cost of the twelve gifts:
- One partridge in a pear tree: $200
- Two turtledoves: $125
- Three French hens: $165
- Four calling birds: $600
- Five gold rings: $750
- Six geese: $210
- Seven swans: $7,000
- Eight milking maids: $58 (if they’re paid the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour)
- Nine ladies dancing: $7,553
- Ten leaping lords: $5,243
- Eleven pipers piping: $2,635
- Twelve drummers: $2,855
Note: The drummers, dancing ladies, leaping lords, piping pipers are rented, not bought.
Source: PNC
Women Choosing Lower-Paying Jobs
Three weeks ago we wrote about The Most and Least Lucrative College Majors. An interesting aspect on this topic is the propensity for women to select lower-paying jobs. NPR’s Lisa Chow covered the story recently (Why Women (Like Me) Choose Lower-Paying Jobs).
Women are overrepresented among majors that don’t pay very well (psychology, art, comparative literature), and underrepresented in lots of lucrative majors (most fields in engineering).
Household Income Levels Off After Hitting Two-Decade Low
The Census Bureau released the latest snapshot of how U.S. living standards are evolving. The Census report, viewed as a gauge of American prosperity, could mark a turning point for the recovery. Here’s some takeaways:
- The income of the typical U.S. family stabilized last year for the first time since the recession.
- The bottoming-out follows four years of declines that pushed incomes to their lowest levels in nearly two decades.
- Consumers may soon feel the benefits of an improving job market that has seen unemployment drop from a peak of 10% to 7.3% this August.
- A rally in stocks also has boosted incomes for some Americans, along with rebounding real-estate prices.
Health-care Inflation at Slowest Pace in 50 Years
CNBC Core Viewership Drops to 20-Year Low — Why that’s a good thing!
According to the latest Nielsen data, CNBC’s prime viewership (age 25-54 demographic) just tumbled to a fresh 20 year low of just 37,000, the lowest since March 1993. CNBC’s Fast Money (fell 32% vs previous year), Mad Money (fell 42% year-over-year) and Kudlow (fell 52% year-over-year) all had all time low ratings in the “all viewers” category in August 2013.
So why is this a good thing?
This is good news for individual investors and their advocates because it means less people are being negatively influenced by CNBC’s misinformation.
CNBC’s goal is not to make you money, but to sell advertising.They want you to live in fear and react to every little hiccup in the market so that you’re glued to their network in order to receive investment advice from their guests and anchors. But if you make just one move to improve your portfolio’s performance this year, it should be turning off CNBC. In fact, you should tune out most of the financial media.
If you’re invested for the long haul, it really doesn’t matter…
- If inflation is up two-tenths of a percentage point this year,
- Or if the Consumer Confidence Index dips 3%,
- Or if the Bull Bear Sentiment Indicator switches from bullish to bearish.
Your portfolio should be positioned to withstand good times and bad. You shouldn’t be jumping in and out of the market or sectors based on news, politics, the economy, or any other event.
Home Prices See Strong Gains in Q1 2013
Very positive news from the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices based on the latest data (through March 2013):
• All three composites posted double-digit annual increases.
• The 10-City and 20-City Composites increased by 10.3% and 10.9% in the year to March with the national composite rising by 10.2% in the last four quarters.
• All 20 cities posted positive year-over-year growth.
• In the first quarter of 2013, the national composite rose by 1.2%. On a monthly basis, the 10- and 20-City Composites both posted increases of 1.4%.
• Charlotte, Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle and Tampa were the five MSAs to record their largest month-over-month gains in over seven years.
College Graduates Fare Well in Jobs Market, Even Through Recession
A remarkably stark employment picture in the below New York Times graphic below – the recovery and early stages of the new Knowledge Economy has not been kind to non-college graduates at all.
The number of college-educated workers with jobs has risen by 9.1 percent since the beginning of the recession. Those with a high school diploma and no further education are practically a mirror image, with employment down 9 percent on net. For workers without even a high school diploma, employment levels have fallen 14.1 percent.
See related article:
College Graduates Fare Well in Jobs Market, Even Through Recession
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