Fact Pack!
By Hightower Las Vegas and RCG Economics on January 26, 2024
The U.S. economy grew faster than expected in Q4 2023 — an annualized rate of 3.3 percent — per the preliminary estimate from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. CNBC graph:
The last quarter of 2023 also saw a further cooling of prices for personal consumption expenditure (PCE), the Fed’s go-to inflation gauge:
- The PCE price index increased at an annual rate of 1.7 percent, down from 2.6 percent in Q3.
- The core PCE index excluding food and energy increased 2.0 percent for the second consecutive quarter, hitting the Fed’s inflation target.
As of Q4 2023
Economic Feels
On average, only slightly more than a quarter (28 percent) of Americans rate economic conditions as excellent or good — but that’s still a 9-percentage point increase from last April. There is a not-small partisan split on the issue:
As of 1/21/24
(The Pew survey was conducted Jan. 16-21, 2024.)
What’s behind the numbers:
As of 1/21/24
Primary concerns:
As of 1/21/24
Nevada Jobs
Nevada’s seasonally adjusted “headline” (U-3) unemployment rate was 5.4 percent in December, unchanged from November, per the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation.
In Nevada’s counties, the lowest U-3 unemployment rate was in Eureka County at 3.2 percent, and Nye County had the highest rate at 6.9 percent.
Retail World
From assisting customers to ringing up sales to processing returns, retail workers have long been an important cog in the gears of the nation’s economy. According to data from the Census Bureau, retail salespersons represented the sixth largest occupation in the U.S. in 2022:
As of 2022
When retail cashiers and first-line supervisors are included, the number of retail workers is closer to 9.2 million (as of 2022) — but their share of the total U.S. workforce is on the decline, from 6.9 percent in 2010 to 5.6 percent in 2022:
As of 2022
The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that employment in retail sales occupations will decrease by 2 percent between 2022 and 2032, as some large retailers struggle and e-commerce shops, which require fewer humans to operate, continue to grow.
Small Business Startups
According to search data analyzed by The Small Business Blog, Nevada made the top five list of states with the highest ratio of residents looking to start a new business or add a side hustle to their earnings mix:
- Utah (365 per 100,000)
- Arizona (357)
- Colorado (351)
- New York (330)
- Nevada (318)
Per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there has been an 8.29 percent increase since 2021 of Americans having more than one job.
Renter Migration
Apartment List’s annual renter migration report is out, along with a nifty interactive page that enables you to view inbound and outbound migration for a number of metros.
The cities with the most renters looking to move to Las Vegas are L.A., Phoenix and Tucson:
Data shown is for 2023
California and New York continue to be the two states with the largest domestic migration outflows, not just in absolute terms but also as a percentage of their overall populations. In 2023, California lost 338,000 residents to other states, equating to 0.9 percent of the state’s population, while New York lost 278,000 residents, or 1.1 percent of its population.
Illinois also ranks among the top five for domestic out-migration in both absolute and percentage terms.
Florida and Texas gained the most population from domestic migration in absolute terms, with inflows of 194,000 and 187,000, respectively.
North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee round out the top 5 in terms of raw numbers, and South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee and Florida rank among the top 5 for percentage population growth.
As of 2023
Tech Layoffs
Visual Capitalist graphed some of 2024’s bigger tech layoffs in raw numbers along with the corresponding percentage of the workforce:
As of 1/23/24
Union Decline
According to an Associated Builders and Contractors analysis of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2023 Union Members Summary, a historic low of 10.7 percent of the construction industry belongs to a union, a decline from 11.7 percent in 2022.
BLS reports that 7.9 million construction workers were not members of a union in 2023. Construction unions lost 65,000 members in 2022, decreasing from 1.019 million members in 2022 to 954,000 members in 2023.
(It’s not a loss-of-workforce issue: The construction industry grew by 249,000 workers, from 8.671 million in 2022 to 8.920 million in 2023.)
As of 2023
Ad Spending
The U.S. advertising industry is the largest in the world. In 2023, companies are expected to spend close to $400 billion on ads in the country. Which industries spend the most? Statista has a graph for that:
As of 2023
Las Vegas Visitors
AI Counterpoint
A team of MIT researchers found that in some instances, replacing workers with AI is more expensive than sticking with humans. As detailed in a new paper, the cost-effectiveness of 1,000 “visual inspection” tasks across 800 occupations — such as an inspector ensuring that food has not gone bad — is such that just 23 percent of workers’ work/wages “would be attractive to automate”.
The driving reason? The “large upfront costs of AI systems” — IF the automatable tasks can even be separated from other tasks required by a job.
Fatal Crashes by County
An analysis of 2022 data from Las Vegas personal injury lawyers H&P Law on fatal car crashes per 10,000 licensed drivers has revealed that in Nevada, Pershing County was the most dangerous with 21.3 fatal crashes per 10,000 licensed drivers. Carson City was the safest with a rate of 3.1 deadly crashes per 10,000 drivers.
Lander County followed Pershing with an average of 14 fatal crashes per 10,000 people, and Churchill County rounded out the “top” three with a rate of 13.4 fatal accidents per 10,000 residents.
Well Being
The percentage of Americans who said they were “thriving” in 2023, on average, was 52.1 percent, per Gallup — just a tad higher than Great Recession readings in 2008-2009 (50.2 percent) which was similar to readings for the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic (50.1 percent).
The highest reading since 2008 (59.2) occurred in June 2021:
As of 2023
(Note: For its Life Evaluation Index, Gallup classifies Americans as “thriving,” “struggling” or “suffering” according to how they rate their current and future lives on a scale based on the Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale. Those who rate their current life a 7 or higher and their anticipated life in 5 years an 8 or higher are classified as thriving.)
2.5
The Daily Shot graphed the average size of an American household from 1800 to present day:
As of 10/30/23
On the Horizon
Mike PeQueen: Friday’s employment report will be of interest after last week’s surprisingly strong GDP report. If the Fed can pull off a soft landing, it will be the first time since Alan Greenspan ran the place.
This week’s MarketWatch calendar:
