Fact Pack! Flying Cars!

By Hightower Las Vegas and RCG Economics on March 8, 2024

Orders are stacking up for flying cars. More on that later.

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 275,000 in February, exceeding expectations, but the jobless rate rose to 3.9 percent, per the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Wages rose just 0.1 percent on the month, one-tenth of a percentage point below the estimate and were up 4.3 percent from a year ago.

Health care led the jobs report with 67,000 new positions.

Government again was a big contributor, with 52,000.

Restaurants and bars added 42,000.

Job openings were essentially unchanged in January at nearly 9 million. However, as last week’s Wells Fargo economic indicator report noted: “Continued declines in temporary help workers, a rise in permanent job losers and a shift toward part-time work signal weakening demand for workers ahead.”

2023 Unemployment Data

According to final 2023 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, annual average “headline” (U-6) unemployment rates decreased in six states, increased in two states, and were little changed in 42 states and the District of Columbia when compared to 2022. Highlights for the year:

North Dakota had the lowest jobless rate in 2023 among the states (1.9 percent).

Nevada had the highest (5.1 percent).

23 states had unemployment rates lower than the U.S. figure of 3.6 percent.

Six states and the District of Columbia had higher rates

As of December 2023

Nevada Jobs

Nevada’s “headline” unemployment rate decreased by 0.1 percentage points to 5.3 percent from December to January, according to the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation’s (DETR).

Las Vegas employment increased by 1,800 jobs (0.2%) since December, an increase of 40,300 jobs (3.6%) since January 2023.

Reno employment had a decrease of 900 jobs (-0.3%) since December, an increase of 8,300 jobs (3.2%) since January 2023.

Carson City employment had an increase of 100 jobs (0.3%) since December, an increase of 900 jobs (2.9%) since January 2023.

Of Note

Though the Southern Nevada economy is largely fueled by tourism, gaming, and entertainment industry, we want to note that many of the largest single employers in the community are tied to national defense and security.

Nellis Air Force Base is home to the largest composite flying wing of the Air Force and hosts the USAF Weapons School and the Air Demonstration Squadron. More than 14,000 military and civilian employees work in some capacity at Nellis.

The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police contributes another 5,800 jobs.

Regional Variations

Southern and western metro areas have largely powered U.S. growth over the past decade, clocking large gains in real GDP, jobs, and employment at young firms — but there has been significant variation in the degree to which growth translated to prosperity in those regions, according to a write-up by Brookings.

As of 2022

As the graph shows, Western metro areas (the medium blue bars on the graph) led on measures of both growth and prosperity.

One thing that explains this is a stronger presence of high-tech, advanced manufacturing, and startup sectors in the West, all of which “benefited from the surge in global venture capital that followed the Great Recession and the increased ubiquity of smart phones, e-commerce, and high-speed data” according to the Brookings analysis.

Reno made the top 5 on the list of large metros with the strongest prosperity growth in the nation:

As of 2022

The challenge for the prosperous Western regions? The pace of tech-led growth has diminished housing supply and created affordability pressures.

Household Debt

Household debt in the U.S. rose by $212 billion to reach $17.5 trillion in Q4 2023 and delinquency rates rose, per the latest Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit.

Credit card balances increased by $50 billion to $1.13 trillion over the quarter, while mortgage balances rose by $112 billion to $12.25 trillion.

Auto loan balances rose by $12 billion to $1.61 trillion, continuing an upward trajectory seen since 2011.

Mortgage balances shown on consumer credit reports increased by $112 billion during the fourth quarter of 2023 and stood at $12.25 trillion at the end of December.

Other balances, which include retail cards and other consumer loans, grew by $25 billion.

Student loan balances were effectively flat, with a $2 billion increase and stand at $1.6 trillion.

Non-housing balances grew by $89 billion.

As of Q4 2023

Household Electricity

Hawaii tops the list of states expected to have the most expensive household electricity bills in the coming year — estimated at an average of $3,451 annually (that’s $287 and change each month) — according to a Texas Electricity Ratings analysis of Environmental Investigation Agency data.

Nevada’s neighbor to the east, Utah, is projected to have the lowest annual electricity bills in the country ($1,047). Other states with low annual costs include Wyoming ($1,110) and Colorado ($1,195). The 2024 national average is forecasted to be approximately $1,730 (roughly $144 per month) per typical household.    

Notably, though residents of Hawaii consume 24.5 percent less electricity than the national average, it made the top of the list because of the cost per kilowatt-hour (43.53 cents). Other pricey states:

Maine ($2,384)
Florida ($2,367)
Connecticut ($2,362)
Rhode Island ($2,361)
Maryland ($2,265)
California ($2,197)
Arizona ($2,190)
Nevada ($2,132)
Alabama ($2,064)

Housing

Existing home sales in the U.S. increased 3.1 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual (SAA) rate of 4 million in January. However, because of limited supply, sales were 1.7 percent lower than a year ago, according to economists at the National Association of Homebuilders.

Fueled in part by the ongoing shortage of existing home inventory, sales of newly built, single-family homes in January increased 1.5 percent to a 661,000 SSA rate, up 1.8 percent from a year earlier.

The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index (HPI) rose at a SAA growth rate of 2.4 percent in December, down from a 3 percent increase in November. December marked the fourth straight month of deceleration since September.

As for land sales, credit for residential Land Acquisition, Development & Construction remained tight in Q3 2023, narrowing the lot development pipeline in 2024.

Labor shortages will also come into play in 2024. According to a February 2024 NAHB survey, the percentage of builders reporting a shortage (either some or serious) of labor they employ directly ranged from 33 percent for landscape workers to as much as 65 percent for those performing finished carpentry.

The construction industry had 413,000 job openings on the last day of January, according to an Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) analysis of data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. Forecast from ABC:

As of January 2024

Southern Nevada Home Sales

After a slower year for local homes sales in 2023, numbers released last week by the Las Vegas REALTORS^® (LVR) shows sales bouncing back.
 
LVR reported that the median price of existing single-family homes sold in Southern Nevada through its Multiple Listing Service (MLS) during February was $460,000. That’s up 8.2 percent from $424,995 in February of 2023.
 
By the end of February, LVR reported 3,471 single-family homes listed for sale without any sort of offer. That’s down 25.6 percent from one year earlier. LVR reported a total of 2,426 existing local homes, condos and townhomes sold in February, up over the prior year by 10.1 percent for homes and up 17.8 percent for condos and townhomes.
 
The sales pace in February equates to a local housing supply of just under two months. One year earlier, Southern Nevada had nearly a three-month housing supply.
 
Home sales in Southern Nevada slowed down in 2023, the slowest year for existing local home sales since 2008: LVR reported 29,069 sales of existing local homes, condos, and townhomes, down from 2022, when LVR reported 35,584.

Now About the Flying Cars

Alef Aeronautics, a flying car firm based in San Mateo, CA, says it has 2,850 preorders for its futuristic electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicle. The two-seater flying car, the Alef Model A, will go for $300,000 — but Alef requires a deposit of just $150 to get on the list.

Alef is one of several startups attempting to make flying cars a reality. Most are building vehicles that resemble a jet or have helicopter-like rotors. Alef’s Model A resembles a traditional car but has a mesh shell protecting rotors on the inside of the frame that allow air to flow through the vehicle.

Source: Evtol News

The vehicle weighs just 850 pounds, which qualifies it as an ultralight vehicle.

Population Density

North America covers 9,652,553 million square miles, or about 15 percent of the Earth’s land area. Populating it are nearly half a billion people — now creatively visualized by the team at Visual Capitalist:

As of 2023

Notable data points:

The island state of Bermuda is the most densely populated jurisdiction on the continent. Measuring just 53 km² in area and home to 65,000 people, it has an average population density of 1,266 people per km². Barbados ranks second with an average population density 647 people/km², followed by Puerto Rico, with 430 people/km².

The Greater Toronto Area is home to one-fifth the country’s entire population. In stark contrast, the rest of the country averages just 3 people/km².

Because of its large land area and comparatively smaller population, North America is one of the least densely populated continents in the world, beaten only by Oceania, which averages 5 people/km², and Antarctica.

Note: Data for the map was sourced from Statistics Canada, the World Bank, and WorldPop, a research group based out of the University of Southampton that tracks population growth and movement across the globe.

Global Tourism

According to the UNWTO World Tourism Barometer, global tourism continued its recovery in 2023, ending the year at 88 percent of pre-pandemic levels with an estimated 1.3 billion international tourist arrivals.

China’s 2023 reopening had a lot to do with the increase. In the first nine months of 2023, international tourist arrivals in the Asia-Pacific region reached 62 percent of pre-pandemic levels — a significant improvement compared to 2022, when the region saw just 26 percent of 2019 arrivals because of travel restrictions, especially in China.

This data comes as the world’s largest tourism congress, the ITB, was set to kick off with an estimated 24,000 attendees expected to descend on Berlin. Statista graph:

Top 1%

The last 10 years have seen a surge in the number of millionaires across the globe. By 2022, 1.1 percent of the world’s adults were millionaires, up from 0.6 percent in 2012 — but being a mere millionaire will not necessarily get you into the top 1 percent of the wealthiest people in your country. Visual Capitalist graphed what it takes: