Fact Pack! Q4 GDP
By Hightower Las Vegas and RCG Economics on March 6, 2025
The year-over-year Q4 2024 GDP growth number is 2.3 percent:
As of December 2024
The Atlanta Fed predicts Q1 2025 will be in the same range:
As of February 2025
Inflation gauges (December 2024 — January 2025):
As of January 2025
Real GDP metrics for Q4 2023 through Q4 2024:
As of December 2024
Retail
Holiday season shopping numbers can be hard to pin down — as are economic metrics during and immediately after an election — but here are January retail stats:
As of January 2025
Jobs
From September 2023 to September 2024, employment in the U.S. increased in 264 of the 369 largest U.S. counties. Bureau of Labor Statistics map:
As of Q3 2024
Click here for a BLS interactive map with more data.
Clark County data (Q3 2024):
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics as of 2024
$1,290 weekly x 52 weeks = $67,080
Washoe County data (Q3 2024):
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics as of 2024
$1,326 weekly x 52 weeks = $68,952
Notable notes:
- Kings, New York, had the largest over-the-year increase in employment (+4.9 percent).
- Elkhart, Indiana, had the largest over-the-year percentage decrease (−2.7 percent).
- Elkhart’s largest employment decrease occurred in manufacturing, which dropped by 2,668 jobs (−4.2 percent).
- Among the 369 largest counties, 363 had over-the-year increases in average weekly wages. In the third quarter of 2024, average weekly wages increased to $1,394, a 4.5-percent increase over the year.
- Eight of the 10 largest counties had over-the-year percentage increases in employment.
Trend graph:
As of Q4 2024
Housing
Housing supply and demand and its affordability was a key issue in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election. A Pew Research Center survey in September 2024 revealed that a 69 percent of Americans said they were “very concerned” about the cost of housing.
The definition of “affordable” can be sliced and diced several ways. A commonly used (though also sometimes criticized) benchmark for housing affordability is that no more than 30 percent of household income should go toward housing costs. In the eyes of the federal government (e.g., Department of Housing and Urban Development), households that spend more than that are considered “cost burdened.”
The Census Bureau’s American Community Survey defines “housing costs” as rent or mortgage payments, property taxes, utilities, homeowners insurance, condominium or mobile-home fees and the like. “Gross rent” includes the contract rent on the property as well as utilities and fuels, if paid by the tenant.
As of 2024
Many more people owned than rented in the second quarter of 2024 — 65.6 percent of occupied housing units were owned, and 34.4 percent were rented, according to the estimates from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey/Housing Vacancy Survey.
The U.S. housing market, as measured by the number of active for-sale properties on local multiple listing services (MLS), shrank dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic but has since partially rebounded. On any given day in September 2019, according to Realtor.com, there were more than 1.2 million active MLS listings. By September 2023, that number had fallen 42.7 percent to about 702,000.
As of September 2024, there were about 941,000 active listings on a given day, 34 percent more than a year earlier. However one measures “affordability,” prices continue to rise. The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s national House Price Index, a gauge of how selling prices for single-family homes have changed over time, was 57.8 percent higher in July 2024 than it was five years earlier in July 2019.
In comparison, the Consumer Price Index – which measures price changes for a broad range of consumer goods and services – rose 22.8 percent between September 2019 and September 2024. But national averages and means can only tell us so much. Zooming in on the metrics in the more than 900 metropolitan and “micropolitan” areas identified by the federal government can unblur the bigger picture.
The following Pew graphics illustrate nicely:
As of 2020
States with especially high shares of households spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing:
- 40.6 percent of California households– including more than half (54.1 percent of renters
- Similar shares of households in Hawaii (38.2 percent) and Florida (37.2 percent) also spend that much on housing costs, according to the 2023 ACS estimates.
At the other end of the spectrum, much smaller shares of households meet the “cost burdened” threshold in:
- West Virginia (21.0 percent households)
- North Dakota (22.0 percent)
- South Dakota and
- Iowa (23.6 percent each).
Finally, here are some geo-locations where affordability is, shall we say, relative:
As of 2024
Upzoning
For years, the affluent Boston suburb of Cambridge has been one of the epicenters of the affordable housing crisis. Home to Harvard and MIT, the city of 118,000 consists of historic homes, traditional New England “triple-deckers” and apartment buildings for students and locals.
The average rent in Cambridge runs to $3,375 a month, according to Zillow — 69 percent higher than the U.S. average, outpacing rents in similar enclaves. Housing restrictions have been so tight that over the next 15 years, the city expected to build just 350 units.
Enter a housing reform measure passed in February that enables multi-unit developers to build up to four stories, with an option for an additional two stories. The reform is expected to result in the construction of 4,880 new units, a significant increase.
Until now, the average rent in Cambridge ran as much as 69 percent higher than the country’s average, according to Zillow.
The big issue in many markets is the cost of starter homes:
As of 2024
For those curious about the general (national) state of affairs:
As of January 2025
As of January 2025
Global Leaders in GDP
India and China registered the most inflation-adjusted GDP growth of the 20 top economies between 2015–2025:
As of February 2025
Borderline
Longtime Fact Pack readers know we are interested in geopolitical topics and will not be surprised we took an interest in this write-up on the reasons for 10 strange and surprising international borders across the globe. Notably, the town in Vermont that made the cut and a town in Nevada share a similar quirk:
In Derby Line, Vermont, the U.S.-Canada border runs right through the middle of town — which functions mostly as a municipal unit but really is two towns. On one side of Canusa Avenue you’re in Derby Line; on the other, you’re in Stanstead, Quebec. That is, unless you are practicing for the Olympics in the curling hall or browsing for books the library — in both cases, you may not be aware when you’ve walked from the U.S. to Canada.
The story of Nevada’s split-in-two town — Wendover — began when William Smith opened a gas station in Utah in 1926. When Nevada legalized gaming five years later, Smith expanded his enterprise — straddling the border to later become the State Line Casino and Hotel.
On the Horizon
Mike PeQueen: Friday’s jobs report will be important, but people also will be watching closely to see whether the government job losses have had any impact on the metrics that help bring economic matters into focus.
