Friday Fact Pack! PCE surprise
By Hightower Las Vegas and RCG Economics on March 31, 2023
On a 12-month basis, core PCE (personal consumption expenditures) increased 4.6 percent in February, a slight deceleration from January, per Commerce Department data. The PCE price index excluding food and energy increased 0.3 percent for the month, but that figure was below the 0.4 percent Dow Jones estimate and lower than the 0.5 percent January increase.
Including food and energy, headline PCE rose 0.3 percent monthly and 5 percent annually, compared with 0.6 percent and 5.3 percent in January.
In other data from the report, personal income rose 0.3 percent, slightly above the 0.2 percent estimate. Consumer spending climbed 0.2 percent, exceeding the 0.3 percent estimate.
Five-year PCE (minus food and energy) trend, via the St. Louis Fed:
As of January 2023
Q4 GDP Revision
Real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 2.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to the third estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the third quarter, real GDP increased 3.2 percent.
Nevada Jobs
According to the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation’s (DETR) February 2023 economic report, the state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 5.5 percent in February 2023, unchanged from January 2023.
In the three Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA), the unemployment rates were 6 percent in the Las Vegas area, 4.5 percent in Reno, and 5.2 percent in the Carson area in February 2023.
In Nevada’s counties, the lowest unemployment rate was in Lander County at 3.9 percent, and Nye County had the highest rate at 6.7 percent.
Sector data for February 2023:
For the latest information on the Nevada economy including employment, unemployment, and unemployment insurance check out DETR’s monthly Labor Market Overview.
S&P
This won’t surprise those who already invest in the S&P on the regular:
As of December 2022
Mortgage Apps
A softening in pending home sales is afoot despite the February numbers.
As of February 2023
Active inventory has continued to climb with for-sale homes up 57 percent over the end of March one year ago. The number of homes for-sale in March is roughly half of what was typical for this time of year in 2017 to 2019, per Calculated Risk.
Labor Market
How will ongoing labor shortages and the increase in job cuts wash out in the end? These Bloomberg graphs show the recent trend:
As of Q1 2023
Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority Stats
As of February 2023
Nevada Has 8th Lowest Property Taxes in the U.S.
Property taxes are usually calculated as a percentage of the assessed value of a property, an estimate that taxing authorities typically update every few years or when the property is sold. Because home prices have risen so dramatically since 2020, tax assessments are rising as well—which means larger annual property tax bills for many homeowners.
Higher property taxes can be painful for homeowners, but they are a boon for state and local governments that rely heavily on the revenue. Property taxes totaled nearly $670 billion in 2021, representing more than one-third of all U.S. state and local tax collections.
As of January 2022
Rising property values have been somewhat offset by lower tax rates over the years:
As of December 2021
After reaching a peak of 1.157 percent in 2014, the average effective property tax rate—calculated as the aggregate taxes paid divided by the aggregate value of housing units—fell to 1.087 percent in 2021.
New Jersey and Illinois have the highest rates:
As of January 2022
Nevada had an effective property tax rate of 0.5 percent for owner-occupied homes in 2021, with taxpayers paying a median $1,807 in property taxes.
Out of all U.S. states, Nevada has the 8th lowest effective property tax rate. Here is a summary of the data for Nevada:
- Effective property tax rate for owner-occupied homes: 0.5 percent
- Median property taxes paid for owner-occupied homes: $1,807
- Median owner-occupied home value: $373,000
- Median household income: $66,274
For reference, here are the statistics for the entire United States:
- Effective property tax rate for owner-occupied homes: 1.0 percent
- Median property taxes paid for owner-occupied homes: $2,795
- Median owner-occupied home value: $281,400
- Median household income: $69,717
For more information, a detailed methodology, and complete results, see the original report.
Health Spending and Life Expectancy
South Korea is winning when it comes to life expectancy, while the United States is the worst at getting a long-life bang for its health care buck, per this Axios graph:
As of December 2021
Texas Rising
Texas is now one of only two U.S. states with a population of 30 million or more. Texas’s population in 2022 was 30,029,572, second only to California (39,029,342).
From 2000 to 2022, the population of 11 of Texas’s 254 counties more than doubled, according to July 1, 2022 population estimates released by the Census Bureau.
As of December 2022
Gun-related Death Stats
The correlation between gun ownership per capita and gun-related death rates are inarguable:
As of December 2019
College Enrollment Stats
Women, Hispanics and Black Americans were the three groups with the greatest increases in college enrollment rates between 1993 and 2021:
As of December 2021
Homeless Population by State
California, Oregon, and (weirdly?) Vermont had the highest rates of homeless people per capita at the end of 2022, while Mississippi, South Carolina and Illinois had the lowest:
As of December 2022
Nevada:
As of December 2022
On the Horizon
Mike PeQueen: At the risk of sounding like a broken record, next Friday’s jobs report will shed more light on how strong the economy is at this time. The stock market will likely respond positively to more people becoming unemployed.
Next week’s MarketWatch calendar:
