Tag Archives: Census Bureau

In sharp contrast to reports of improving builder confidence, housing starts plunged at the steepest rate in more than two years in April, falling to a five-month low even as housing permits surged, the Census Bureau and HUD reported jointly Thursday. The 16.5 percent month-to-month drop in starts to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 853,000 caught economists by surprise. The consensus forecast had been starts would fall--but to 969,000 from March's originally reported 1,036,000.

Despite still sluggish new home sales, builder confidence improved in May for the first time since December, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) reported Wednesday. All three components of the HMI improved in May. The reading on current home sales increased four points to 48 from 44 (revised from the initially reported 45), the outlook for sales in the next six months rose to 53 from 52 (revised down from April's reading of 53), and the measure of buyer traffic rose to 33 from April's unrevised 30.

Driven by stronger auto sales but held back by falling gasoline prices, total retail sales increased an unexpected 0.1 percent in April Census Bureau reported Monday. Economists had expected sales to fall 0.3 percent. In March, retail sales fell a revised 0.

""Fiscal policy,"" simply put, is the means by which a government adjusts its levels of spending in order to monitor and influence a nation's economy. At the heart of the spending/growth disparity is a philosophical debate over the role of government: those who believe government should be run like a business and avoid debt and those who see the role of government as spending counter-cyclically, that is increasing spending when the nation's economy is challenged to avoid further struggles. direct a country's economic goals.

Imagine if someone removed the speedometer from your car and then put limits on how fast or slow you could drive. That's what 11 House members are doing with legislation which would prohibit the Census Bureau from any data collection except for the decennial headcount of Americans. The impact of the bill HR 1638 would be to eviscerate and effectively eliminate the monthly employment situation report that produces, among other things, the unemployment rate as well as a host of other bits of data about the economy. The sponsors of the bill must believe that if we don't count unemployment it won't exist.

The number of households owning homes fell 698,000 to 74,511,000 in the first quarter, the first decline in almost two years, according to a Census Bureau report Tuesday. At the same time, the nation's homeownership rate fell to 65 percent (seasonally adjusted), the lowest level since the fourth quarter of 1995. The Census data paints a grim picture for the home sales market, which has already been struggling against mortgage restrictions and weak inventory.

The Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI) rose 1.5 percent to 105.7 in March, the highest level in almost three years, the National Association of Realtors reported Monday. Economists had expected a 0.7 percent increase to 105.5 from February's originally reported 104.8. The February index reading was revised to 104.1. With the month-over-month improvement, the PHSI is 7.0 percent above March 2012, slightly below the 7.7 percent year-over-year gain in February. The index registered double-digit percent gains from April through October last year so the dip--on the eve of the homebuying season--is less than encouraging.

After experiencing the sharpest drop in two years in February, new home sales increased 1.5 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 417,000 in March, the Census Bureau and HUD reported Tuesday. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg expected March sales to increase to 419,000 from a February's originally reported 411,000. The median price of a new home, according to the Census-HUD report, plunged $17,900 (or 6.8 percent) in March to $247,000, the largest month-over-month decline since February 2011.

With a sharp jump in prices, existing-home sales fell 0.6 percent in March--the steepest drop since December--to 4.92 million units, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported Monday. Economists had expected a 1.0 percent increase to 5.03 million from February's original report of 4.98 million sales. The median price of an existing single-family home jumped to $184,300, the highest level in seven months. The inventory of homes for sale edged up to 1.93 million units--a 4.7 month supply, both the highest level since November.

What do you do when you find out Santa Claus doesn't exist? That's the situation former vice presidential candidate/House Budget Committee Chair/potential presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) faces now that the study which provided him with the academic support for budget cuts (aimed principally at so-called entitlements) has been undermined. Harvard economists Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff in 2010 published a research paper which held that for countries with debt loads equivalent to or greater than 90 percent of annual economic output, ""median growth rates fall by 1 percent, and average growth falls considerably more.""