Credit Sesame’s personal finance news roundup October 5, 2024. Stories, news, politics and events impacting personal finance during the past week.
Dockworker strike on hold
The International Longshoremen’s Association and port operators reached a tentative deal to end a strike involving tens of thousands of dockworkers across 36 ports in the eastern United States. Though the strike was just three days old, it was already causing a backlog of anchored ships waiting to be unloaded. This threatened to cause supply chain disruptions like those resulting from the pandemic, which contributed heavily to the inflationary spike in 2022. Still, the settlement may have inflationary consequences, calling for a 62% wage increase over six years. Also, it’s important to note the resolution may only be temporary, as some remaining issues were tabled until the current contract expires next January 15. See article at Reuters.com.
45 months of consecutive job growth
The US economy added 254,000 jobs in September 2024, exceeding the average monthly gain of 203,000 over the past year. Adding to the good news is that job growth estimates for July and August were revised upward by a combined 72,000 jobs. The US has now enjoyed 45 consecutive months of job growth. See the Employment Situation report at BLS.gov.
Bank of America suffers widespread outages
Many Bank of America customers reported having difficulty accessing their account information online. Some reported outages, while others could access their accounts but found specific problems. These included inaccurate balances and some features of the app/website not functioning. The complaints spiked shortly after 1 pm on October 2 and fell off sharply as the bank worked to resolve the problem. See article at UPI.com.
Hurricane Helene estimated to be costliest storm ever
As experts assess the damage done by Hurricane Helene, the estimated price tag keeps rising. AccuWeather now estimates the economic impact could be between $145 billion and $160 billion. In addition to the direct effect on several states along the path of the hurricane, the damage could disrupt the national economy. The extended interruptions of agriculture, manufacturing and transportation in the Southeast are likely to be a drag on US Gross Domestic Product. In addition, the shortages resulting from those interruptions may snarl supply chains, resulting in inflationary scarcity of some items. See article at Newsweek.com.
Pause in mortgage rates downward trend
30-year mortgage rates rose last week for the first time since mid-August. However, the increase was only slight. 30-year rates rose by 0.04% to 6.12%. To put that in perspective, 30-year rates have fallen by a total of 0.49% since 2024 began and by a total of 1.67% since peaking in late October of 2023. 15-year rates also rose last week, climbing 0.09% to 5.25%. See rate details at FreddieMac.com.
Employee length of tenure declines
A new survey of employee tenure found that Americans are not staying with their employers for as long as they did in the past. The average tenure of American employees fell below four years for the first time since 2002. The current tenure of 3.9 years is down from the previous survey figure of 4.1 years in 2022 (the survey is conducted every two years). Men tend to stay with their employers longer than women. Men now have an average tenure of 4.2 years, compared to 3.6 years for women. Both figures are down in the most recent survey. See news release at BLS.gov.
Pending home sales rose in August 2024
Pending home sales were up by 0.6% in August. Despite this short-term improvement, pending home sales were still down by 3% from a year earlier. The Midwest, South and West regions all showed higher pending home sales last month, while the Northeast suffered a 4.6% decline. The West was the only region with increased pending home sales over the past 12 months. Pending home sales are considered a leading indicator of actual home sales, as they are measured when purchase contracts are signed as opposed to when the transactions finally close. See details at NAR.Realtor.
Job openings rose in August 2024
The total number of job openings in the US rose to 8.040 million in August. That’s up from 7.711 million in July but far fewer than the 9.358 million in August 2023. Job turnover has slowed to 4.997 million total separations in August. That’s down from 5.314 million in July to 5.609 million in August 2023. Total separations include people who left their jobs voluntarily and those who were fired. More moderate numbers of job openings and separations may represent more stability for the US job market. The ratio of unemployed persons to job openings was 0.9 in August. That’s more in line with pre-pandemic levels than the low of 0.5 reached in 2022 and early 2023. Previously, the unusually low ratio of job-seekers to jobs contributed to the flare-up of inflation in 2022. See news release at BLS.gov.
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