Older Americans richer than thought, census data shows
Older Americans may have higher incomes than previously thought, according to new experimental data that's being developed by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The bureau last week published the first estimates from its National Experimental Wellbeing Statistics or NEWS, a project that aims to fix measurement errors in income and poverty data. The initial study looked at 2018 numbers, and the research team plans to extend the analysis to other years.
One key finding: Among householders ages 65 and over, the median income was estimated to be 27% higher than in the bureau's previous analysis — and the poverty rate 3.3 percentage points lower.
The change for other age groups was smaller. Still, the general trend was to revise incomes up for older households, and revise them down for younger ones — widening the generational gap.
What's more, since the 65-and-over cohort accounts for a sizable chunk of the population, the shift is big enough to impact some widely watched numbers for the overall population. Median income for all Americans in 2018 was 6.3% higher — equivalent to some $4,000 — in the new measurements than the old ones, and the nationwide poverty rate was 1.1 percentage points lower.
The new data also changes the picture of income measured by racial and ethnic groups.
It found that the median income among Hispanic Americans was 12% higher than in the older data set, while White Americans got a 6.6% boost. The increases among Black and Asian Americans were smaller.
Inflation cools slightly, with worrying details
Inflation has slowed from its painful 2022 peak but remains uncomfortably rapid, data released Tuesday showed, and the forces pushing prices higher are proving stubborn in ways that could make it difficult to wrestle cost increases back to the Federal Reserve's goal.
The consumer price index climbed 6.4% in January compared with a year earlier, faster than economists had forecast and only a slight slowdown from 6.5% in December. While the annual pace of increase has cooled from a peak of 9.1% in summer 2022, it remains more than three times as fast as was typical before the pandemic.
And prices continued to increase rapidly on a monthly basis as a broad array of goods and services, including apparel, groceries, hotel rooms and rent, became more expensive. That was true even after stripping out volatile food and fuel costs.
Taken as a whole, the data underlined that while the Federal Reserve has been receiving positive news that inflation is no longer accelerating relentlessly, it could be a long and bumpy road back to the 2% annual price gains that used to be normal. Prices for everyday purchases are still climbing at a pace that risks chipping away at economic security for many households.
Jobless claims fall again despite Fed's rate push
Fewer Americans filed for jobless benefits last week despite efforts by the Federal Reserve to loosen the labor market with higher interest rates in its bid to slow the economy.
Applications for jobless aid in the U.S. for the week ending Feb. 11 fell by 1,000 last week to 194,000, from 195,000 the previous week, the Labor Department reported Thursday. It's the fifth straight week claims were under 200,000.
The four-week moving average of claims, which smooths out some of the weekly ups and downs, rose by 500 to 189,500. It's the fourth straight week that the four-week moving average has been below 200,000.
About 1.7 million people were receiving jobless aid the week that ended Feb. 4, an increase of 16,000 from the week before.