Transcription
Welcome back to Numbers Scream. I'm Tom Ellsworth, the Bisdock. This week, you asked for it, and you got it. It's all about jobs, debt, and a little bit on bankruptcy. There were stats out last week. We put them all together. We're going to start with new jobs. 178,000. Will it be revised? I'll talk about it.
Weekend work. The weekend is slowly dying. Household debt, 18 trillion. Debt is not dying. It's a new record, and I'm going to outline where and how much. Then we get down to mortgages back up to 6 1/2%. Why is that happening? It's all about the war. And lastly, bankruptcies up 14% year-over-year, but not as bad as it once was. All of that this week.
First up, new jobs. Big announcement, big headline, 178,000 jobs. Let's take a look at what that looks over since last year. So, here's March of 2024, a little bit more than last year. It's actually two last years ago, so we'll say two years. And here we are. That popup right there is what everyone is talking about and what all the fuss is about. Take a look at what happened. They announced 178,000 jobs. Meanwhile, February, they revised it down. Every time the government looks over its shoulder, it revises down labor statistics. That's become normal, yet frustrating for when you read a headline, the stock market reacts, you react, you may think about it, you get concerned, you carry worker stress. We all do. And yet, here it is. Even if this is revised down, and I've heard revisions at 125 to 133, even if it revises down to that, it's a pickup.
Now, take a close look here. See this jump? Boom. Boom. If you just draw right here, it looks like we're making jobs. And it's not so crazy. Would you like to know what this is after November going into December? Seasonal hiring, delivery workers, people that were working with Amazon, people working with a variety of delivery servers. And guess what? Retail. Retail is not dead. It's dying in many ways, but it's not dead. Seasonal workers up, seasonal workers down. And then this, wait, those aren't seasonal workers. Even if this is revised down to 125 to 133, it is a good sign. Many of the jobs they said were showing up in healthcare. 71,000 was one estimate of the number of new jobs created in healthcare. Remember, all of the boomers are retiring at an accelerated rate. We have that big bubble. They need healthcare services and a variety of other things. And nursing homes and retirement facilities with nurses all count as healthcare. So there's a lot there, but also there is a glimmer of hope that as the spring starts to thaw that we have a few manufacturing jobs coming in there. Could the president's policies be running in the right direction? I think they're starting to. Needless to say, it was good news after the downer, which most people thought, and I agreed, was seasonal layoffs or the seasonal rolloffs of a contract job. But now, hopefully, we're up. Stay tuned for the revision and the next month report.
Second up, the weekend work up 48%. I've been watching weekend statistics. Work at home didn't count this the same way they're counting it today. As a matter of fact, the surveying was different, 'cause what did work from home mean? Four hours every morning and then just hanging out on your back porch with a mask in the afternoon. Who knows how that was being executed by Americans, or if they were really working at all, but suffice to say, work from home confused a lot of stats. But now we have stats looking at productive hours on the weekend. Take a look at this from 2023, the bounce-out year after COVID when things really got off to a nice run after COVID. '23. Two years later, '25. We compare them from three hours and 10 minutes on Saturday to four hours and 37 minutes on Saturday. But let me show you something. That's 43% higher over that two-year period. Working more on Saturday. But look at this. They started at 8:30 in 2023. They start at 7:11 in '25. Guess what? Everybody is working Saturday morning and cutting loose at about noon. The noon cutoff has been about the same. So white-collar workers opening up the laptop, doing email, project work till noon. I'm off to my Saturday. And other people taking a shift. Guess what? We're working more hours, but we're getting up early to put in that shift on Saturday. And by the way, Sunday statistics were very similar, which means the seven-day work week is just expanded.
Third up, household debt. Could it be that those weekend hours are helping to take down household debt? Well, something needs to, because take a look at this. This is 2008 right here. The debt popped up in the middle of the Great Recession and the financial crisis and the Big Short movie and all that went with it. Then we come all the way over here. Here's COVID right here. Debt goes up, and you see there were a couple points where it leveled. Stimulus checks. Then we get to '23, the bounce-out year, '24, and here we are, '25, right at the edge of the curve. Look, non-housing debt is here. Housing debt is here. So why is this growing faster? This is credit cards. Credit cards are at 1.3 trillion, 1.28 as of 30 days ago. And I have full faith that the American consumer probably is all the way up to 1.3 trillion by now because life is expensive, and some of it is by necessity, which is nothing to joke about. So, sorry if I'm joking a little bit on that. And now take a look at this. Very, very interesting. Debt per person is now almost $7,000. Credit card debt per person, an all-time high. That 1.28, 28 to 1.3 trillion. Credit card debt also an all-time high. And total housing debt also an all-time high. Americans have never been in debt further. However, some of it is exasperated because of what happened when we printed money. The dollars are bigger, but wages didn't catch that and follow up. So, will inflation help this be reduced? No. Inflation needs to come down, and people need wages that can chase up over a couple years of raises and get a bonus if you're paid that way, or a side hustle, or those Saturday and Sunday hours so that this can be paid down because we need some attention. As you can see, after the financial crisis, debt went down, but it was driven mostly by housing debt going down because the value of homes went down. A lot of homes went into foreclosure. Suddenly, that debt is not counted. Suddenly, fewer people are owning homes, and part of this was an illusion. But here we are today, more indebted than ever.
Fourth, mortgages back up to 6 and a half percent. Well, let's go see our friend FRED. Federal Reserve Economic Data coming out of St. Louis. And this is Freddy Mac data feeding into FRED. So, it's very reliable data, at least as reliable as we can possibly get. Now, this is the 30-year fixed rate. You can see here 2024, right at the point of the election, interest rates were still going up. 2024, right at the point where the primaries are heating up. Kamala Harris has not been nominated yet, but it's election season. Rates were going up, and then they pushed them back down from 7.2 down to almost six. That was a good decline in rates. Right here is the election. After the election, rates went back up to about seven. And from the moment he got into office, Trump had been asking Jerome Powell, telling Jerome Powell, yelling at Jerome Powell, sending posts about Jerome Powell to please get the damn rates down. Well, over time, the Fed did reduce rates more gradually, and they began to roll down. And then the funds started to run. And take a look at this. The war drives the price of oil. Price of oil drives inflation, diesel fuel, home electricity, all the things that depend on oil. Aviation, gas, cost of a Southwest ticket or a first-class ticket, doesn't matter. All of that, which then drives the bond market, the mortgage bond market, which then drives the rates. So, we're hoping this is a temporary spike, and it's not accompanied by unemployment. If unemployment goes up, that also impacts the Fed's decision-making process. Under Trump, like him or loathe him, and there's both to be discussed, the rates were coming down since he was inaugurated. There is a steady roll down, and then the war has driven it up, which is making it more expensive to consider buying a house, especially when that rate had gotten all the way down to 5.875, five and seven-eighths, 5.9. We had actually dipped into the fives, and here we go back again. We are back where we were last summer. But again, let's hope it's temporary because when all of that path reverses itself, the war is over, the oil comes down, the inflation fears of all things related to oil come down, the pressure on the mortgage bond market comes down, and mortgages and rates should also come down. Let's hope and let's wait.
Fifth up, after jobs, weekend work, household debt, and mortgages, we talk about bankruptcies. It's not as bad as it seems, but it is ticking up. Take a look at this chart. You have business, non-business, and total. Business is down here, this little tiny blue thing. And then the non-business is you and me. So, when you hear bankruptcies are up, but let's go back and look what happened here. Look at these bankruptcies. You see this 2008, the housing market crash, houses, mortgages upside down, whammo. Look at that. And the bankruptcies kept rolling into 2010, even though we read about 2008, 2009 being the height of the financial crisis. After that settled, and people still had those homes at those mortgages, and the value inverted on the value of the home, and those adjustable-rate mortgages adjusted. This caused a peak in bankruptcies, which slowly came down, came down, came down. And if you take a look here, the bankruptcies went down right here, even further. Why would they go down under Biden? Right this. Why? I thought Biden was elected in 2020, and things were kind of tough. Hang on. Hang on. Guess what? Remember the moratorium on student loans? Remember the moratorium on evictions? Remember the moratorium on repossessions? There were laws and statutes and limits that were placed on landlords and property owners in every state. Every state had a limit of some type, including the federal government that had certain desires it was trying to push during COVID. And now the bankruptcies come up after that's over. There's the bounce-out year. And here we are. Well, guess what? Right now, we also have 2025 data. Bankruptcies were up about 11% '23 to '24. Then they were up about, excuse me, they were up 15% '23 to '24. I misspoke. Then about 11% from '24 to '25. And now the first quarter, it looks like it's up about 14% again. Well, is that bad? It's lower than it's been historically, but it's being driven by affordability. But you would think with all the headlines that things are tougher than it seems. Things are tough for the American consumer. Costs need to come down. We need the economy to stay relatively flat inflation and give people a chance to get a raise or two over years, or switch and get a better job. Two years of experience, get another job, pays you a little bit more, better than a raise, get a bonus. We need time for all of that so that people can catch up on this.
Well, I mentioned the businesses. They're looking for those businesses where to work. Let's go take a look. Let's look at this little bitty blue right there. Here since 2016. Take a look. The business bankruptcies are up. As soon as the moratoriums were lifted from COVID here, bankruptcies are back up to about where they are, above where they were in 2020 before COVID. So, small business bankruptcies are real. We've seen small businesses, small ones closing. We see all that. This is in the commercial sector. So these are the businesses that have far more people working for them. This is not the restaurant on the corner. See, this is what happens. We need in America the opportunity for other businesses and a refinement in the labor base to take place, which is what's going on right now. Data centers are growing. AI is growing. Companies that are employing more people through AI. Yes, I said that there are jobs that are moving from AI, but then there's companies that are using AI that are being born and growing. It may not feel that way in your town, but there's a shift going on. We're hearing about manufacturing jobs. If you're in manufacturing, construction, you're building a data center, you're not being displaced by AI because they need data centers. You have a job because of AI, at least in those sectors. All is not perfectly rosy, especially when this many larger commercial companies are going bankrupt. However, the jobs report itself shows that there's glimmers of hope. Let's hope it doesn't get revised down, and let's hope that the war is over in hours or days or weeks, if that's what it takes. But once that calms down, a lot of these stats, such as the mortgages, have a chance to drop back down and give the American consumer a fighting chance.
That's the story this week. From jobs to the weekend work week, to debt, mortgages, and bankruptcies, we analyze the numbers and bring you the straight scoop. If you want us to analyze numbers for your company, go to the link below. At Bet David Consulting, we analyze your numbers, come together, and bring you education through a series of programs, mastermind groups, elite mastermind groups, and our business conferences such as The Vault that's coming up at the end of August. And we bring you what you need to succeed. We want to help your business grow, thrive, so you can achieve your goals and reach your dreams. Thank you so much. We'll see you next week. And if there's something you want to hear about, hit the subscribe button and leave a comment. We'd love to hear what you want to see and you want to know and you want us to cover, and we will read all those comments, the good, the bad, the ugly, the snarky. And check it out. Until next time, I'm Tom Ellsworth with the Bisdoc, and I hope I left you better than I found you.