Weekly Economic Recap: September 14 – September 20, 2026
Last week brought a Fed rate hike, a rebound in retail sales, and further signs that housing affordability is under pressure as mortgage rates hit new multi-year highs.
Inflation
Weekly Economic Recap: September 7 – September 13, 2026
Last week's data releases painted a picture of a labor market holding steady, inflation reaccelerating on energy costs, and housing affordability continuing to slip as mortgage rates climb to multi-year highs.
Inflation
Weekly Economic Recap: August 31 – September 6, 2026
A look back at the week's key economic data releases, covering the labor market, housing, and wages.
Labor Market
Weekly Economic Recap: August 3 – August 9, 2026
A mixed week of data painted a picture of a labor market cooling from both the demand and supply side, a housing market straining under a fifth straight week of rising mortgage rates, and consumers growing slightly less worried about inflation even as they braced for higher unemployment. Here's the breakdown by industry and sector.
Labor Market
Housing & Mortgage Finance
Home price growth continued to run hot on a nominal basis but stayed underwater in real terms. The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index rose 1.6% YOY in May, up from 1.2% in April and above the 1.3% consensus estimate — Chicago posted the strongest YOY appreciation among the 20-city composite for the third straight month. MOM growth came in at 0.9%, easing slightly from April's 1.0% but still within the range of typical spring seasonal strength. The real story remains the inflation-adjusted picture: with May's CPI running at 4.2%, real (inflation-adjusted) home prices were negative for the 12th consecutive month, a 2.6-point gap between nominal appreciation and inflation.
Labor Market: Payroll growth keeps slowing while jobless claims hit a near-60-year low, leaving a labor market that looks resilient on the surface but is quietly losing steam underneath.
This week's data releases painted a picture of a labor market that's cooling in some corners while staying surprisingly resilient in others, alongside continued softness in housing and mortgage rates drifting to a one-month low.
A look at the week's most important housing, labor, and macroeconomic data — and what it means for buyers, sellers, and the broader economy.
This past week delivered a sobering batch of economic data that painted a picture of a housing market under siege and a labor market quietly fraying at the edges. Builder confidence slipped further in June, with more than a third of builders now cutting prices to move inventory, while Housing Starts cratered 15.4% month-over-month to their lowest level since May 2020 — the second consecutive month of steep declines. Building Permits followed suit, falling short of expectations with a particularly sharp 18.1% drop across the Midwest. Mortgage rates held at 6.60% as markets have largely abandoned hopes for a Fed cut, with nine FOMC officials now penciling in at least one rate hike to combat inflation pressures stemming from the conflict in Iran — a stark shift in tone under the new Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh. On the consumer side, Retail Sales beat expectations at +0.9% MoM, though much of that gain was driven by rising gasoline prices rather than genuine spending expansion. Pending Home Sales offered a rare bright spot, surging 3.8% in May as buyers appeared to grudgingly accept elevated rates as the new normal. The labor market, however, continues to tell a more troubling story beneath the headlines: jobless claims ticked higher for the fourth consecutive week, voluntary quits have fallen to pandemic-era lows as workers cling to jobs out of uncertainty, and the labor force participation rate dropped from 62.6% to 61.8% year-over-year — a recessionary-scale decline driven by workers exiting the workforce entirely rather than registering as unemployed. With real wages negative against 3.8% inflation and job growth concentrated almost entirely in healthcare, the underlying economic foundation looks considerably shakier than the topline numbers suggest.
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