5 Quick Hits
Retirees, debt, economic surprises, inflation and food
If you were forwarded this email: The DumbWealth newsletter is a daily (almost) bite-sized summary of select economic and market developments in a highly visual format.
1: Americans are retiring faster than ever and this is having a profound impact on labor supply shortages.
2: Canadian household debt has climbed steadily as housing prices rise. Meanwhile, median incomes are comparatively flat.
3: Citigroup’s Economic Surprise Index is back into positive territory, suggesting economists underestimated recent strength.
4: According to the chart below, there is almost no correlation between recent inflation and fiscal spending.
5: Higher food prices disproportionately impact the poorest segment of the population. Despite spending significantly less on food in dollar terms, households in the lowest income quintile spend about 25% of their budgets on food, compared to about 7% for the highest quintile.
Are you in Canada? Lots of Canadian references. Apropos of that chart, an anecdote: I remember in 2010 when I spoke to my then-girlfriend's parents, who were solidly middle class but lived conservatively, they told me that most of the people they knew who had nice things funded it through debt. They weren't richer, in other words, just more indebted.