🏁 Axios Finish Line: Hidden boom

Plus: Polling conundrum | Monday, June 06, 2022

Open in app View in browser     Axios Finish Line By Mike Allen, Erica Pandey and Jim VandeHei ·Jun 06, 2022 Jun 06, 2022 Welcome back. Join the conversation at FinishLine@axios.com with your candor, questions and ideas. Smart Brevity™ count: 396 words ... 1½ mins.     1 big thing: Hidden boom Reproduced from the Federal Reserve; Chart: Kavya Beheraj/Axios Listen to most experts, and you'd think the economy is going up in flames. In fact, tens of millions of U.S. households are thriving more than in decades. Why it matters: High gas prices, stock market volatility and inflation are hiding the reality that the economy is working for a huge swath of Americans — and has richly bolstered their nest eggs. Here's a rarity — a parade of encouraging news: Houses: It's hard to find one to buy — and the 66% of Americans who do own houses are seeing their home values soar. The middle class has made a whopping $2.1 trillion from homeownership in the past 10 years, Fortune reports. Retirement accounts: Despite the recent sell-off, they've been fattened by the stock market. And the share of people who say they expect to work past their early 60s has dropped below 50% for the first time. Jobs: 11.4 million are open. The unemployment rate is 3.6% — back to pre-pandemic lows. Safety nets: 68% of Americans say they have cash for a rainy day. Millennial homeownership: It's at 43%, up from 37% last year. Reality check: There's still plenty of pain in this economy — likely with much more to come. The tight housing market is pricing out millions of renters and potential buyers. Rising prices — at the pump and in the grocery store — are draining wallets. That helps explain one of the bigger polling conundrums we've seen: We think things are going fine for us, but terribly for America. 78% of Americans are confident in their personal financial well-being, but just 24% are confident in the U.S.' financial well-being, per Federal Reserve data reported by the Atlantic's Derek Thompson (see chart above). The bottom line: Things haven't been so good for so many in decades, Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research told The New York Times. "You'd have to go back to the late 1990s to find a similar era. Before that, the 1960s." Share this story.     A message from Axios Lessons from the newsroom     This Friday, Axios Publisher Nick Johnston will share the attention-grabbing communication strategies he honed in a newsroom — and how he's used those same skills to keep ambitious teams aligned. Join the conversation.     💥 Stunning stat Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios   The bottom 50% of the population now has more than $3 trillion in household wealth — up 55% from before the pandemic. Yet America's pessimism is on the rise.   Thanks for reading. Invite your friends to sign up. Like this email style and format? It's called Smart Brevity®. Over 200 orgs use it — in a tool called Axios HQ — to drive productivity with clearer workplace communications.   Axios thanks our partners for supporting our newsletters. If you're interested in advertising, learn more here. Sponsorship has no influence on editorial content. Axios, 3100 Clarendon B‌lvd, Suite 1300, Arlington VA 22201   You received this email because you signed up for newsletters from Axios. Change your preferences or unsubscribe here.   Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up now to get Axios in your inbox.   Follow Axios on social media: