Recession fears have eased a bit following the Fed’s decision to keep the federal funds rate between 4.25 and 4.50. The outlook is for two cuts later this year: 

As of 3/19/25 

Fed officials said they don’t see an immediate risk of recession but do expect slightly slower growth for 2025 and beyond than was forecast in December. The median forecast of real GDP in the Q4 2025 is now 1.7 percent, down from a previous prediction of 2.1 percent and from 2.3 percent actual growth in Q4 2024. 

Committee members revised their previous inflation estimates upwards, now expecting PCE inflation of 2.7 percent instead of 2.5 percent at the end of 2025. 

Chairman Powell emphasized, however, that all metrics are subject to “considerable uncertainty”, called the task of determining the most likely economic “a challenging exercise at this time.” 

As of 3/19/25 

Census Reports 

Census Bureau data shows U.S. retailers and manufacturers boosted profits in Q4 2024 over the prior quarter: 

As of December 2024 

As of December 2024 

Housing Affordability 

Data from the National Association of Homebuilders and the Census Bureau show that 76.4 million U.S. households (57 percent) are unable to afford a $300,000 home. 

(Note: The NAHB graph is based on 2023 data and conventional underwriting standards that assume the cost of a mortgage, property taxes and property insurance should not exceed 28 percent of household income.) 

NAHB number crunching shows: 

• The minimum income required to purchase a $200,000 home with an interest rate of 6.5 percent is $61,487 — and that as of 2023, there were 52.87 million U.S. households with insufficient incomes. 

• Roughly 75 percent of all U.S. households cannot afford a median-priced new home ($459,826). 

• 6.92 million households have enough income to buy a $1 million home, and 1.5 million even have enough for a home priced above $2 million.  

Optimal Timing 

An Axios write-up on a new Zillow report notes that U.S. homes listed late last May sold for 1.6 percent more — an average of $5,600 — than any other time of year. Here were the best times of year to list a home for sale in 2024 correlated to price in the major metros: 

As of 2024 

Starts 

Housing starts in February were up 11.2 percent over January, per Census Bureau data: 

As of February 2024 

Boomers 

Conventional wisdom about the so-called “baby boom” — defined as the time period from 1946 to 1964 — is that it was driven by cultural shifts after World War II ended in 1945, but this graph from the team at Our World in Data shows the birth rate in the U.S. began to rise in the 1930s: 

As of 2024 

The following chart shows the unsurprising alignment between birth rates and marriage rates starting in the 1930s. Women between the ages of 20 and 24 were marrying at a higher rate in many countries — in the U.S. it rose from 54 percent in 1930 to 72 percent in 1960. 

As of 2024

The cohort of women born from the 1910s onwards who had children during the baby boom had more children (3.2), on average: 

As of 2024

Data shows the birth rate in the U.S. in 1946 — the year after World War II ended — had decreased to 2.6 from a high of 3.26 in 1933. The rate dropped to 2.0 in 1951, staying relatively flat into the 1970s. 

Finally, at the peak of the baby boom years, the share of women having three or more children was the norm, and nearly 40 percent had four or more: 

As of 2024

Click here for interactive versions of the charts.  

Cereal 

Though world’s population has more than doubled over the last 60 years, global food production has managed to keep up — and then some. Since 1961, cereal production has increased by 3.5-fold, more than the 2.6-fold growth in population. 

The chart shows the change in four indicators since 1961: cereal production, cereal yields, land use for cereals, and population.  

As of 2024

Note that while land use has increased, most of the growth has come from higher crop yields.  

Population Projections 

India and China will likely remain the most populous countries until 2100, but several African countries also will climb the ranks over the next few decades: 

As of 7/1/24 

Data estimates source: UN World Population Prospects 2024 

Happiness Index 

In 2012, the United Nations proclaimed March 20 as the International Day of Happiness or World Happiness Day. Although happiness is subjective, the team behind Gallup’s World Happiness Report has produced a country ranking this year that reveals clear differences between Western industrialized nations and countries in Asia and Africa. 

As of 2024 

(Note: To map the happiness of respondents in the 147 countries surveyed, participants were asked to rate their level of satisfaction with their life on a 10-point scale. This was used to calculate an average value for the results between 2022 and 2024 for each country.) 

The report found that unemployment, the anticipation of mental health issues, and fear of violent crime had the most substantial negative effect on life satisfaction. Increased income had a positive effect — but not as much as donating to charity, volunteering, and helping a stranger.  

For some, the key to happiness is as simple as “having a good time”, which survey results from Statista Consumer Insights illustrate: 

As of December 2024 

Big Brands 

Apple ranks first in brand value globally, with a value of $574.5 billion. Here’s a nice visual of the world’s top 50 brands, which together with the value of intellectual property and R&D, stands at all-time high net value of $80 trillion: 

As of 1/1/2025 

On the Horizon

Mike PeQueen: Consumer confidence has been dropping the past several weeks so Tuesday’s report on this topic will be of interest as will Friday’s inflation report via the PCE deflator index. 

Data & Dialogue About the Economy



The Fact Pack is a monthly business e-report co-authored by Mike PeQueen of Hightower Las Vegas and John Restrepo of RCG Economics, which combines important metrics relevant to business decision makers and financial commentary on the current issues facing the economy.

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