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Readers who noted our Tuesday summary on the slowing U.S. labor market, persistently elevated inflation, and signs of decreased consumer spending learned Wednesday that the Fed saw fit to cut its benchmark interest rate from 4.3 percent to about 4.1 percent — and to project more cuts this year.
Employment data for August showing that 1.9 million people in the U.S. were long-termunemployed,defined asjobless for 27-plus weeks — 385,000 more than in August of 2024, and nearly twice the number recorded in early 2023 — no doubt helped tip the Fed’s decision-making scales.
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As of August 2025
Major Metrics
The following Federal Reserve of Richmond graphics round out the national economic state of play as we approach Q4 2025.
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As of August 2025
Feel Safe?
Though the world is seeing more countries in armed conflict than at any time since World War II, more people than ever say they feel safe where they live. In 2024, Gallup’s global tracking of the metric reached a new milestone: 73 percent of adults worldwide said they felt safe walking alone at night in their city, suburb, or rural area — a 13 percentage-point increase over the past 10 years.
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As of 2024
Gallup’s Global Safety Report is based on interviews with more than 145,000 adults in 144 nations in 2024 and is evidence that progress toward a more peaceful world is possible even amid instability.
Global perceptions of safety rose steadily between 2014 and 2020, stalled during the COVID-19 pandemic, and saw a rebound in 2024, with most of the improvement driven by gains in the Asia-Pacific, Western Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and sub-Saharan Africa regions.
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As of 2024
Post-Soviet Eurasia stood out for its dramatic improvement. In 2006, just 37 percent of adults in the region said they felt safe. By 2023, that figure had nearly doubled to 71 percent, and it has held steady. In Latin America and the Caribbean, half of adults said they feel safe, marking the first time the region has reached this milestone.
Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa remain the regions where people feel the least safe. Both also account for the world’s highest homicide rates, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
Just 33 percent of South Africans in 2024 said they feel safe walking alone at night, the lowest percentage among more than 140 countries surveyed. Four of its neighbors — Lesotho (34 percent), Botswana (34 percent), Zimbabwe (40 percent) and Eswatini (40 percent) — also ranked among the 10 least safe countries. The numbers reflect shared challenges, including high rates of violent crime, including assault, robbery, gender-based violence against women, and homicide, along with limited investment in policing coverage, persistent economic pressures, and resulting poverty.
Ecuador, though still ranked among the five least safe countries, recorded one of the world’s largest year-over-year gains in 2024. The share of Ecuadorians who felt safe rose 11 points to 38 percent, following a series of aggressive security interventions.
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As of 2024
In the Middle East, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), including Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, continued to top the list of safest nations. Strong institutions, centralized governance, and sustained investment in public security have helped.
In 2024, Singaporean adults were the most likely in the world to say they felt safe walking alone at night: 98 percent, one of the highest percentages Gallup has ever recorded. Singapore also stood out for its gender parity. In 2024, 98 percent of men and 97 percent of women said they feel safe walking alone at night.
Women across the globe are far less likely than men to feel safe, on average, with gender gaps of at least 10 points in more than 100 countries. Globally, 67 percent of women said they feel safe walking alone, compared with 78 percent of men.
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As of 2024
The gender divide is large even in some high-income countries. In the U.S., for example, 58 percent of women said they feel safe walking alone at night, compared with 84 percent of men, a 26-point gender gap. If Gallup’s rankings were based only on women’s perceptions, the U.S. would fall to 77th globally.
Notably, five of the top 10 nations with large gender gaps in Gallup’s survey — Italy, Malta, Greece, Cyprus, and the Netherlands — are EU members. In Italy, just 44 percent of women said they felt safe walking alone at night, on par with women in Uganda (44 percent).
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As of 2024
Read the full report.
Danger
Gallup’s World Risk Poll is the only known global, nationally representative study of feelings of worry about, and harm from, risks to people’s safety. The most recent (2023) survey was based on nearly 147,000 interviews conducted by Gallup in 142 countries.
In 2023, 16 percent of adults worldwide named road-related accidents as the greatest source of risk in their life, with crime and violence next (13 percent) and personal health conditions rounding out the top three (11 percent).
This topline figure aligns with previous years: 16 percent mentioned road accidents in 2019, and 13 percent mentioned them in 2021.
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As of 2023
Perceptions of the risk that road accidents pose vary significantly between regions. People living in high-income economies are more than twice as likely to cite road accidents as the top risk to their safety as those in low-income economies (21 percent vs. 9 percent respectively), even though those in high-income economies are least at risk of dying on the roads.
The World Health Organization estimates that the road traffic death rate is 28.3 per 100,000 people in low-income countries, more than three times the rate in high-income countries (8.4 per 100,000).
Other perceived risks include severe weather events, violent crime, eating food that could cause illness or death.
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As of 2023
The Undoing Project
The gap between reality and perception in the above section prompts us to end this week’s edition of Fact Pack with a nod to The Undoing Project, a Michael Lewis book on the connected topics of human psychology and investing.
It centers on the life stories and work of two remarkable psychologists, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, who became friends, then colleagues, then co-authors of the world-renowned book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, a study of the emotions, reactions, gut-feelings, and cognitive biases that lead people to make essentially irrational decisions.
Their work, and The Undoing Project, gave rise to the field of “behavioral economics” and has had a profound impact on business, law, politics, medicine, and sports.
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On the Horizon
This week’s MarketWatch calendar:
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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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Mike PeQueen
Hightower Las Vegas
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John Restrepo
RCG Economics
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