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Fewer cranes on the horizon? Banking tumult could slow nonresidential construction

Mar 28, 2023
Smaller and regional banks are major lenders not only for office construction, but also building projects like hospitals, educational institutions and ports.
Cranes on a construction site in southeast Baltimore work to build office space. Spending for non-residential projects is up nearly 16% in the past year, according to the Census Bureau, and that is due in part to rising building costs.
Stephanie Hughes/Marketplace

More buyers are backing out of housing contracts

Jan 26, 2023
They're down about 26% compared to a year ago.
When buyers back out of contracts, that can slow down construction of new homes, said Clint Mitchell, CEO of Estridge Homes in Indianapolis.
Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

Household income stayed flat in 2021, census data shows

Sep 14, 2022
Wage increases have been eaten by high inflation.
Despite talk about pay increases and a hot labor market, wages have remained stagnant for years when you account for inflation.
Mario Tama/Getty Images

Child poverty fell by nearly half in 2021, Census Bureau says

Sep 13, 2022
The supplemental poverty rate fell to its lowest since 2009. Children living in poverty fell by almost half.
A volunteer hands out lettuce at a food pantry in December 2021. Last year, the supplemental poverty rate fell to 7.8%, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images

Census finds nearly 30 million people didn't have health insurance in 2019

Sep 16, 2020
With COVID-19-related job losses, health experts expect the number of people without insurance to grow this year.
A man has his temperature checked at a COVID-19 testing site in Long Beach, California. The number of Americans without health insurance is expected to go up this year.
Mario Tama/Getty Images

Low unemployment puts strain on census hiring

Mar 11, 2020
The Census Bureau is offering higher wages and pulling workers in from neighboring states.
Christa Bender, a census recruiting assistant, at a hiring fair at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Matt Bloom/KUNC News

Why are Americans moving less and less?

Nov 22, 2019
Census numbers show lowest the mobility rate on record.
David McNew/Getty Images

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The U.S. housing market is in a weird place

Jun 18, 2019
There is demand for new homes, but a lot of it is among first-time home buyers who can’t afford them.
Real estate agents leave a home for sale during a broker open house on April 16, 2019 in San Francisco, California.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

The 2020 census is going high-tech and online

Feb 14, 2019
Every 10 years, the U.S. government counts every living person in the country. The 2020 head count will be the first U.S. census conducted mostly online. “For more than 200 years, the census has been this pencil and paper activity,” said Issie Lapowsky, senior writer at WIRED. “It’s a really human intensive, really time-intensive process.” […]
Mario Tama/Getty Images

U.S. Census Bureau will be looking to hire field workers in a competitive labor market

Oct 8, 2018
The U.S. Census Bureau says it needs to hire hundreds of thousands of workers to complete the 2020 census. But since the economy is in such good shape, with unemployment down to 3.7 percent in September, that hiring task may be a lot harder than it was back in 2010. And the census faces more […]