In what’s become an annual rite of spring for our Best States & Worst States for Business survey of CEOs, Texas and Florida held on to their No. 1 and No. 2 spots this year, continuing their long-running lock on the top of the rankings. Based on polling of nearly 700 CEOs and business owners from every U.S. state, conducted in January and February 2022, the Lone Star … [More]

The NFIB Research Center released a new survey today assessing the impact inflation is having on small businesses. Small business owners first signaled inflation issues in the summer of 2021 when NFIB’s Small Business Economic Trends survey found increasing numbers of small business owners reporting “inflation” as their single most important problem. In March 2022, “inflation” … [More]

The Gap: A Shortage of Affordable Homes, a new report released today by the National Low Income Housing Coalition and the Arizona Housing Coalition, finds a national shortage of seven million affordable and available rental homes for extremely low-income (ELI) renter households, those with incomes at or below the poverty level or 30% of their area median income. There are just … [More]

According to a new report released today by the American Hotel & Lodging Association and Kalibri Labs, U.S. hotel business travel revenue is projected to be 23% below pre-pandemic levels in 2022, ending the year down more than $20 billion compared to 2019. This comes after hotels lost an estimated $108 billion in business travel revenue during 2020 and 2021 … [More]

The unadjusted unemployment rate in Greater Phoenix dropped to 2.4 percent, down nearly three-quarters of a point from February’s 3.1 percent and half of last year’s 5.4 percent unemployment rate in March. Robust hiring brought the Phoenix metro workforce to nearly 2.5 million people in March, up 110,800 from March last year. For the second month in a row, hospitality (up … [More]

The busy spring season got off to another strong start this year. March home sales jumped 32.2% over February while posting a report record Median Sales Price of $360,000. As buyers continued to far outnumber sellers, Months Supply of Inventory reached a record low of 1.0 across the report's 51 metro areas. More than half of the market areas reported a supply of less than one … [More]

It was the hottest March ever for the housing market, with homes selling at their fastest pace and for more above list price than any other March on record, according to a new report from Redfin, the technology-powered real estate brokerage. The median home-sale price rose 6.2% in March, the fastest month-over-month gain at this time of year since 2013, to an all-time high of … [More]

In the week ending April 9, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 185,000, an increase of 18,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 1,000 from 166,000 to 167,000. The 4-week moving average was 172,250, an increase of 2,000 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up … [More]

The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index decreased in March by 2.4 points to 93.2, the third consecutive month below the 48-year average of 98. Thirty-one percent of owners reported that inflation was the single most important problem in their business, up five points from February and the highest reading since the first quarter of 1981. Inflation has now replaced “labor quality” … [More]

A record 32.3% of Redfin.com users nationwide looked to move to a different metro area in the first quarter, according to a new report from Redfin, the technology-powered real estate brokerage. That’s up from 31.5% a year earlier and up significantly from 26% in 2019, before the pandemic. Skyrocketing home prices and rising mortgage rates have made relocating to a … [More]

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 1.2 percent in March on a seasonally adjusted basis after rising 0.8 percent in February, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 8.5 percent before seasonal adjustment. Increases in the indexes for gasoline, shelter, and food were the … [More]