Higher oil prices have cost US households $936 on average

Mortgage rates rose from 7 percent to 7.28 percent over the week through Thursday, the largest weekly increase since 2022 and the highest level in three years, The Guardian reported. The 10-year Treasury yield, which underpins mortgages and other loans, reached a 24-year high as a global bond sell-off continued, even as investors signaled hope that the Federal Reserve would hold rates steady after a Commerce Department report earlier in the week showed a softer-than-expected reading on inflation.

The Fed had raised interest rates in September for the first time in three years, citing higher prices. At the time of the decision, Fed Chair Kevin Warsh emphasized the strength of the US labor market, which “is basically running consistent with full employment,” but he noted that “inflation is too high and has been for too long.”

Friday’s jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed employers added 29,000 jobs in September — a sharp drop from the 133,000 figure tallied for August after revisions and well below the roughly 70,000 jobs economists had forecast. The release is the final jobs report before November’s midterm elections. The unemployment rate stood at 4.1 percent, according to vintage BLS data, near its lowest level over the past year; it stood at 4.5 percent as recently as November.

Revisions to prior months deepened the picture of a cooling labor market. July and August payrolls were revised down by a combined 60,000 jobs, with the labor market now estimated to have contracted by 10,000 jobs in July after revisions. The August figure was originally reported as a gain of 162,000 jobs, the highest monthly gain since March. Initial reports for June and May were also revised sharply down.

Other labor-market indicators were little changed. Job openings and the number of hires were little changed in August, the Labor Department said, extending what officials have described as a “slow-hire, slow-fire” labor market. US jobless claims inched lower for the fourth consecutive week, the department reported Thursday.

The labor market has remained strong this year even as the US-Israel war on Iran has pushed inflation higher, particularly energy prices. Higher oil prices have cost American households an estimated $936 on average, The Guardian reported.