The earliest data for 2026's summer jobs season came in trending downward for U.S. teens.

Overall, a seasonally-adjusted 5,350,000 Americans Age 16 through 19 were counted as having jobs in May 2026, falling 29,000 from April 2026's total.

Breaking down the jobs numbers between younger teens (Age 16-17) and older teens (Age 18-19) finds a split in how each group is faring going into summer. Younger teens saw their seasonally-adjusted numbers plunge by 79,000 to 1,850,000, while older teens saw their numbers rise by 14,000 to 3,510,000.

The following chart shows these changes along with the seasonally-adjusted total Age 16-19 employment level:

Sharp-eyed readers will recognize the number of employed Age 16-17 teens and Age 18-19 teens does not add up to the combined Age 16-19 figure. That's because each demographic gets its own seasonal adjustment. If you want numbers that do add up within a small margin of error, you'll want to access the BLS' raw, non-seasonally adjusted employment figures.

We did that and found something pretty remarkable. Here's how the numbers changed from April to May 2026 for both younger and older teens:

• Younger teens (Age 16-17): Decrease of 27,000 to 1,744,000.
• Older teens (Age 18-19): Increase of 107,000 to 3,528,000.

At this time of year, the BLS' seasonal adjustment is designed to account for the summer surge in teen employment levels. The seasonally adjusted data shows employers hiring older teens at rates similar to slightly higher than what they have in recent years. But the data also shows employers are not hiring anywhere near as many younger teens as would be expected from the summer seasonal pattern for this age group.

Media reports have noted that the summer job season for teens is among the toughest on record, but have missed this vital difference. The following excerpt from one of the reports tries to explain why that is:

Challenger, Gray & Christmas suspect that AI and automation, older workers staying in jobs longer, and overall economic uncertainty due to things like inflation and oil prices could be culprits.

The rise of AI means some entry-level jobs are being replaced. Some people are even getting more comfortable with AI customer service agents....

But it’s not just AI that teens have to compete with. Older workers are often competing for the same part-time or seasonal rules as teens. Adults, though, have more experience and more time availability throughout the year. According to a report from the Society for Human Resource Management, on average, nearly one in five people ages 65 and older participated in the labor force as of April 2025.

To top it all off, persistent inflation and high oil prices are making costs higher for restaurants and retailers — places that you teens might typically get a summer job — leaving less room in the budget for summer hires.

Let's take Challenger, Gray & Christmas' thinking apart. If AI were the culprit, it would be affecting jobs for all teens, not just those affecting younger teens.

Ditto for job competition from "geezers" (aka "Americans Age 65 or older). While older teens might have more job experience than younger teens, they would still be at a great competitive disadvantage if geezers were coming for teen job, lacking the education, experience, and long lifetime accumulation of skills and training that this demographic has.

That leaves the "inflation and high oil prices" explanation as the only one of Challenger, Gray & Christmas' hypotheses that would have any impact on the employers who might otherwise seek to hire younger teens.

For all practical purposes, these factors should also negatively affect the hiring of older teens, but that's where the small advantage this demographic has over their less educated, less experienced, and less skilled competition comes into play. We think it's much more likely employers are favoring older teens over younger ones for the jobs they have available, which is why older teens are doing better than younger teens in getting jobs so far this summer.

Will that dynamic continue as summer hiring fully ramps up? Only time and new data will tell, and unlike Challenger, Gray & Christmas, we drill down into the teen jobs numbers far enough to rule out hypotheses that don't hold water.

We'll even do it for our own hypotheses. We don't get to do it often, but our favorite way to start an article is with the words "we were wrong". You'll just need to keep tuning in to see if and when we do!...

Reference

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Labor Force Statistics (Current Population Survey - CPS). [Online Database]. Accessed: 5 June 2026.

Image Credit: Microsoft Copilot Designer. Prompt: "An editorial cartoon of a high school student who is having trouble finding a job". We tweaked the image so the Help Wanted sign indicates 'MUST BE 18 OR OLDER'. With the jobs number for younger teens being similar to May 2025's figures, we're re-using our cartoon from that month since it's on point.

Although it hit a new record high close on Tuesday, the S&P 500 (Index: SPX) went on drop 2.6% from its previous week's close to fall to 7,383.74 on Friday, 5 June 2026.

Investors reacted negatively to the May 2026 U.S. employment situation report, which was stronger than expected. That unexpected strength boosted the likelihood the U.S. Federal Reserve will act to hike short term U.S. interest rates in both 2026 and 2027.

That change in rate hike expectations prompted investors to transfer their forward-looking focus from 2026-Q4, to which it had just shifted a week earlier, back to the current quarter of 2026-Q2. That timing coincides with the upcoming two-day meeting of the Fed's rate setting Open Market Committee on 16-17 June 2026, which because of the change in rate hike expectations has taken on greater importance to investors of how Federal Reserve officials will signal their future rate setting actions.

The latest update of the alternative futures chart shows this new Lévy flight event with the S&P 500's trajectory moving from the projected path associated with investors focusing on 2026-Q4 to the lower end of the range associated with investors looking to 2026-Q2 as they make current day investment decisions.

As for what rate expectations investors now have, the CME Group's FedWatch Tool indicates a quarter point increase in the Federal Funds Rate most likely hitting on 9 December (2026-Q4), but with better than even odds it will be followed by another quarter point rate hike in 2027, which hadn't been in the FedWatch tool's outlook.

The stronger-than-expected jobs report wasn't the only news investors had to absorb during the trading week that was. Here are the week's market-moving headlines:

Monday, 1 June 2026

• Signs and portents for the U.S. economy:
• US manufacturing activity at four-year high, supply constraints growing
• Oil closes up more than 4% on halt in US-Iran talks, risk of blockades
• US crude exports hit record high in May as Iran war tightens global oil supplies
• Bigger trouble, stimulus developing in China:
• China factory activity stalls in May as demand weakens
• Factories face soaring costs as Iran war causes supply shocks
• China's crude oil imports slump, but it's economics not altruism
• Global smartphone market faces record annual decline as chip crunch worsens
• Former BOJ minion claims interest rate hike is needed for Japan's economy to avoid stagnating:
• Japan risks return to stagnation without early rate hike, ex-BOJ policymaker says
• ECB minions getting excited to hike Eurozone interest rates:
• ECB must act on inflation sooner rather than later, policymaker Pereira says
• Wall St ends higher, boosted by tech gains, US-Iran peace hopes
• Wall Street ended higher as investors kept a close eye on U.S.-Iran developments

Tuesday, 2 June 2026

• Signs and portents for the U.S. economy:
• US job openings rise by the most since 2021; hiring weak amid economic uncertainty
• Oil falls more than 1% after Trump says talks with Iran ongoing
• Fed minions start selling rate hike:
• Fed's Hammack says rates may need to rise if rising inflation does not abate
• Bigger trouble, stimulus developing in China:
• China seen tapping deeper into oil stockpiles as imports hit decade-low
• China allows output cuts by some money-losing independent refiners, sources say
• BOJ minions told to clarify interest rate plans after next rate hike, standing by to bail out Japan's currency:
• BOJ should signal clear rate path after June hike, SMFG markets chief says
• Japan tempers yen warnings despite renewed slide towards key 160 level
• Bigger trouble developing in Eurozone:
• Euro zone firms struggle to raise prices despite Iran war shock
• Euro zone inflation jump reinforces case for June rate hike
• Euro Area Inflation Tops 3.0% For First Time Since 2023, Cementing ECB Rate Hike
• Euro fails to nab big market share from dollar despite erratic US policy, report shows
• Euro will only gain bigger role with deliberate policy action, says ECB's Cipollone
• Key ECB policymaker quotes in run-up to June 11 policy meeting
• China's carmakers expand their presence in Europe
• Wall Street closed higher as eyes continued to focus in on U.S.-Iran talks
• Wall St ends modestly higher as AI zeal overcomes Middle East jitters

Wednesday, 3 June 2026

• Signs and portents for the U.S. economy:
• US service sector growth picks up in May; businesses face higher prices for inputs
• Oil settles lower on hopes for Iran deal following Israel-Lebanon ceasefire
• Fed minions at odds among themselves, not sure if policy is in 'right place' or 'a bit loose'; new chief minion being looked at to sort them out:
• Fed policy is in 'right place' amid inflation risks, Williams tells Yahoo Finance
• Fed policy 'a bit loose,' need it to be 'restrictive,' Logan says
• Fed's Logan says a rate hike may be needed to beat inflation
• Fed's Warsh inherits economy increasingly squeezed by inflation
• Mixed growth signs developing in China:
• China services activity grows at fastest pace in three months
• China's real estate funk drags down yet another sector: property service providers
• BOJ minions getting ready to prop up Japan's currency and Japan's interest rates again:
• Yen falls to 160 level, prompting warnings from Japanese officials
• BOJ's Ueda pivots to inflation-fighting mode, clearing path for steadier hikes
• India's central bank gearing up to support India's currency:
• Rupee dented by oil price jump, equity weakness; likely RBI intervention caps losses
• Exclusive: India tightens checks on overseas flows as currency pressure mounts, sources say
• Bigger trouble developing in Eurozone:
• EU could lose 1.3 million jobs due to energy price surge linked to Iran war, Commission says
• ECB minions say world has caught gold fever, worry about AI risk to Eurozone banks:
• ECB names gold top reserve asset
• ECB to ask banks for targeted measures to counter AI risk
• Wall Street ends lower as oil prices, yields perk up
• Wall Street ends lower as Middle East tensions escalate

Thursday, 4 June 2026

• Signs and portents for the U.S. economy:
• US screwworm case puts ranchers on alert, rallies cattle prices
• Oil prices fall 3% on report Trump reluctant to restart Iran war
• Wall Street banks and CEOs promote SpaceX in flashy events with BofA, Morgan Stanley, JPM events planned
• Fed minions say they're thinking about next move for U.S. interest rates, don't see AI having effect on inflation:
• Fed's Schmid says choice is between patience and rate hikes to tamp down inflation
• Fed's Daly says AI is not for now driving inflation up or down
• Boston Fed paper says Fed can concentrate on inflation risks amid energy shock
• New York Fed finds elevated global supply chain pressure in May
• Bigger stimulus developing in China:
• China to cut domestic retail gasoline, diesel prices from June 5
• BOJ minions getting ready to hike Japan's interest rates again:
• Bank of Japan expected to raise rates this month, sources say
• India's government taking steps to bail out nation's currency:
• India to drop capital gains tax for foreign investors in government bonds, source says
• Dow claims record closing high, S&P 500 advances; chip selloff weighs on Nasdaq
• Dow jumps to fresh record as chip stocks slide
• Dow surges nearly 900 points for record close as investors rotate away from tech names
• Wall Street banks and CEOs promote SpaceX in flashy events with BofA, Morgan Stanley, JPM events planned

Friday, 5 June 2026

• Signs and portents for the U.S. economy:
• Resilient US economy posts third straight month of strong job growth
• Slower, but steady US job growth anticipated in May
• US rate futures lift rate hike odds in December after strong jobs report
• S&P refuses to waive rules for megacap IPOs ahead of SpaceX listing
• Why SpaceX faces a longer wait to join S&P 500
• Oil prices fall on mounting hopes for de-escalation in US-Iran War
• India's central bank acts to bail out India's currency:
• VIEW India holds rates, ramps up support for faltering rupee
• Rupee posts biggest daily gain in 2 months as RBI ramps up currency defence
• ECB minions ready to trash perfect monetary policy, will hike Eurozone interest rates:
• ECB June hike a done deal, another likely in September, economists say
• S&P 500 slides as strong jobs report sparks tech selloff
• Wall Street ends sharply lower as chips slide, jobs data fuels rate hike fears
• Chip slump erases $1.3 trillion in stock market value
• Nasdaq-100 falls more than 4% as Arm, AMD, and Micron lead the broad tech selloff
• Gold falls about 3% as robust US jobs data cements bets on higher rates

The Atlanta Fed's GDPNow tool's estimate of real GDP growth for the U.S. economy in the current quarter of 2026-Q2 dropped to +3.0%, falling back from the +3.8% it projected a week earlier.

Image credit: Microsoft Copilot Designer. Prompt: "An editorial cartoon of a suit wearing Wall Street bull and bear who are screaming after reading a news ticker that says 'JOBS REPORT TOO GOOD RATE HIKE LIKELY'".

Summer is here. For anyone who lives where excessively high temperatures and/or humidity combine to make the season a miserable one, that can mean a lot of sweating and personal discomfort.

Air conditioning technology makes many of these places tolerable, but that comes with a price. Because most these machines are big and bulky, using them to keep cool means having to spend a lot of time indoors. Because they use a lot of electricity, even so-called portable air conditioners are designed to be continuously plugged in to cool single rooms. They're only portable in the sense you can move them from one room to another.

But what if you could have your own personal battery-powered air conditioner? One you could take everywhere you go, including outside? Core77 describes one such product now being produced by Sony:

To stay warm in a cold space, you can either heat the entire space, or save money on energy by throwing on extra layers. But there is no opposite money-saving tactic for staying cool in a hot space.

Sony engineer Kenji Ito aims to change that. He invented the Reon Pocket, Sony's wearable personal air conditioner. It's essentially a tiny heat pump that creates temperature differentials using semiconductors. It's worn at the base of one's neck, and a metal plate resting against the skin transmits cool. While it won't change your body's core temperature, the device can cool your local skin temperature by an astonishing 25°F / 14° C.

The following video introduces Sony's wearable air conditioner:

The device works by using the Peltier effect, which uses electricity to generate temperature differences in circuits made of different materials, with one material becoming warmer as the other becomes colder. Or vice versa, since the heating/cooling effect on the materials can be reversed with the throw of a switch.

The device is already on the market in Japan and Europe, and will become available in the U.S. through Sony's online store sometime this summer. At this writing, U.S. pricing has yet to be set, but a unit will likely cost around $350 based on the announced pricing for Europe.

New homes are back at the upper threshold of affordability for the typical American household.

That comes one month after new homes reached their most affordable level of the last four years. Higher mortgage rates and a higher sale price for the typical new home sold in the U.S. pushed new homes back up to the upper affordability threshold for the typical American household.

Here are the driving numbers behind that assessment:

• Median new home sale price: $422,500
• Median household income: $87,444
• Average 30-year conventional fixed mortgage rate: 6.33%

For a household at the exact middle of the U.S. income spectrum, the average mortgage payment for a new home purchased at the national median sale price with zero-percent down would consume 36% of the household's monthly income in April 2026.

This value sits at the upper affordability threshold mortgage lenders traditionally use to determine whether to extend a mortgage to new home buyers. Set by the 28/36 rule, an monthly mortgage payment that consumes 36% of a household's income means that the median new home sold in April 2026 is something that a household earning the U.S. median income can just barely afford, provided they have no other debts.

The following chart illustrates how April 2026's level of relative affordability for new homes compares with the affordability for every month since January 2000:

While the average 30-year conventional fixed rate mortgage ticked up from 6.18% to 6.33% from March to April 2026, the increase in the median new home sale price from a revised level of $391,100 in March to $422,500 played a larger role in making new homes more unaffordable during the month.

Looking forward to May 2026, the average interest rate for a 30-year conventional mortgage continued increasing, rising to 6.44%. Since we expect median household income will continue increasing, whether new homes move back toward greater affordability or become less affordable in May 2026 will hinge on how their median sale price changes.

References

U.S. Census Bureau. New Residential Sales Historical Data. Houses Sold. [Excel Spreadsheet]. Accessed 28 May 2026.

U.S. Census Bureau. New Residential Sales Historical Data. Median and Average Sale Price of Houses Sold. [Excel Spreadsheet]. Accessed 28 May 2026.

Freddie Mac. 30-Year Fixed Rate Mortgages Since 1971. [Online Database]. Accessed 11 May 2026. Note: Starting from December 2022, the estimated monthly mortgage rate is taken as the average of weekly 30-year conventional mortgage rates recorded during the calendar month.

Image credit: Hand holding a green key to a house photo by Jakub Żerdzicki on Unsplash.

Motio Research's initial estimate of U.S. median household income for April 2026 is $88,290. This value represents a $20 (or 0.02%) decrease from the firm's initial estimate of $88,310 for March 2026.

This month, Motio Research updated the visuals that accompany its monthly median household income series. The firm is now presenting an interactive chart of its nominal median household estimates for each month from January 2010 through April 2026. Here's a screenshot of the firm's chart presenting that data, which we encourage you to click through to their site to check out the non-inflation adjusted data for each month in the series.

The interactive chart captures revisions to Motio Research's previous median household income estimates. For March 2026, for example, the firm has revised its estimate of the income earned by a U.S. household at the exact middle of the U.S.' income spectrum down by $690 (-0.8%) to $87,620 from its initial estimate.

The firm has also modified how it presents its U.S. Real Median Household Income Index. These estimates are based on income data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau through its monthly Current Population Survey. Motio Research uses this survey data to create its raw monthly estimates, which it then adjusts to account for the effects of seasonality and inflation. Each month's data is now presented as a rolling three-month average, with the data for the three month period of January through March 2010 assigned a value of 100.

The change helps smooth out some of the month-to-month noise in the data series, making it easier to identify the level, direction, and momentum of the firm's inflation- and seasonality-adjusted measure. The following screenshot of Motio Research's interactive chart shows how this index has changed from March 2010 (covering January through March 2010) through April 2026 (covering February through April 2026):

The U.S. Real Median Household Income Index has a value of 119.7 for April 2026. Motio Research's data indicates median household income has been on a generally rising trend since May 2025, which has resumed following a small dip between December 2025 and February 2026.

The firm also presents a nominal and inflation-adjusted visualization of the year-over-year percentage change in median household income and also provides a chart revealing the ratio of the incomes of the 75th and 25th percentile households. This latter measure indicates how evenly income gains or losses are spread among the upper and lower portions of the U.S. income spectrum.

If you can't tell, we're fans of their work!

Analyst's Notes

Political Calculations produces median household income estimates using other original data sources that complement Motio Research's survey-based estimates. Political Calculations' initial estimate of median household income in April 2026 is $87,444, a $280 (+0.3%) increase above our initial estimate of $87,164 for March 2026.

The following chart presents our estimates of U.S. median household income, both adjusted for inflation (blue) and not-adjusted for inflation (red) for each month from January 2000 through April 2026.

Political Calculations' April 2026 estimate is $846 (or 1.0%) below Motio Research's initial estimate of $88,290 for April 2026.

The BEA's aggregate wage and salary income data we use in generating our median household income estimates saw substantial downward revisions for the months of October 2025 (-0.33%), November 2025 (-0.55%), December 2025 (-0.67%), January 2026 (-0.67%), February 2026 (-0.72%), and March 2026 (-0.79%).

These downward revisions represent the BEA capturing the zeroing of income of millions of foreign-born individuals, who ranked among the lowest income earners in the U.S. According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, some three million foreign-born individuals in the U.S. have exited the U.S. since January 2025, with 2.2 million taking advantage of cash and travel incentives to self-deport. The BEA's aggregate income data has lagged the changes affecting the bottom of the U.S. income distribution, which we think is a significant contributor to the rise of median household income given how the math of median numbers works.

References

U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Table 2.6. Personal Income and Its Disposition, Monthly, Personal Income and Outlays, Not Seasonally Adjusted, Monthly, Middle of Month. Population. [Online Database (via Federal Reserve Economic Data)]. Last Updated: 28 May 2026. Accessed: 28 May 2026.

U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Table 2.6. Personal Income and Its Disposition, Monthly, Personal Income and Outlays, Not Seasonally Adjusted, Monthly, Middle of Month. Compensation of Employees, Received: Wage and Salary Disbursements. [Online Database (via Federal Reserve Economic Data)]. Last Updated: 28 May 2026. Accessed: 28 May 2026.

Image credit: U.S. Census Bureau. We modified the public domain image to make it more generally applicable beyond reporting the median household income from 2022.