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Americans continued to add more cash to their wallets in April, but found that it wouldn’t go as far as it did this time last year, according to data released on Friday, the New York Times reported. Personal income after taxes rose 0.3 percent last month, but fell 0.3 percent from the same month last year, reflecting the government’s 2021 distribution of stimulus checks. Adjusted for inflation, that measure of income was flat on the month but down 6.2 percent from last year. Spending climbed 0.9 percent over the month, but rose less in real terms as inflation continued to rise at its fastest pace in decades. The new numbers, from the Commerce Department, suggest that after two years of Covid restrictions, consumer appetites are robust despite goods shortages, overbooked airplanes and skyrocketing oil prices driving up the cost of everyday life. Economists increasingly project that momentum will slow as the Federal Reserve tries to cool the U.S. economy with interest-rate hikes and pandemic stimulus wanes.

Some supply strains in the US are easing, two years after a jump in demand started emptying shelves, snarling shipping and sowing the seeds of soaring inflation, Bloomberg News reported. The line of 25 cargo ships headed to Southern California’s two big ports is less than a quarter of the record backup in January, and spot container rates have dropped almost 20% this year. Flexport Inc.’s average transpacific shipping journey of 102 days is the quickest since November. Delays moving containers out of rail depots in Detroit and Memphis are shorter than they were in September, according to Hapag-Lloyd AG. But for every sign that a cooling economy will give supply chains room to rebalance, there’s a reason for skepticism. On the East Coast, ship bottlenecks are building again. The dwell time for containers is still climbing at rail yards near Chicago and Kansas City. At 9.6 days in April, the wait to move freight on rail from the adjoining ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach was the longest since July. The muddled picture is dividing observers. To some, the logistics links between factories and consumers will get stretched again when China allows factories to run full steam. Others sense the start of a longer-term weakening in the demand for goods as inflation erodes purchasing power and spending on services picks up.

Many Americans hoped this would be the first normal summer after two years of COVID-19 disruptions. A chronic labor shortage means it probably won’t be, according to Wall Street Journal reported. In Phoenix, less than half of the public pools are opening because the city can’t hire enough lifeguards, despite offering a $2,500 incentive payment. Trolley lines in coastal Maine that service beaches are shutting down for the summer due to a dearth of drivers. Across the country, restaurants in tourist destinations are operating on limited hours because they don’t have enough staff to stay open longer. The shortages push up labor costs, adding to inflationary pressure on items including airfares and beach menus. That could hold back consumer spending, the engine of the U.S. economy. The scarcity of available workers first emerged a year ago as COVID-19 vaccinations became available, businesses reopened and the economy rebounded. Many economists said more workers would join the labor force and fill open roles as COVID-19 fears eased and pandemic-related government stimulus faded. Now, shortages are not only persisting, in some cases they are deepening, at a crucial time for many businesses that depend on a summer boom. Two key factors are at play. First, employer demand for workers remains red-hot, with job openings double the number of unemployed individuals looking for work. Second, workers continue to switch jobs and quit lower-wage industries including restaurants at high rates, leaving businesses scrambling to fill vacant positions, economists say.

Declining enrollment and higher labor and supply costs have forced 327 nursing homes to shut down since 2020, and more than 400, or about 3% of certified homes in the U.S., are at risk of closing this year, according to the American Health Care Association, an industry lobbying group, Bloomberg News reported. “The industry itself is on the brink of collapse,” said David Gordon, who leads the distressed health care practice at law firm Polsinelli. The coming upheaval will also weigh on the so-called sandwich generation, those squeezed between caring for their children and aging parents, often while juggling their own careers. More than half of adults over 65 will need care for serious disabilities, according to a government report, and the U.S. Census Bureau expects that older adults will outnumber children by 2034 for the first time ever. The median occupancy rate at skilled nursing facilities, historically around 90%, is forecasted to be 77% for the year, according to a March report from AHCA. And most homes are losing money, with an expected median operating margin of negative 4.8%.

Questions remain about the pension funds of Colstrip employees as Colstrip operator and co-owner Talen Montana enters bankruptcy, the Billings Gazette reported. Talen Montana, in a lawsuit separate from its May 9 bankruptcy filing, says it’s still owed hundreds of millions of dollars from Talen’s Colstrip predecessor, PPL, and lacks adequate funds to cover pension and environmental remediation obligations. The lawsuit reiterates claims first made in a 2018 class action lawsuit filed by the Talen Montana Retirement Plan and Talen Energy Marketing in Rosebud County. The pension fund isn't fully financed, Talen confirmed Wednesday, though it expects it will be by 2025. Talen claims that PPL wrongfully took $733 million of the net proceeds from the sale of its Montana hydroelectric dams before spinning off its coal power properties to Talen Montana in 2015. PPL sold its Montana hydroelectric dams to NorthWestern Energy in 2014.

A California woman serving a life prison sentence for murder led a scheme to collect at least $2 million in unemployment benefits using stolen identities, including those of other incarcerated people, federal prosecutors said, the New York Times reported. The woman, Natalie Le DeMola, was one of 13 people charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud by collecting unemployment benefits using the personal information of people who were ineligible for the aid, the U.S. attorney’s office in the Central District of California announced on Tuesday. An unnamed prison official provided some of this personal information, such as birth dates and Social Security numbers, by collecting it from California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation databases, prosecutors said. According to a 39-count indictment, members of the ring filed hundreds of unemployment applications online between June 2020 and April 2021 using the personal information of people, including themselves, who were not eligible for benefits because they were incarcerated, retired or working. Prosecutors said the applications were mostly for pandemic unemployment benefits expanded to help people who had lost work because of the coronavirus pandemic.

A closely watched transportation report on Thursday said "the prospect of freight recession is now considerable" as the spending shift from goods to services accelerates, inflation erodes disposable income and interest rates climb, Reuters reported. Freight transportation is viewed as a barometer for the U.S. economy because when goods purchases fall, trucks and trains carry less cargo and business activity slows. "After a nearly two-year cycle of surging freight volumes, the freight cycle has downshifted with a thud," authors of the Cass Freight Index wrote in their April report. U.S. freight volumes fell in April from March and the year-ago period, according to the report produced by data company Cass Information Systems Inc. that is closely followed by analysts and investors. The shipments component of the index fell 0.5% year over year in April, following a 0.6% year-on-year increase in March. The April shipments component dropped 2.6% from March, and was 0.9% below the normal seasonal pattern.