Valorie Rice, Senior Business Information Specialist and
Shaw Zeider, Student Researcher
Current data releases as of 2 September 2022
August was the first time this year that Arizona bankruptcy filings were higher than the same month last year. There were 850 bankruptcies in Arizona during August compared to 826 in August of last year, an increase of 2.9%. August total bankruptcies were up over the year in both Phoenix and Tucson offices as well as for Chapter 11 (reorganization) and Chapter 13 (individual debt adjustment). Yuma office bankruptcies were lower than the same period last year. Year-to-date filings are still down 13.1% in the state and down 13.1% for the Phoenix office, down 9.1% for the Tucson office and down 30.6% for the Yuma office.
Arizona was second only to Florida in house price appreciation for the second quarter 2022, with the one-year change in prices at 25.5% for the state. Florida house prices increased 29.8% during the same period based on Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) purchase-only data released August 30. All 50 states and the District of Columbia had increases in house prices with the lowest being 5.2% in the District of Columbia. House prices nationally continued to rise in the second quarter 2022, up 17.7% over the year. FHFA also provides data for metropolitan areas for an all-transactions index which includes purchases and refinance mortgages. Arizona metropolitan areas home price increases ranged from 20.1% in Sierra Vista-Douglas to 30.4% in Phoenix.
U.S. employment increased at a slower rate in August, adding 315,000 nonfarm payroll jobs after an increase of 526,000 in July. Professional and business services, health care, and retail trade were the sectors with the largest job gains for the month. The unemployment rate moved up to 3.7% from 3.5% in July. The labor force participation rate increased to 62.4%, which is still 1.0 percentage points lower than it had been in February 2020 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics September 2 release.
Phoenix house prices gained 26.6% over the year in June based on the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Price Index released August 30. Tampa (35.0%), Miami (33.0%) and Dallas (28.2%) had the top gains in house prices for the month. Nationally, the annual gain in house prices for June lowered to 18.0% compared to 19.9% the month before. The 20-city composite posted an annual gain of 18.6% compared to 20.5% in May. Minneapolis was the metropolitan area with the lowest one-year change in house prices for the fourth month in a row at 10.4% for the month.
Real GDP decreased at an annual rate of 0.6% in the second quarter of 2022 based on the second estimate by the BEA. This is compared to the first estimate of 0.9%. The update primarily reflects upward revisions to consumer spending and private inventory investment that were partly offset by a downward revision to residential fixed investment. This is an improvement from the first quarter, where GDP decreased by 1.6%. The smaller decrease reflected an upturn in exports and a smaller decrease in federal government spending that were partly offset by a larger decline in private inventory investment, a slowdown in consumer spending, and downturns in nonresidential fixed investment and residential fixed investment according to the August 25 Bureau of Economic Analysis release.
Arizona gained 22,900 jobs between June and July on a seasonally adjusted basis, based on the August 19 Bureau of Labor Statistics state level employment report. Nonfarm employment increased in 20 states, including Arizona, decreased in two states and was basically unchanged for all others. The Arizona seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for July stayed at 3.3% and the national unemployment rate edged down to 3.5%. Minnesota was the state with the lowest unemployment rate for the month at 1.8%. The highest unemployment rates were in the District of Columbia (5.2%) followed by Alaska and New Mexico with 4.5% each. For more information on Arizona’s July employment, see recent article “Arizona Posted Huge Job Gains in July.”
Yuma had the highest metropolitan area unemployment rate in the nation for the July at 18.4%, not seasonally adjusted. Based on the August 31 Bureau of Labor Statistics release, Yuma had the largest over-the-year rate increase (going up 1.7 percentage points) while El Centro, CA had the largest decrease (moving down 5.7 percentage points). Yuma and El Centro, CA were the only two metro areas with jobless rates larger than 10.0% for the month, while there were 91 metro areas with a rate of less than 3.0%. Seven metro areas shared the lowest jobless rate in the nation for July at 1.7% each: Burlington-South Burlington, VT; Portsmouth, NH-ME; Fargo, ND-MN; Mankato-North Mankato, MN; Rochester, MN; and Sioux Falls, SD. Arizona metropolitan area unemployment rates for the month were Flagstaff at 4.8%, Lake Havasu City-Kingman at 4.6%, Phoenix at 3.4%, Prescott at 3.4%, Sierra Vista-Douglas at 4.4%, Tucson at 3.9% and Yuma at 18.4%.
Arizona was among the states with an increase in the number of quits for June according to the August 17 State Job Openings and Labor Turnover (JOLTS) report. Quits are voluntary separations though do not include retirements or transfers. Nationally, the number of separations was little changed, as were both quits and layoffs or discharges. The job openings rate decreased in June nationally and only two states had increases, Georgia and Ohio. Most states were little changed (Arizona was among them) while 17 had decreases with the largest being in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.
