Mark Hamrick

22/08/2026

Some exciting news to share:

The Hamrick Brief website is live! I'll be updating the newsletter on Substack, of course. This is meant to help me stay connected with folks, and it also points to newsletter updates and my social media accounts.

Please check it out and share the news!

Economic news and analysis explained in plain English by Mark Hamrick

12/08/2026

What really matters about the latest news on inflation at the retail level? My focus is on consumers. And prices are up big time since January 2020. Worse, wages are not currently keeping pace. You can read more at The Hamrick Brief on Substack. Link below in comments.

10/08/2026

$100,000 used to mean you'd made it. Today, in some cities, it barely covers basic expenses.

Why does that gap feel so wide? I joined Jean Chatzky on the to talk about why the official numbers so often miss how people actually feel about their money.

There was a time when hitting a $100,000 salary meant you'd made it. These days, in some cities, it barely covers groceries — and there's a real reason

10/08/2026

Read Now in The Hamrick Brief on Substack:
7% pay premium for job switchers, the widest gap in a year, even as payrolls fell and hiring cooled. This week's Brief.
-Crypto exchanges: easy to use, hard to understand. Consumer Reports finds gamified trading, weak disclosures.
-More Americans borrowing to get by, on cards, savings, even payday loans.
-Groceries, on the credit card. What financing your grocery run really costs.
-The $1,565 computer that started it all. 45 years after IBM's first PC.
-Last word: Warren Buffett on holding periods. Does "forever" still work?

https://open.substack.com/pub/thehamrickbrief/p/the-7-pay-premium-for-job-changers?r=2gqyy&utm_medium=ios

06/08/2026

What’s the difference in pay commanded by job changers vs. job stayers? And how are they faring vs. inflation? A new number landed and it’s pretty amazing. I’m writing about it for The Hamrick Brief, on Substack.

04/08/2026

On our first trip to London nearly a decade ago, I made a transportation mistake I still laugh about.

We had timed tickets for Buckingham Palace, so I instinctively opened Uber. Within minutes, I realized our driver, who admitted he rarely drove in central London, was taking us the wrong way.

We got out and hailed one of London’s iconic black cabs, like one in this photo that I took last year.

Only later did I understand what distinguishes their drivers: years spent mastering “The Knowledge,” memorizing thousands of streets and landmarks to earn a taxi license.

My mistake was relying too much on a technology solution and not enough on human expertise.

Technology can be wonderful. But sometimes experience, judgment, and hard-earned knowledge should take priority over an algorithm, especially when far from home.

We're wrestling with this now in the tug-of-war between artificial intelligence and human labor.

Have you ever relied too heavily on technology, or worry that we're doing that today?

Read “Mark’s Mistake: Trusting the App Instead of the Expert” https://thehamrickbrief.substack.com/i/209367811/marks-mistake-trusting-an-app-instead-of-an-expert

03/08/2026

America's economy is shaped like a K, and nowhere is that clearer than in housing right now.

In West Palm Beach, as the graphic shows, the typical luxury home (the priciest 5% of that metro's market) sold for $4.51 million this spring, 8.9 times the price of a typical non-luxury home there, the widest luxury premium of any major metro in the country. Miami wasn't far behind at 8.8 times, up sharply from 7.6 a year ago, the fastest-widening gap in the whole report. Nationally, luxury homes now cost 3.6 times more than everyone else's, and Redfin says luxury prices are climbing roughly five times faster than the rest of the market this year.

I grew up in Coffeyville, Kansas. My wife Jeannie grew up in Niagara Falls, New York. Neither town has seen anything close to this kind of boom. Homes in Coffeyville sold for a median of just $62,463 in May, down 28% from a year earlier.

Since 1960, the national median home value has risen from $11,900 to $332,700—up 164 percent after inflation. Buffalo gained 32 percent after inflation, while Coffeyville lost 13 percent and Niagara Falls lost 28 percent. The numbers show how far these older industrial cities have fallen behind the national housing market.

They're all in the same country, but they're all very different housing markets. That's why we say all real estate is local.

That's the lead story in this week's Hamrick Brief: the epicenters of the K-shaped housing economy, and why the gap between them is widening.

Also in this week's issue: the air traffic controllers' strike that broke union power 45 years ago this week and still shapes today's labor market, and a timely reminder from Benjamin Graham about the biggest risk to your money, and it might not be the market at all.

You can read it at this Substackk link, the free newsletter platform. Better yet, please sign up so that you don't miss a single issue.

https://open.substack.com/pub/thehamrickbrief/p/why-housing-is-an-example-of-the?r=2gqyy&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

30/07/2026

Chat is now open on The Hamrick Brief, a direct line to talk about the economy and markets, no editor or algorithm in between. Free and paid subscribers can jump in and comment.

No deadline, no pressure. Just a request that we keep it civil and honest. Questions? Comments?

Today's thread as a possible starting point: mortgage rates just hit their highest level in more than a year. Subscribing is free.

Connecting the dots between economic data and everyday life — analysis, context, and clarity on what the economy means for you. Click to read The Hamrick Brief, by Mark Hamrick, a Substack publication with hundreds of subscribers.

29/07/2026

While some observers were betting on a rate increase, the Federal Reserve's decision was as expected, keeping the benchmark short-term rate steady. The target remains 3-1/2 to 3-3/4 percent.

At his news conference, Chairman Kevin Warsh sought to avoid giving a strong clue regarding the possibility of a future rate boost. At the same time, there was dissent in the 9-3 vote, with the minority favoring a quarter-point increase.

The official statement was largely unchanged, including the last line: "The Committee will deliver price stability". Will that translate to a rate increase?

The next scheduled meeting is set for mid-September. The futures market indicates that a rate boost is a near certainty by the end of the year and possibly as early as the next meeting.

Here's more at the link from The Hamrick Brief.

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