The Consumer
The household as an economic unit: where its income comes from and how it is shared, who is poor by which measure and how the safety net reaches them, what $22 trillion of spending buys, what is saved and who owns the wealth, the $18.8 trillion of borrowing with student loans as their own system, the credit system from the issuer's side and the unbanked's, the stores, why the data disagree, and the consumers abroad. Written as of October 2026, after the 2025 income and poverty report and the September retail-sales report, with the saving rate near 4% and household wealth at a record. Where the field argues, from whether work requirements work and whether the consumer is fine or failing to whether federal lending raised tuition and whether card rates should be capped, each side makes its case before the evidence. Opens with a market snapshot from one day's close, and its four worked examples run on October's numbers: three household budgets, a single parent's raise across the benefit cliff, a credit card's economics, and one retail-sales report read the way the markets read it.