This article was originally published by Michael Snyder at The Economic Collapse Blog. 

We haven’t seen an economic shift of this magnitude in a long time.  Four years of “Bidenomics” absolutely devastated the U.S. economy, and that is one of the primary reasons why Kamala Harris lost the election.  The American people truly hate what has happened to the economy, and they are desperate for change. Unfortunately, our long economic slide just continues to get even worse.  In fact, we just got some new numbers that are simply staggering.

Let me start with the housing market.

On Thursday, we learned that pending home sales in the United States have dropped to the lowest level ever measured…

High mortgage rates and elevated home prices combined to crush home sales in January.

Pending sales, which are based on signed contracts for existing homes, dropped 4.6% from December to the lowest level since the National Association of Realtors began tracking this metric in 2001. Sales were down 5.2% from January 2024. These sales are an indicator of future closings.

Just think about this for a moment.

Pending home sales were not this low at any point during the Great Recession.

And pending home sales were not this low when everybody was being locked down during the pandemic.

Nobody can deny that the housing market is in a depressed state, and there is no indication that this is going to change any time soon.

Meanwhile, jobless claims spiked even more than expected last week…

First-time applications for unemployment benefits rose much more than expected last week, a likely indication of some “noisy” data, but also a potential worrisome hint that cracks may be forming in America’s long-solid labor market.

There were an estimated 242,000 jobless claims filed last week, according to seasonally adjusted data released Thursday by the Department of Labor. That’s an increase of 22,000 from the prior week’s tally and a figure that landed well above economists’ expectations for 220,000 claims.

It’s the largest weekly spike in claims in more than four months and the weekly claims — a proxy for layoffs — are at their highest level since early December, Labor Department data shows.

As I discussed the other day, we are witnessing mass layoffs all over the country right now.

So I expect jobless claims to continue to spike in the months ahead.

Of course, what is currently going on in Washington D.C. will just add fuel to that fire.  Last week, jobless claims in D.C. jumped another 26 percent…

In Washington, D.C., new claims totaled 2,047, an increase of 421, or 26%, according to numbers not adjusted for seasonal factors.

It appears that a tsunami of federal layoffs is just getting started, and so this is a developing story.

At the same time, we are being told that inflation “is moving in the wrong direction again”…

No matter what metric you’re looking at, US inflation is moving in the wrong direction again.

Whether it’s a house or a carton of eggs, price growth is once again intensifying across a broad range of indicators. Much of that has to do with the same supply and demand factors and labor-market pressures that led to the initial inflation surge in the pandemic, while planned tariffs from President Donald Trump are heightening concerns that prices will rise even more.

What a mess.

Last month, beef prices moved significantly higher once again…

It’s not just eggs getting expensive. Beef prices have also been on the rise, with executives at various companies noting in recent earnings calls that it’s creating significant challenges.

In January, prices for beef and veal rose 5.5%, outpacing the entire food-at-home category, which rose 1.9%, according to the Labor Department’s Consumer Price Index.

Courtney Schmidt, Sector Manager at Wells Fargo Agri-Food Institute, told FOX Business the uptick in beef prices is driven by tighter U.S. beef production with consistent consumer demand.

And egg prices have risen to absolutely absurd levels…

Shoppers are reeling from sticker shock as egg prices hit an all-time high at stores like Walmart, with some joking that they might need a loan just to afford breakfast, while other angry Americans have been caught stealing the product.

One frustrated customer took to X to vent about the soaring costs, revealing that in Bakersfield, California, a 60-pack of eggs now costs $43. “$9 – $15 a dozen. It’s ridiculous,” she wrote. “I have to take out a loan just to buy eggs.”

Overall, the USDA is projecting that egg prices will increase by 41 percent by the end of this calendar year…

Egg prices are already at an all-time high, and, according to a USDA estimate, they’re only likely to get more expensive as the year continues.

According to a US Department of Agriculture projection, egg prices are expected to increase by 41 percent this year.

Skyrocketing egg prices are largely the result of a widespread bird flu outbreak that forced a mass culling of egg-laying birds. With fewer birds, there are fewer eggs, and with scarcity comes increased cost.

I wish that I could tell you that things will soon get better.

But I can’t.

Every single day, more businesses that were once thriving are shutting their doors for good.

For example, the only factory in the town of Liberty, New York is permanently closing, and 287 workers will have to find something else to do with their lives…

PepsiCo will soon lay off 287 employees of a Frito Lay manufacturing plant in Liberty, New York, likely devastating the small upstate town of about 10,000 residents.

The employees, who were not represented by a union, will officially lose begin losing their jobs on May 21 with the layoffs expected to conclude on June 6, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) notice filed with the New York Department of Labor.

The Frito Lay factory, which produces PopCorners brand snacks, has employed hundreds of locals over its almost 30 years of operation.

Similar scenarios are playing out over and over again all over the nation.

And now enormous tariffs on Mexico and Canada threaten to cause yet another shockwave for the economy…

President Donald Trump on Thursday said his proposed tariffs on Mexico and Canada will go into effect March 4 and that China will be charged an additional 10% tariff on the same date.

The sweeping 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada had been paused on Feb. 3 for one month. But the Trump administration has recently sown confusion about whether they would go back into effect when the delays expired.

In a Truth Social post Thursday morning, Trump clarified that they would.

Sometimes people write to me and attempt to convince me that everything is just fine.

But does everything seem just fine to you?

Just look around.  Everywhere around us stores are being boarded up, restaurants and shutting down, factories are closing, businesses are laying off workers, delinquencies are spiking, families are going broke, prices are skyrocketing and debt levels are soaring.

This is what we have been warning about all these years.

The U.S. economy is coming apart at the seams, and those that refuse to acknowledge what we can all see are in a deep state of denial.

Our long-term economic slide really is threatening to become an avalanche, and I fully expect our economic numbers to get even worse in the months ahead.

Michael’s blockbuster entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written eight other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books, you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.