Lake County Ohio Weal

  How Household Debt Levels Have Evolved by  Anna Fleck, Oct 2, 2025 According to the latest data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), household debt in the United States amounted to around 69 percent of GDP in 2024. This ratio is higher than several other major economies (between 44 and 50 percent in Spain and Germany, respectively, 61 percent in France and 65 percent in Japan). In 2024, three countries had a household debt ratio in excess of 100 percent of GDP: Switzerland (125 percent) Australia (112 percent) and Canada (100 percent). Over the past thirty years, the level of household debt in relation to GDP has risen considerably in high-income countries. For all eight economies analyzed in the following infographic, the average debt-to-GDP ratio has risen from 51 percent in 1990 to 72 percent in 2024. Many advanced economies, with the notable exception of Germany and Japan, experienced a sharp peak in household debt to GDP in the early 2000s. This excess of person...

  U.S. Household Debt Not Higher than Usual by Felix Richter, Oct 8, 2026 Even though household debt in the U.S. is at a record high of $18.8 trillion and many families are struggling to cope with high prices of everyday essentials, Americans aren’t drowning in debt. In fact, the household debt burden, i.e. the average household’s debt service payments as a percentage of disposable income, is lower than it's been for most of the past two decades. In Q2 2026, American households used 11.1 percent of their disposable income to service their debts. That’s down from nearly 16 percent amid the financial crisis in 2008 and from an average of 12.1 percent between 2010 and 2019. And while the debt burden has gradually increased from 9.1 percent in Q1 2021, that was a historic low caused by many Americans using Covid stimulus payments to pay off debt and others temporarily lowering their payment obligations by taking advantage of loan forbearance programs. Looking back further than 2005, th...

  U. S. Consumer Credit: Who Owes What by Felix Richter, Dec 4, 2025 Looking at who owes what in the United States, middle-aged Americans hold the most household debt . In Q3 2025, people between 30 and 49 years old held roughly half of all household debt, with those in the 40 to 49 age group accounting for 26 percent of the total debt balance. Considering that mortgage debt accounts for 70 percent of total household debt, this doesn’t come as a huge surprise. After all, many people take out a mortgage to buy a house when they’re in their thirties. And even if they’re younger than that, they’ll likely pay off their mortgage through the next decades, which are people’s main earning years. Underlining this, those aged 18 to 29 only held 4 percent of mortgage debt in Q3 2025. Still among young adults, mortgage debt was the largest chunk of the overall debt balance, though to a lesser degree than for older age groups. Among those aged 18 to 29, mortgages accounted for 53 percent of ove...

  Many Americans Use Debt to Pay for Necessities by Felix Richter, May 19, 2026 Almost four years after inflation peaked in 2022, U.S. consumers are still feeling the aftershocks of the inflation crisis, which significantly eroded purchasing power and strained household budgets. Even as inflation moderated, permanently elevated price levels continue to weigh on affordability, helping explain why many Americans are turning to debt not for discretionary spending, but to cover essential costs. According to a recent YouGov survey, the most commonly cited reasons for taking on debt are paying for everyday necessities and covering unexpected expenses or emergencies, far ahead of lifestyle or leisure spending. Further results from the survey underscore how widespread this reliance on credit has become: 58 percent of Americans report having some form of debt, with credit cards, mortgages and auto loans among the most common forms of borrowing. Notably, 44 percent carry unsecured debt, and...

  U.S. Household Debt: A Rising Tide by Felix Richter, Oct 8, 2026 According to the New York Fed’s latest Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit, total household debt in the United States was virtually unchanged in the second quarter of 2026, decreasing by $13 billion – or less than 0.1 percent – to remain at $18.8 trillion. The decline – if we want to call it that – was the first since Q2 2020, when Covid lockdowns had resulted in a $76-billion drop in credit card debt, and a rare interuption in the near-constant rise of U.S. consumer debt balances. Despite the high level of debt, overall delinquency rates remain relatively low, though slightly elevated compared to the historic lows seen during the pandemic, when consumers were flush with cash from Covid stimulus checks . Looking at total consumer debt, 95.3 percent of the total balance was current (i.e. all payments made on time or less than 30 days late) at the end of Q2 2026, up from less than 90 percent in the midst of ...

  Presidents Party Up Against Poor Odds in Mid-term Election by Katharina Buchholz, Sep 2, 2026 The Republican Party is controlling the House, the Senate and the presidency at the moment, but the midterm elections coming up at in November have the power to change this Status Quo. Congressional and presidential approval are near all-time lows as the Trump administration's wars are proving unpopular, but the party is also up against a historical precedent at the same time: The president’s party rarely does well in the midterms. As seen in data by The American Presidency Project, there are only two presidents of the modern age who could expand their party’s showing in both chambers in the midterms or at least not lose ground: Bill Clinton during his second term and George W. Bush during his first, when he managed to flip the Senate in his favor while holding on to the House just one year after 9/11. Against these few success stories stands a long line of defeats. President Donald Tr...

  Fox News Continues to Lose Viewers by Katharina Buchholz,  Oct 7, 2026 Fox News launched in the U.S. 30 years ago, on October 7, 1996. The channel founded by Rupert Murdoch is considered a prime example of the rise of explicitly partisan news outlets in American television. Statista Consumer Insights data shows that the channel, now and then, appeals primarily to a right-wing conservative audience. This editorial stance has made it the most successful cable news channel in the US, according to Nielsen figures published by Adweek, but some of that shine is now fading. As of 2026, Fox News still reaches an average of just over two million viewers during prime time (8:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.). This puts the channel well ahead of competitors MSNBC and CNN. However, Fox News saw its reach dwindle continuously from reaching more than 2.7 million prime time viewers just two years ago. While competitors also lost viewers as linear TV is losing importance in general, both MSNBC and CNN...

  U.S. Party Affiliation: Countercyclical Tendencies by Katharina Buchholz, Oct 7, 2026 The midterms are a time when Americans usually let out their frustration with the party in power and the 2026 installment of the U.S. Congressional elections are no exception. They are even seeing a more extreme case of this phenomenon, as in 2026 so far, an average of 49 percent of Americans said they identified as Democrats or leaned towards the party, while only 39 percent said this about the Republican Party. This is according to surveys by Gallup. In 2024, the year of the last U.S. election and last year of presidency of Democrat Joe Biden, a slim majority of U.S. respondents surveyed said they favored Republicans. 2022, the year of the last midterms, saw a similar scenario. The change is more pronounced during Trump's first term in office, when 47-48 percent said they favored Democrats or leaned towards them in the midterms and prior to Trump's unsuccessful reelection bid vs. 41-43 pe...

  Democratic Party Affiliation Reaches Decade High by Katharina Buchholz, Oct 7, 2026 Ahead of the midterms, affiliation with the Democratic Party in the U.S. has risen to levels last seen in Q1 of 2009, the start of the presidency of Barack Obama. This is according to Gallup. In Q3 of 2026, 50 percent of respondents to surveys by the polling company said they identified as a Democrat or leaned towards supporting the party. Only 39 percent said this about the Republican Party . In Q1 of 2009, this gap had stood at 13 percentage points . Meanwhile, President Trump’s average approval rating stood at just 41 percent in the year so far, also according to Gallup. The midterms are typically a time when Americans voice their frustrations with the party in power and 2026 is shaping up to be no different. On the contrary, the decade-high in identification with Democrats might hint at an even bigger disadvantage than the president’s party usually already has in the midterms. At the same time...

  Heidi Schlumpf is Commonweal’s senior correspondent.  Can Catholic Voters Tip the Midterms?  A fter decades of campaigns to convince Catholics that the GOP is the only party for religious voters, the 2024 election seemed to confirm that to be Catholic in the United States is to be Republican. No longer was the Catholic vote evenly split, with any slight advantage helping to determine the winner—a reality that had led E. J. Dionne Jr. to quip a quarter-century ago: “There is no ‘Catholic vote.’ And yet, it matters.” Instead, by 2024, white Catholics were starting to resemble white Evangelical voters, with nearly two-thirds of white, weekly Mass-attenders opting for Trump. He even made significant inroads among Hispanic Catholic voters.  But while a majority of white Evangelicals continue to support the president, Catholic confidence in Trump has been tanking. Even before Trump started insulting Pope Leo this spring, support for his job as president had declined amon...

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  TOMATO GARDEN Our tomato gardening was particularly successful this year. We have 33 quarts of tomatoes. Twenty-one of these are whole tomatoes.  This is a particularly efficient way of canning tomatoes since only the skins and cores are removed. We were delighted that we have very few tomatoes where additional portions of the tomato had to be discarded. The remainder of the tomato quarts are juice; juice is also used as packing for the whole tomatoes.   COLD PACKED TOMATOS We were especially delighted that once we had satisfied our canning needs, we began to deliver tomatoes every weekday to the Saint Gabriel Food Panty. They were in left over boxes from West Market that we had from prior years where we had to buy tomatoes to meet our canning quota. The boxes are designed to carry ten pounds of tomatoes. In filling the boxes, we used only the best- looking blemish free tomatoes.  Our tomatoes are picked just before peak ripening then placed on our sun porch b...

  9. At all times and in every race God has given welcome to whosoever fears Him and does what is right.(85) God, however, does not make men holy and save them merely as individuals, without bond or link between one another. Rather has it pleased Him to bring men together as one people, a people which acknowledges Him in truth and serves Him in holiness. He therefore chose the race of Israel as a people unto Himself. With it He set up a covenant . Step by step He taught and prepared this people, making known in its history both Himself and the decree of His will and making it holy unto Himself. All these things, however, were done by way of preparation and as a figure of that new and perfect covenant, which was to be ratified in Christ, and of that fuller revelation which was to be given through the Word of God Himself made flesh.  "Behold the days shall come saith the Lord, and I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel, and with the house of Judah . . . I will giv...

In December 2024, Bishop Malesic of the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland published a pastoral letter on the internet.  It’s simply a letter about how we can draw closer to Christ, and there is no controversy in that,” Bishop Malesic said. “Let’s just pray 15 minutes a day; join a small group; invite your Catholic neighbors and friends together to have a cup of coffee and talk about ‘Why are you Catholic?’; ‘How can you become a disciple of Jesus?’ I think these are the basic things.” -from a media interview of the bishop A Flourishing Apostolic Church ============================ The bishop asks each Catholic of the Diocese to do five simple things: 1. Study and Discuss the Pastoral Letter "I invite every Catholic in the Diocese of Cleveland to read this pastoral letter in its entirety, as I have written it with each of you in mind. Make notes and underline your copy of the letter; Consider reading it more than just once. then, meet with some other Catholics who have read this letter...