The 5-Stat

The Week by the Numbers — May 26, 2026

Tuesday, May 26, 2026

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"The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin." — Ernest Hemingway, 1935

May 26, 2026

Top Forecasters Now See Q2 Consumer Inflation Running at a 6% Annual Rate — More Than Double What the Same Panel Projected Three Months Ago — With April CPI Already at a Near-Three-Year High of 3.8%

The Philadelphia Fed's Survey of Professional Forecasters, released this month, now sees headline CPI running at a 6% annualized pace in the second quarter — up from the 2.7% this same blue-ribbon panel penciled in back in February, before U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran sent energy prices soaring. The Fed's preferred gauge, PCE, is projected at 4.5% headline and 3.4% core, both well above the 2% target, and the April reading lands Thursday morning alongside the second estimate of Q1 GDP. April CPI already came in at 3.8%, the hottest in nearly three years, while wholesale prices ran at a 6% annual clip. New Fed Chair Kevin Warsh, sworn in this month, inherits an inflation problem that is getting worse rather than better — and a market increasingly betting his next move is a hike, not a cut.

Source: Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia — Q2 2026 Survey of Professional Forecasters / CNBC

$2.8B/day

The Federal Government Is Now Paying Roughly $2.8 Billion a Day in Interest on the National Debt — More Than $1 Trillion This Year, Officially and Sustainably Surpassing What It Spends on Defense

Net interest on the national debt will top $1 trillion in fiscal 2026, according to the CBO — about $2.8 billion every single day — and for the first time in a sustained way that bill is larger than the roughly $960 billion the government spends on defense. Interest is now the second-biggest line item in the federal budget, behind only Social Security, and it has roughly doubled since 2022 as rates climbed. With the war pushing long-term Treasury yields to multi-year highs, every additional basis point of yield piles billions more onto the tab, and debt held by the public just edged above the size of the entire U.S. economy for the first time since World War II. That's a big number, even by Washington standards.

Source: Congressional Budget Office / Peter G. Peterson Foundation / Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget

$17B/yr

China Agreed to Buy at Least $17 Billion of U.S. Farm Goods a Year Through 2028 at the Trump-Xi Beijing Summit — and Reportedly Offered to Help Reopen the Strait of Hormuz

Trump wrapped two days of meetings in Beijing on May 15 — the first visit by a sitting U.S. president to China in nearly a decade — and the White House came away touting a commitment from Beijing to buy at least $17 billion in American agricultural products annually through 2028, plus movement on rare earths and a framework to negotiate reciprocal tariff cuts. The two readouts didn't match perfectly: China emphasized tariff reductions the U.S. statement left out, and the thorniest issues over chips and rare-earth export controls got punted to working groups. Markets mostly shrugged. The more intriguing line buried in the coverage was an apparent Chinese offer to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz — which would matter rather more to American gas prices than another soybean order.

Source: The White House / NPR / CNBC

−30%

Bitcoin Is Down Roughly 30% From a Year Ago — Trading Near $76,800 This Morning — Even as Gold Has Soared to Records, Undercutting the "Digital Gold" Pitch in the Exact Conditions It Was Built For

Bitcoin changed hands around $76,800 Tuesday morning, down about $32,700 — close to 30% — from where it sat a year ago, with a market cap near $1.33 trillion. The timing is awkward for the asset's boosters: 2026 has delivered precisely the kind of geopolitical turmoil, dollar weakness, and inflation scare that the "digital gold" thesis was supposed to thrive on, and instead gold itself has done the thriving, up more than 60% year-to-date to record highs. When the stress test finally arrived, the supposed hedge sold off alongside risk assets while the actual hedge rallied. Some prominent holders have quietly headed for the exits.

Source: Fortune / CoinGecko / World Gold Council

21%

The Average Credit Card APR Is Stuck at 21% While Serious Delinquencies Just Hit a 15-Year High — and Total U.S. Household Debt Set a Fresh Record at $18.8 Trillion

The New York Fed's Q1 household debt report put credit card balances at $1.25 trillion — down seasonally from the holidays, but still up 5.9% from a year ago — with the share of card debt newly falling 90-plus days delinquent climbing to its highest level in roughly 15 years. The average APR on those balances is now 21%, and the typical rate on a new card offer is closer to 24%, which means an unpaid balance roughly doubles every three to four years if you just let it sit. Total household debt across mortgages, autos, student loans, and cards hit a record $18.8 trillion. The American consumer who keeps spending — and keeps this whole economy aloft — is increasingly doing it on credit that costs more than it has in a generation.

Source: Federal Reserve Bank of New York — Q1 2026 Household Debt and Credit Report / LendingTree