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After a record economic expansion, the coronavirus pandemic sent the U.S. economy into a recession as unemployment soared to staggering heights. The country now faces urgent questions about how much stimulus is needed for reeling consumers and businesses, and what a recovery might look like.

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National

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A national lifeguard shortage will keep thousands of pools across the country closed or operating with reduced hours for the third summer in a row.

Why it matters: Memorial Day weekend is considered the official start of swimming season. Experts tell Axios they worry the shortage will mean a higher chance of drownings and pool injuries. 

About a third of more than 309,000 public pools are affected by the shortage, per estimates from the American Lifeguard Association.

This doesn’t include beaches, water parks and other venues, which also may have to trim hours, stay closed or operate with “no lifeguard on duty signs.”

What’s happening: The main problem is the pandemic “wiped the slate of certified lifeguards completely clean,” Bernard J. Fisher II, director of health and safety at the lifeguard association, told Axios.

The recertification of existing lifeguards, which is required every two years, could also contribute to this year's shortage.

Adam Katchmarchi, executive director of the National Drowning Prevention Alliance, said what scares him is some facilities will choose to operate when they don’t have enough safety staff, which will put their patrons more at risk. 

He also thinks a number of commercial pools will shut down if they can’t get enough lifeguards.

“One of the biggest risks is we’re losing some of our safer swimming environments for families over the summer,” Katchmarchi said.

The pandemic reversed longtime drowning trends, Katchmarchi said, which had been going down each year until 2020.

Nonfatal drowning injuries that were pool- or spa-related spiked 17% in 2021, a 2022 U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission report found. Hospitals reported treating 6,800 injuries of children under 15, compared to 5,800 injuries in 2020.

“Unfortunately, we can't say until we get probably five to six years’ worth of data that a new trend has been established, but all signs point that our drowning numbers are remaining steady post-COVID at this higher rate," Katchmarchi said.

State of play: Cities and states have been working to provide incentives to get a new crop of lifeguards.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis recently announced a new lifeguard training program that allocates more than $250,000 in grants to local governments to boost staffing at public pools. Each city is eligible for up to $20,000, Alayna Alvarez reports for Axios Denver.

A lifeguard hiring spree in Indianapolis, Indiana with $500 signing bonuses, has brought the lifeguards on staff to 170, up from 81 a year ago, Axios’ James Briggs reports.

Philadelphia’s lifeguard bonuses will be distributed at the end of the summer and the city also is offering college credit to Temple University students who become certified and work as city lifeguards.

The city of Phoenix says it is providing $3,000 in incentive pay with $500 on the first paycheck and the remaining $2,500 as a one-time payment at the end of the 2023 pool season.

In Texas, Austin Parks and Recreation Department officials have beefed up the pay structure for lifeguards, who can earn a minimum of $20 an hour in addition to bonus payouts.

George Gorman Jr., regional director of New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, told Axios that Gov. Kathy Hochul increasing the pay for lifeguards is expected to help dramatically.

Meanwhile, Seattle is closing three beaches and two pools for the summer because of a staffing shortage, Seattle Parks and Recreation spokesperson Rachel Schulkin told Axios’ Melissa Santos and David Chiu.

Zoom out: The lifeguard shortage has also led to canceled swim lessons because there’s not enough staff available, Fisher said.

“This is becoming a snowball effect. We're canceling the swimming classes and we're going to increase drownings because of it,” Fisher said. “We're not going to have individuals strong enough swimmers to become lifeguards down the road.”

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Memorial Day weekend: Best and worst travel times

have beefed up the pay structure for lifeguards

Lifeguard shortage drags on for third summer in a row

Memorial Day is considered the start of swimming season. But cities are still struggling with unfilled lifeguard positions.

Corporate VCs ride AI startup wave

Companies’ venture arms are rolling out efforts to get in on the current AI startup boom.

Artificial intelligence

From the Valley to D.C., Big Tech players like Facebook, Google and Amazon are under more scrutiny than ever as new technology develops and privacy and antitrust concerns grow in lockstep with companies’ ambitions.

Technology

Markets

Axios Markets

Car batteries are like wine fridges: They're never big enough. That's a real problem for anybody who hopes that electric vehicles will help decarbonize the planet and reduce pollution. 

Why it matters: EVs are extraordinarily heavy, and the larger their batteries, the heavier they become. That makes them more dangerous, increases pollution, minimizes decarbonization, and locks in a geopolitically fraught reliance on China. 

The big picture: Hybrid vehicles that are electric most of the time but can fall back to an internal-combustion engine when needed are a much more efficient use of battery resources.  

By the numbers: Toyota has what it calls the 1:6:90 rule. Its scientists have calculated that the amount of raw material needed to make a long-range EV could instead be used to make six plug-in electric hybrid vehicles or 90 hybrid vehicles. 

"The overall carbon reduction of those 90 hybrids over their lifetimes is 37 times as much as as single battery EV," they write.   

Between the lines: Heavy EVs might not have tailpipe emissions, but they still cause pollution, from eroding tires, road dust and brakes.

They're also significantly more lethal when they collide with pedestrians or cyclists. 

The bottom line: "Government policy should match a limited battery supply to where it can have the maximum impact for consumers and the environment," writes auto journalist Edward Niedermeyer. That means a lot more hybrids and e-bikes — and a lot fewer EVs with 500-mile ranges. 

Electric vehicles have an efficiency problem

Illustration of car with batteries on top

Electric vehicles

Ominous forecasts about the impact of climate change serve as the backdrop for the world — led by U.S. lawmakers and companies — to debate big action on the problem, which could upend energy systems and our way of life.

Energy & Environment

Negotiating to raise the debt ceiling is a dangerous game, because there's always the possibility that the negotiations will fail. If they do, the government could continue borrowing regardless — and put the debt ceiling permanently in the rear-view mirror. 

Why it matters: President Biden has a constitutional obligation to continue borrowing money to service the outstanding national debt and make other payments mandated by Congress. By allowing the national debt to rise above the level set by the debt ceiling, Biden would be obeying that obligation and effectively preventing all future debt standoffs. 

The big picture: The debt ceiling will probably be raised this time around, just as it has been raised every other time it has been reached. But "probably" isn't "certainly," and if you run a debt-ceiling showdown enough times, you will end up with a default eventually. 

JPMorgan analysts this week put out a research note saying that the probability of reaching the X-date had reached 25%. If that's the new normal, then there's an objectively unacceptable 70% chance of some kind 0f debt default over the course of the next four showdowns.   

The other side: If the U.S. successfully manages to continue borrowing money and paying its debts even with total debt higher than the mandated ceiling, that could restore its AAA credit rating from Standard & Poor's and entrench its status as the world's preeminent risk-free borrower.  

Between the lines: Raising the debt ceiling is a "kick the can down the road" act, just like selling premium bonds or selling gold. It buys time, but it doesn't address the fundamental problem. 

Breaching the debt ceiling, by contrast, is a one-and-done move. Once Treasury proves itself willing and able to borrow more than the debt ceiling, it need never fear the ceiling again. 

Where it stands: "The Constitution gives Congress the power to make contracts," write sovereign-debt experts Anna Gelpern, Adam Levitin and Stephen Lubben. "It does not give Congress the power to renege on these contracts."  

"Treasury is bound to pay," they conclude. "If Congress does not raise enough revenue to pay for appropriated commitments, then the president’s only choice is to borrow."    

In other words: The president's constitutional obligation to borrow the money trumps any debt-ceiling obligation not to.

Be smart: "Once the debt ceiling has been reached, anything the president does is illegal," notes international economic strategist Patrick Chovanec.

A lawsuit alleging the new borrowing was illegal would surely make it to the Supreme Court in record time. But even if the justices were broadly sympathetic to the plaintiff and found against the executive, the remedy would not be to force the U.S. to default on its debt.

The bottom line: Any borrowing above the debt limit would be unauthorized by Congress. But so long as the debt continued to be issued and serviced, markets wouldn't mind. In fact, they would probably welcome a world in which congressional dysfunction no longer threatened the full faith and credit of the United States.   

The case for breaching the debt ceiling

Illustration of the US Treasury seal ripping through a hundred dollar bill.

Debt ceiling

This is a chart you almost never see — and it helps explain why active fund managers like Cathie Wood were very unlikely to be overweight Nvidia going into the current rally.     

Between the lines: The general rule of successful tech stocks is that they start out with high PE ratios as investors hope for future growth, and those ratios then fall as earnings rise. 

The bottom line: The AI hype machine has propelled Nvidia's valuation to levels that even many Series A startups would envy.  

Chart: Nvidia stock's astonishing rise

Nvidia

Whats Next

Axios What's Next

Even as travelers gripe about sky-high ticket prices, air travel — especially the international variety — is way up as we head into summer.

The big picture: With COVID-19 restrictions largely a thing of the past, travelers are itching to dust off their passports. 

There's especially high demand for tickets to Japan, leading to higher ticket prices, says Clint Henderson, managing editor of travel site The Points Guy.

China, too, has opened back up — but airlines haven't yet restored their pre-pandemic service levels, meaning there's a shortage of available seats.

Plus, the U.S. dollar is currently weak against many other currencies, effectively hiking the cost of buying goods and services abroad.

"International travel has fully rebounded and then some," Henderson tells Axios.

By the numbers: U.S.-to-Europe tickets are averaging $1,300 round trip, per deal-spotting site Hopper — a 50% jump from last year.

Tickets to Asia, meanwhile, are up a staggering 70% compared to pre-pandemic figures, averaging nearly $2,000 round trip.

This'll be the most expensive Memorial Day weekend for international travel in at least a half-decade, Hopper says.

What they're saying: "While U.S. travelers are returning in droves to popular destinations including New York and Cancun, the biggest year-over-year increases are for longer-haul destinations including Auckland, Hong Kong and Osaka," per travel booking site Expedia's summer forecast. 

Hopper says the top international destinations are London, Paris and Tokyo, plus "newly open Asian destinations," including South Korea and Shanghai.

Between the lines: Airlines are opting for bigger planes but fewer overall flights this summer amid an air traffic controller shortage and aircraft production issues.

United Airlines COO Toby Enqvist called this summer's travel season the airline's Super Bowl.

Yes, but: The rise of emerging low-cost airlines, such as Norway's Norse Atlantic Airways, is helping to suppress prices in the markets they serve, Henderson says.

Be smart: If you're looking for a (relatively) cheap international getaway from the U.S., Henderson recommends Southeast Asia — particularly Thailand and Indonesia — where your dollar goes further.

The dollar is also "insanely strong" against Turkey's lira right now, he adds. (The U.S. State Department, however, cautions against visiting regions close to or along the Syrian border.)

And domestic airfare is getting cheaper, with the average round-trip ticket at $273, per Hopper, down 26% from last year.

The bottom line: "Last summer was predominantly a domestic travel summer. This summer is all about international travel," Hopper's consumer travel expert Lindsay Schwimer tells Axios. 

"Americans are really eager to get out there and take those bucket list trips."

It's the summer of international travel — despite high prices

"International travel has fully rebounded and then some."

Illustration of Ben Franklin looking out of a plane window.

Air travel

The stock market's top story this past week — aside from the will-they, won't-they debt ceiling drama — was a gargantuan earnings report from chipmaker Nvidia.

The big picture: Huge numbers from its AI-centric data center unit catapulted its shares, which have trounced both the overall market and the largest names in corporate America over most of the last decade.

Why it matters: Nvidia's remarkable rise may represent the emergence of new American corporate giant. 

With a market value now more than $950 billion, it may soon join the trillion-dollar-market-cap club — the current members are just Apple, Microsoft and Amazon. 

State of play: Over the last 10 years, Nvidia's shares have risen more than 10,000%, the best performance of any company in the S&P 500 over that period.

That rise has created more than $940 billion in stock market wealth.

Reality check: That sounds incredible. And it is. But it's worth noting that it's possible that we're simply catching the company's performance at some sort of sugar-rush peak. 

For example, Tesla — at its peak in November 2021 — was up 19,000% over the previous decade. (About 10,000 percentage points of that gain have subsequently disappeared, as the shine rubbed off the shares.)

The big picture: Nvidia and some other semiconductor firms appear to occupy a remarkably lucrative spot in the American technology ecosystem. 

Their silicon serves as the picks and shovels of every high-tech gold rush that comes along, whether it's cloud computing, crypto or the AI hype that seems to be proliferating by the hour.

In other words, Nvidia benefits from the lofty investor expectations about the future, while simultaneously seeing growth in profits and sales today.

The bottom line: As Nvidia shareholders can tell you, that's a very good place to be.

Nvidia stock's AI-fueled rise puts it on trillion-dollar club's doorstep

It's knocking on the door of the trillion-dollar club.

A bar graph showing ten-year return of select stocks with NVIDIA heavily ahead of Tesla, Apple and Meta.

Ford's unexpected embrace of Tesla's charging technology dramatically escalates the battle for the future of electric vehicle (EV) charging — the next great Lightning vs. USB-C or VHS vs. Betamax-style standardization war.

Why it matters: EVs won't go mainstream until refueling them is as simple as filling up a gas-powered car. 

As two competing standards — Tesla’s favored NACS and CCS, used by most other EV makers — duel it out for supremacy, everyday drivers will be left confused and frustrated.

Catch up quick: Ford and Tesla announced Thursday that Ford EV owners will have access to more than 12,000 Tesla Superchargers in the U.S. and Canada starting early next year. 

The partnership is intended to make charging easier for existing Ford EV owners.

But the bigger news is that on future vehicles, Ford is pivoting away from the widely used CCS and will instead adopt Tesla's charging system, which until recently had been proprietary.  

What they're saying: "This completely throws a stick into the spokes of standardization," said Chargeway CEO Matt Teske, whose company aims to simplify the charging experience for consumers. 

"But from an EV owner's experience, this decision validates that Tesla's technical approach and design approach and ecosystem is actually better for drivers."

Tesla's cables and connectors are smaller, lighter and easier to manage than the bulky CCS cables. 

Plus, its Supercharger network is larger and widely regarded as more reliable than competing CCS networks, such as Electrify America, EVgo and others.

The big picture: Everyone wants a universal charging experience, no matter whose charger they plug into. 

The industry currently has that with CCS, which stands for "Combined Charging System." It was developed by engineering standards organization SAE and introduced in 2012. 

The exception was Tesla, which instead rolled out a proprietary network using a different connector. 

In November 2022, Tesla opened its EV connector design to other automakers, and gave it a new name — NACS, for North American Charging Standard (albeit "standard" in name only).

Only one niche player, solar car company Aptera Motors, had adopted Tesla's charging system before Ford's announcement.

Be smart: One reason Tesla opened up its network to other brands is to qualify for a share of the $5 billion the U.S. government is doling out to build a national charging network.

Tesla agreed in February to open a portion  of its Supercharger network to other EV brands by the end of 2024, but progress has been slow.

Ford owners will get access to more Tesla chargers by early next year, and will be able to use their Ford app, rather than Tesla's, to manage their charging sessions. 

Yes, but: Tesla owners aren't happy that they'll now have to jockey with non-Tesla EVs at already crowded Superchargers. 

What to watch: Whether other carmakers and charging companies shift toward Tesla's technology.

So far, no one else is jumping on the Tesla train. 

"GM believes that open charging networks and standards are the best way forward to enable EV adoption across the industry," a General Motors spokesperson said. 

"EVgo remains committed to electric vehicles for all, and serving all sorts of fast-charging cars on our network — Fords, Teslas and more — and we're looking forward to hearing more about this partnership," EVgo chief commercial officer Jonathan Levy tells Axios. 

The intrigue: Even Ford is being cagey about its future vehicles, saying "there will be a transition period" as it moves toward the Tesla standard.

"We're engineering for NACS starting in '25," spokesperson Emma Bergg tweeted. "Having both inlet ports is an option for us — but nothing more to share right now. More to come!"

Future vehicles might include an adapter that can be used on CCS chargers.

Ford CEO Jim Farley summed it up in a live Twitter Spaces discussion with Tesla CEO Elon Musk Thursday: "We're going into the second inning of a nine-inning game. It's not either-or. We need physical outlets."

The bottom line: It's a reminder that we're still in the early days of the EV movement, and that industry standards could evolve.

What Ford's backing of Tesla chargers means for the future of EVs

Ford EV owners will soon have access to more than 12,000 Tesla Superchargers.

Illustration of a hand holding an EV charger up to a car.

Closer

Axios Closer

Data: Reventure Consulting via the National Association of Realtors; Chart: Axios Visuals

Tens of thousands of real estate agents are giving up on the profession, thinning their pandemic-era ranks as the housing market comes back to earth. 

Why it matters: Realtors are on the ground floor of the real estate market, making them well positioned to notice when it's cooling off, thus providing less opportunity to cash in.

By the numbers: More than 60,000 have exited the sector over the last six months, according to data from the National Association of Realtors, analyzed by Reventure Consulting.

There were about 1.537 million in April, down from the all-time high of 1.6 million in October.

The big picture: Americans embraced home-selling jobs as soon as the pandemic began, powered by soaring prices and sales.

The number of Realtors went from 1.372 million in March 2020 to 1.463 million in March 2021, and 1.531 million in March 2022.

"Historically, anytime home prices really go up, Realtors flood into the market," Reventure Consulting CEO Nick Gerli tells Axios. "Lots of people view it as a way to make money — and often a quick buck — off the housing boom."

But, but, but: Sales of existing single-family homes fell 42% from their peak of 6.66 million in January 2021 to 3.85 million in April 2023.

Average annualized Realtor commissions hit a high of $84,355 in January 2021, but fell to $56,632 in April 2023, Reventure estimated.

Median prices declined by 4.1%, or $17,603, from April 2022 to April 2023, marking the "biggest drop on record in dollar terms and the largest decline since January 2012 in percentage terms," Redfin reported

With 30-year fixed-rate mortgage interest rates briefly topping 7% on average in late 2022, and remaining above 6% in 2023, some prospective buyers have been priced out of the market.

"Realtors can’t make as much money anymore," Gerli says. "We’re in the initial stages of Realtors quitting."

The other side: The number of real estate agents is still near its historical high — and the housing market has remained resilient despite falling sales and prices in certain markets.

The NAR noted in a statement that the number reached "the highest ever recorded" in late 2022, but the organization did not address the decline in recent months.

NAR added that it does not track Realtor commissions, but said, "Compensation is always negotiable and consumers are encouraged to talk to their broker to understand and agree upon how they expect to be compensated."

The bottom line: As the housing market booms, so does the real estate profession — and the reverse is also true.

Realtor boom ends as housing market slumps

Tens of thousands of realtors are giving up on the profession after their ranks swelled earlier in the pandemic when the housing market was soaring.

Real estate

A chart showing the number of Realtors rising during the housing market bubble of 2006-07 and then falling afterward, then rising during the pandemic and falling as the housing market cools off