National

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

Economy & Business

The World Health Organization isn't sweet on non-sugar sweeteners, the agency announced.

Driving the news: It advised against using sugar substitutes like Splenda, stevia and Sweet'n Low for weight loss — and warned about potential long-term health risks of too much intake.

The recommendation applied to everyone except those with diabetes. 

Why it matters: Artificial sweeteners have grown in popularity, largely because consumers consider them a healthier alternative to sugar.

However, the WHO advisory adds to growing concern about the potential negative long-term health impacts of sugar substitutes.

The big picture: The WHO recommendation comes on the heels of the agency's review of studies on non-sugar sweeteners, which found no clear consensus on whether they are effective for weight loss or maintenance.

The review referenced small-study data on the possible connection between sugar substitutes and an increased risk of Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and death.

Another article published in February suggested that the keto diet-friendly artificial sweetener erythritol could elevate cardiovascular health risk, but "it's not clear if it's actually the sweeteners causing the increase or another variable that wasn't controlled for," said registered dietitian Alissa Rumsey, author of "Unapologetic Eating."

That study follows other recent ones on artificial sugar that have raised concerns about glycemic response and heart disease.

An International Sweeteners Association spokesperson told Axios they're "disappointed that the WHO's conclusions are largely based on low certainty evidence from observational studies." 

The group shared a statement in response to the WHO guideline.

Between the lines: Part of the potential issue with sugar substitutes is that they could spur unhealthy eating behaviors.

Knowingly eating artificially sweetened foods might contribute to the "idea of 'it's better for me so I can eat as much as I want,'" Rumsey said.

Meanwhile, sugar substitutes aren't as satisfying as the real thing, so "for some people, this leads to them continuing to eat and graze on foods to try to find that feeling of satisfaction."

Zoom in: Unlike sugar,  sugar substitutes have no nutritional value, said Francesco Branca, WHO director for nutrition and food safety.

"People need to consider other ways to reduce free sugars intake, such as consuming food with naturally occurring sugars, like fruit, or unsweetened food and beverages," Branca said.

Be smart: This doesn't mean to necessarily avoid all sweetened foods.

If you like artificial sweeteners, "it's OK to have them in moderation, alongside an eating pattern that includes a variety of foods," Rumsey said.

As for real sugar, if it's eaten in moderation as part of a snack that includes protein, fat and fiber, "it can improve the taste of food and offer a helpful boost of energy," Rumsey said.

Go deeper: How sugar substitutes can disrupt metabolic health

🎧 Listen to Axios Today, our daily podcast, to hear me discuss this story with guest host Emily Peck. Hear the episode for free.

Editor’s note: This story was updated to include a response from the International Sweeteners Association.

Sorry, stevia: Artificial sweeteners get more bad PR

Artificial sweeteners aren’t good for weight loss, WHO says.

Illustration of many sweetener packets some with exes marked on them

Nutrition

Public health

The U.S. faces a range of health care flashpoints — unaffordable drugs, opioids, vaping — as we debate whether to adopt universal care. For now, the Affordable Care Act is the law of the land, but Republicans want to issue it a final death blow.

Health

Economic data released on Friday show a pickup in consumer spending, alongside persistent inflation, which suggests the Federal Reserve might not yet be done with its rate-hiking campaign.

Why it matters: Demand across the economy is still hotter than policymakers would like.

Driving the news: Consumer spending reaccelerated at a healthy pace in April after signs of a pullback. Personal consumption expenditures rose 0.8%, after near-flat readings the prior two months.

Consumers spent more on services including health care and insurance, as well as goods like cars and auto parts.

Adjusted for inflation, spending rose 0.5%. 

What they're saying: The data is "another sign that the economy refuses to go gently into that good night," RSM chief economist Joe Brusuelas tweeted.

The Fed's preferred gauge of price increases also showed resilient inflation: The personal consumption expenditures price index, excluding food and energy costs, rose 0.4% in April — a tick higher than in March. 

Compared to the same month a year ago, this core measure rose 4.7%. The index has hovered between 4.6% and 4.7% since December 2022. 

The core PCE index rose at a 4.3% three-month annualized rate. That's down from the comparable measure of 5% in March, though still far above the level desired by Fed officials.

Of note: Business spending showed signs of strength last month. Orders for durable goods, excluding aircraft and defense, popped 1.4% in April. 

The prior month's data was also revised slightly higher to show this measure declining 0.6% (instead of 1.1%). 

The bottom line: The data underscores the challenge facing the central bank, where officials have been divided over whether to back off their rate-hiking campaign. Additional hot data could tilt them more in favor of further tightening — either in June or later this year.

There is still more data to come, including the May jobs report (out next Friday) and the release of the Consumer Price Index (out June 13, the first day of the Fed policy meeting). 

The intrigue: After weeks of near certainty the Fed would hold (not hike), markets are now more split about what will happen next — with higher chances of a hike emerging just this morning.

The tracker, maintained by the CME, can be volatile. Still, it reflects the huge shift in expectations in the span of a few weeks about what's ahead for the central bank.

What to watch: Markets had expected a rate cut by year-end, despite assurances from Fed officials including chair Jerome Powell that that would not be the case.

Now, odds that the target range is lower than where it is now by year-end have plunged: Last week, futures market pricing implied a 91% chance the Fed's target rate would be lower by December. As of this afternoon, it's 36%.

Spending, inflation point to still-hot U.S. economy

Friday's data raises big questions about what's ahead for the Federal Reserve.

Animated illustration of a thermometer in the shape of a dollar bill sign, with temperature rising rapidly

Federal Reserve

Jobs

The U.S. side of the southwest border is surprisingly quiet two weeks after President Biden's strict limits on asylum took effect, but a backlog of tens thousands of migrants threatens a humanitarian crisis on the Mexico side. 

Why it matters: Mexico's shelters are holding as much as six times their capacity, makeshift camps continue to pop up all over, intense summer heat is coming — and migrants hoping to enter the U.S. keep arriving from points south.

More than 25,000 migrants were still in shelters along the border and elsewhere in Mexico as of May 19, according to data collected by the U.N.'s International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Hundreds more have formed makeshift camps in Mexican cities along the border. Many others have rented apartments or found other temporary housing.

Crowding has strained local water and sanitation systems, and officials worry about health dangers posed by the coming heat, IOM's chief of mission in Mexico, Dana Graber Ladek, tells Axios.

Between the lines: Biden officials have touted a rapid decline in the number of migrants trying to illegally cross into the U.S. — falling from a record 10,000+ crossings a day before the end of pandemic-era migration restrictions known as Title 42, to less than 4,000 shortly after.

But the masses U.S. officials have been tracking in northern Mexico as poised to cross into the United States haven't turned back — they're just marking time south of the border.

"It's a bit of a holding pattern right now, as migrants try to figure out what their options are," Ladek said.

As of last week, shelters were beyond capacity in every Mexican border city except Ciudad Juarez, according to data collected by IOM.

Zoom in: Biden's tough new asylum rules and the threat of deportation with a five-year ban on re-entry seem to have deterred many migrants from crossing illegally.

But new legal pathways — which administration officials have cited in differentiating their policies from those of former President Trump — are falling far short of demand.

In four months, there already have been more than 1.5 million requests from people in the U.S. to sponsor migrants from Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba and Haiti, according to CBS News.

With a maximum of 30,000 arrivals permitted each month under Biden’s new rules, the backlog is growing rapidly.

Biden's border plans have relied heavily on a new app that enables asylum seekers still in Mexico to schedule interviews with U.S. border officials at legal crossing points.

But an IOM study in five Mexican cities found that half of migrants seeking to schedule appointments through the app couldn't do so, Ladek said.

Zoom out: Mass migration continues south of Mexico. People from around the world are making their way north through the perilous jungles of the Darién Gap, which separates Colombia from Panama.

Panamanian statistics of these crossings have been a good indicator of when future waves will arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Last month, more than 40,000 migrants entered Panama through the Darién and tens of thousands more have crossed this month.

The top nationalities crossing through the Darien are Venezuelans, Haitians, Ecuadorians, Chinese and Colombians — a reflection of the diversity of migrants through the Americas.

What they're saying: "The number of individuals attempting to cross through the Darién and unlawfully enter (the U.S.) through the Southwest border decreased significantly" because of Biden's new policies and preparation for post-Title 42, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told Axios in a statement.

What we're watching: U.S. officials expect it will be a while before the full impact of their new policies on the region becomes clear, an administration official said.

For now, though, Mexico is scrambling to prevent a humanitarian crisis.  

Go deeper: Listen to the Axios Today podcast, where Margaret Talev, filling in for host Niala Boodhoo, and Stef Kight share what's happening on the Mexican side after the end of Title 42.

Mexico's border crisis: What the U.S. doesn't see

Biden policies limit crossings into the U.S. as a humanitarian crisis unfolds on Mexico's side of the border.

Migrants waiting for space in shelters have set up camps like this one in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Photo: Christian Torres Chavez/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Immigration

President Biden has made the COVID-19 crisis and a post-Trump return to national unity and traditional democratic ideals his top priorities. From vaccinations to stimulus to schools, Biden is seeking bipartisan compromise while showing a willingness to use executive authority and bare Democratic majorities in the U.S. House and Senate to implement his policies. Republican leaders are navigating deep party divisions over if and how to move beyond former President Trump.

Politics & Policy

China is becoming the most formidable rival America has faced, and the risk of confrontation with Russia, North Korea or Iran still looms. Authoritarians are rising, the chaotic Afghanistan exit revealed the limits of U.S. power, and the pandemic, climate change and other critical challenges continue to pose grave threats.

World

A state judge on Friday temporarily blocked South Carolina's recently enacted six-week abortion ban until the state supreme court has a chance to review it, Axios has confirmed.

Driving the news: Shortly after Gov. Henry McMaster (R) signed the measure into law on Thursday, abortion providers filed a lawsuit challenging the law, which took effect immediately upon being enacted.

The South Carolina Supreme Court previously struck down a similar six-week ban, arguing that it violated the state's constitution.

State of play: Circuit Judge Clifton Newman said in his ruling that "[t]he status quo should be maintained until the Supreme Court reviews its decision," adding that the case is "going to end up there," per AP.

Abortion will remain legal in South Carolina up until 22 weeks of pregnancy, making it one of the only Southern states where the procedure is legal up until that point. 

Details: The bill prohibits health providers from providing an abortion if a fetus' cardiac activity has been detected, which is at around six weeks of pregnancy — and before many people know they are pregnant.

A health provider who violates the law could be found guilty of a felony and face up to $10,000 in fines and two years in prison.

Exceptions exist to "prevent the death" of the pregnant person or to prevent "impairment of a major bodily function."

South Carolina's recently enacted six-week abortion ban

Judge temporarily blocks South Carolina's 6-week abortion ban

The South Carolina Supreme Court in January said that a similar six-week ban violated the state's constitution.

Photo of abortion rights protesters in the South Carolina Statehouse

Abortion rights protesters gathered in the South Carolina State House, where the state House was debating a six-week abortion ban on May 16. Photo: Sean Rayford/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Abortion

Elon Musk's Neuralink said it has been cleared by the Food and Drug Administration to begin human trials on its brain-implant technology.

Why it matters: The company hopes to someday treat neurological disorders with a chip but has drawn scrutiny over animal testing and issues involving the lithium battery of the device, per Reuters. 

Driving the news: Neuralink on Thursday announced on Twitter that it received the go-ahead on human studies but didn't elaborate on the trial's objective. 

The approval marks "an important first step that will one day allow our technology to help many people," the company said.

An FDA spokesperson told Axios on Friday said the agency "acknowledges and understands" the company's announcement, and that it may now begin conducting human clinical trials.

The company has said it aims to help people with paralysis regain independence with the help of computers and mobile devices and would also aim to restore vision in people, even if they're born blind.

Neuralink officials have also tweeted that they want to use the technology to enhance "able-bodied human performance."

Yes, but: U.S. regulators previously rejected Musk's bid to test brain chips in humans over safety risks, per Reuters. 

In Congress, Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) this month called on the Department of Agriculture to investigate possible conflicts of interest within the panel responsible for overseeing animal testing at the company. 

The lawmakers previously questioned whether USDA was adequately overseeing possible animal welfare violations involving the company.

Musk's Neuralink says it won FDA approval for human trials

Elon Musk's Neuralink said it has been cleared by the FDA to begin human trials on its brain-implant technology.

Photo Illustration: Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Elon Musk

Lifeguards and beachgoers are getting a new ally this summer in the fight to prevent potentially dangerous shark encounters: drones.

Why it matters: While actual shark-on-human attacks are vanishingly rare, a spate of sightings near shore has been raising alarms from Massachusetts to Hawaii recently.

A 15-year-old surfer was injured in an apparent shark attack off Stone Harbor, New Jersey, just this past weekend.

Driving the news: New York State's parks department is getting 10 new drones to help keep an eye out for sharks this summer, Gov. Kathy Hochul recently announced, in addition to eight it's already using.

One is a particularly advanced model, equipped with a thermal camera, laser rangefinder and floatation device.

The idea, says George Gorman Jr., regional director at the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, is for the drones to be used to verify reported sightings.

If a drone operator spots a shark, the waters can be cleared of swimmers until the shark leaves the area.

The drones can also be used in other missions, including search and rescue operations, as a cheaper and quieter alternative to helicopters — or to support choppers.

Nearly three dozen staffers have been or will be trained or hired to fly the department's drones.

What they're saying: "We'll have routine patrol during the day, but if there's a sighting, we'll get the drone up right away and have them look over the waters to see what the report is," Gorman tells Axios.

Backstory: Officials in Australia pioneered the use of drones to spot and monitor sharks near shore, in part as a more humane alternative to nets and undersea traps, per Smithsonian Magazine.

Between the lines: There's a general consensus among experts that climate change is at least partially responsible for driving sharks into new areas.

Successful wildlife preservation efforts, another theory holds, are leading to a population bump for fish that sharks eat — and thus inviting more sharks.

One of the "main reasons" for increased sightings on New York's Long Island, Gorman says, is that "we're seeing a huge increase in menhaden, which are bunker fish and are closer to shore. They're right off the shoreline — you can see them from the lifeguard stand."

The intrigue: Marine biologists and others are also using drones to research shark behavior, The Verge reports.

Various shark-tracking sites, meanwhile, display individual sharks' locations in real time, powered by GPS trackers attached by researchers.

Yes, but: As sharks get easier to spot thanks to emerging technology, the number of sightings is likely to increase — yet that doesn't necessarily mean there are more sharks around than there were before.

The bottom line: The odds you'll be attacked by a shark are infinitesimal — but it's hard to argue with a low-cost way of putting beachgoers' minds at ease. 

To paraphrase Amity Island's Chief Brody: We're gonna need a bigger drone.

Drones go out on shark patrol

Drones are being used to spot sharks near beaches, so lifeguards can clear swimmers away.

Illustration of a drone with binoculars and a lifeguard whistle

Drones

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

Note: Foreign-born describes adults born outside the U.S., where neither parent is a U.S. citizen, and includes legally-admitted immigrants, refugees, temporary residents and undocumented immigrants; Data: Bureau of Labor Statistics; Chart: Axios Visuals

The share of foreign-born workers in the U.S. labor force reached a record high last year, per new data from the Labor Department.

Why it matters: With more Americans aging out of the workforce than entering into it — and at a time of labor shortages — immigrants are playing an increasingly crucial role in the labor market.

State of play: The share of foreign-born people in the workforce has been steadily rising for decades, but dipped during the pandemic — making last year's uptick look a bit more striking than it is, said Abraham Mosisa, a senior economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

Still, this is a trend that isn't going anywhere. The U.S. labor force participation rate of native born men has been consistently decreasing, he pointed out. And the rate for women has stagnated.

The number of foreign-born workers in the U.S. increased to 29.8 million in 2022, from 27.9 million the previous year — a jump of about 6%. 

The number of native-born workers went from 133.2 million to 134.5 million — up barely 1%.

One key factor is that a bigger share of the immigrant population is of working age (18-64), at 77%, according to the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute (MPI). That compares with about 59% of the native-born population.

Meanwhile: The relative size of the immigrant population has stayed flat over the past two decades — comprising 13.6% of the total U.S. population in 2021, according to the most recently available data from MPI — just below where it was before the pandemic.

Zoom in: Foreign-born workers tend to take different jobs than the native-born (see the chart below), and they typically earn less money.

In 2022, median weekly earnings for foreign-born full-time workers was  $945, or 87% of their native-born counterparts.

Share of employment by <span style="background:#6533ff; padding:3px 5px; color:white; border-radius:5px;">foreign-</span> and <span style="background:#00c46b; padding:3px 5px; color:white; border-radius:5px;">native-</span>born workers by industry, 2022

Data: Bureau of Labor Statistics; Chart: Rahul Mukherjee/Axios

Worth noting: Immigration opponents might see the record number of foreign-born workers and argue that foreign born workers are somehow stealing jobs from Americans — but that's not what's happening. 

Although was a big increase in net immigration in 2022 — essentially catching up from the COVID slump — there were plenty of jobs to go around. 

At times last year there were actually two jobs available for every job-seeker. And this year, the unemployment rate has continued to hover around a record low.

Zoom out: As wealthier nations contend with shrinking workforces, many are crafting new immigration policies to find more workers — and combat inflation, as the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month.

Policies that encourage immigration "will determine the extent and persistence of labor supply challenges," as a note from Moody's Investors Service pointed out a few weeks ago.

Immigration law in the U.S., meanwhile, remains a contentious and fairly intractable political issue.

What they're saying: "If you want a growing workforce, without immigration, that isn't going to happen," said Phillip Connor, a senior demographer at FWD.US, an immigration advocacy group.  

Immigrant workforce reaches a new high

With labor still in short supply, foreign-born workers are crucial for the economy.

Illustration of a person with a backpack facing a background of two different colors and various arrows

Login

Axios Login

Every revolution in tech starts with a better way for normal humans to access computing power — from punchcards and command lines to windows and a mouse to smartphones and touchscreens. AI is poised to be the next leap.

Why it matters: One big reason the tech world is so giddy over generative AI is that industry veterans see ChatGPT's conversational fluency as a key that can unlock the next level in this game of endowing everyday users with digital powers.

Think of the hours saved — and, in theory, productivity gained — if you can simply tell your chatbot to clean up your inbox, change your system settings or connect to a printer.

The upside is, you won't have to know how to do those things yourself. That's a downside, too: It means individual users may end up with less skill and less direct control.

Driving the news: A number of big players are already using the power of large language models to make chat-style interaction a key way to interact with their software.

Microsoft this week unveiled a Windows Copilot which adds a side pane where users can both summon the AI-powered Bing search engine and change a whole host of settings that, until now, required knowing how to dive into an arcane system of control panels.

"I think over the coming years, this will become an expectation for how all software works," CTO Kevin Scott said in a statement.

Microsoft is also adopting the same standard for plug-ins that OpenAI is using for ChatGPT, meaning that the chatbot isn't just a user interface, it's also a new platform for developers to create apps — and a new front end for controlling other software.

Adobe announced a new generative fill tool for Photoshop that lets people describe what they want to take place in an area, say put a mountain here or remove this object. The company sees big potential in using such descriptive commands to take all manner of actions. 

What they're saying: Windows head Panos Panay told Axios that AI is bringing about a "generational shift" in computer interfaces.

"It will feel magical," Panay said in an interview.

Yes, but: It's going to take time for the full power and nuance of AI-as-interface to emerge, Panay said, pointing out that it took some years after the mouse before we got to a scroll wheel.

Generative AI is also a revolution for computer interfaces

Telling your computer what to do in plain human language is suddenly within reach.

Friday's top stories