Houston saddled with 10th highest inflation rate in U.S., says new study

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Paying bills is more and more taxing. Getty Images

By now everyone has heard plenty about the nine-letter word that’s on everybody’s mind these days — inflation. This reflects a rise in prices, for everything from gas and groceries and cars to health care, coupled with a decline in buying power.

In August, the U.S. inflation rate stood at 8.3 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s down from a four-decade high of 9.1 percent in June. For Houston consumers, though inflation remains above the U.S. rate. And it turns out, Houston is saddled with one of the highest inflation rates among major U.S. metro areas.

Houston’s inflation rate jumped 9.5 percent from August 2021 to this August, according to a new study from personal finance website WalletHub. That means prices for a host of goods and services climbed 9.5 percent from August 2021 to this August.

By the numbers, our near-term inflation rate inched up by 0.10 percent, per WalletHub.

Taking into account the short-term and long-term spikes in Greater Houston’s inflation rate, the region ranked 10th on WalletHub’s list of the metro areas where inflation is increasing the most. In all, 23 major metro areas appear in the ranking.

The Phoenix area ranks first. Its inflation rate in August reached 13 percent, the highest rate of any metro area in the WalletHub study. The short-term change in the inflation rate was 0.80 percent.

The only other Texas metro on the list is Dallas-Fort Worth, which sits at No. 5. In the DFW metro area, the inflation rate jumped 9.4 percent from August 2021 to August 2022. Residents in DFW have seen the inflation rate grow 1 percent in August compared with the previous two months.

WalletHub points out that several factors are pushing up the inflation rate, including the lingering COVID-19 pandemic, the Ukrainian war, and labor shortages.

“The government is hoping to continue to rein in inflation with additional aggressive interest rate hikes this year, but exactly how much of an effect that will have remains to be seen,” WalletHub notes.

John Harvey, a professor of economics at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, tells WalletHub that he believes hiking interest rates is a bad approach to easing inflation.

“There is no logical reason that lowering the overall level of economic activity (the goal of the higher interest rates) actually helps in situations like this. Furthermore, the only kind of inflation it could possibly address is the good kind,” Harvey says.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

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Texas clocks in among 5 hardest-working states in America, study shows

labor of love

With a nod to disco diva Donna Summer, Texans work hard for the money.

A new study from personal finance website WalletHub puts Texas at No. 5 among the hardest-working states, down one spot from No. 4 in last year's study. Ahead of Texas are, in descending order, Alaska, North Dakota, Nebraska, and South Dakota.

To determine where Americans work the hardest, WalletHub compared the 50 states across 10 key indicators. Those factors include average number of workweek hours, share of workers with multiple jobs, and annual number of volunteer hours per resident.

Boosting Texas on this list is the state's average number of workweek hours. The Lone Star State ranks fourth in that category.

Texas also ranks high for the following:

Share of workers who leave vacation time unused (No. 11).
Share of workers who are "engaged" (No. 5).

Texas ranks low for the share of workers with multiple jobs (No. 46) and the employment rate (No. 39).

More than 13.2 million Texans were employed in July in the state's civilian workforce, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That month, the statewide unemployment rate stood at 6.2 percent. The civilian workforce includes people who are inmates, agricultural workers, and federal employees, but not those who are active-duty military personnel.

In July, Gov. Greg Abbott lauded the state's "young, growing, and skilled workforce" for helping forge a "diversified and resilient economy."

"The Texas economy is booming. Businesses are investing in the Lone Star State at a record pace because we've built a framework that allows free enterprise to flourish and hardworking Texans to prosper," Abbott said.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

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Astros and Rockets launch new streaming service for Houston sports fans

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Houston sports fans now have a way to watch their favorite teams without a cable or satellite subscription. Launched December 3, the Space City Home Network’s SCHN+ service allows consumers to watch the Houston Astros and Houston Rockets via iOS, Apple TV, Android, Amazon Fire TV, or web browser.

A subscription to SCHN+ allows sports fans to watch all Astros and Rockets games, as well as behind-the-scenes features and other on-demand content. It’s priced at $19.99 per month or $199.99 annually (plus tax). People who watch Space City Network Network via their existing cable or satellite service will be able to access SCHN+ at no additional charge.

As the Houston Chronicle notes, the Astros and Rockets were the only MLB and NBA teams not to offer a direct-to-consumer streaming option.

“We’re thrilled to offer another great option to ensure fans have access to watch games, and the SCHN+ streaming app makes it easier than ever to cheer on the Rockets,” Rockets alternate governor Patrick Fertitta said in a statement.

“Providing fans with a convenient way to watch their favorite teams, along with our network’s award-winning programming, was an essential addition. This season feels special, and we’re committed to exploring new ways to elevate our broadcasts for Rockets fans to enjoy.”

Astros owner Jim Crane echoed Feritta’s comments, adding, “Providing fans options on how they view our games is important as we continue to grow the game – we want to make it accessible to as large an audience as possible. We are looking forward to the 2026 season and more Astros fans watching our players compete for another championship.”

SCHN+ is available to customers in Texas; Louisiana; Arkansas; Oklahoma; and the following counties in New Mexico: Dona Ana, Eddy, Lea, Chaves, Roosevelt, Curry, Quay, Union, and Debaca. Fans outside these areas will need to subscribe to the NBA and MLB out-of-market services.

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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

Rice University researchers unveil new model that could sharpen MRI scans

MRI innovation

Researchers at Rice University, in collaboration with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, have developed a new model that could lead to sharper imaging and safer diagnostics using magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI.

In a study recently published in The Journal of Chemical Physics, the team of researchers showed how they used the Fokker-Planck equation to better understand how water molecules respond to contrast agents in a process known as “relaxation.” Previous models only approximated how water molecules relaxed around contrasting agents. However, through this new model, known as the NMR eigenmodes framework, the research team has uncovered the “full physical equations” to explain the process.

“The concept is similar to how a musical chord consists of many notes,” Thiago Pinheiro, the study’s first author, a Rice doctoral graduate in chemical and biomolecular engineering and postdoctoral researcher in the chemical sciences division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, said in a news release. “Previous models only captured one or two notes, while ours picks up the full harmony.”

According to Rice, the findings could lead to the development and application of new contrast agents for clearer MRIs in medicine and materials science. Beyond MRIs, the NMR relaxation method could also be applied to other areas like battery design and subsurface fluid flow.

“In the present paper, we developed a comprehensive theory to interpret those previous molecular dynamics simulations and experimental findings,” Dilipkumar Asthagiri, a senior computational biomedical scientist in the National Center for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, said in the release. ”The theory, however, is general and can be used to understand NMR relaxation in liquids broadly.”

The team has also made its code available as open source to encourage its adoption and further development by the broader scientific community.

“By better modeling the physics of nuclear magnetic resonance relaxation in liquids, we gain a tool that doesn’t just predict but also explains the phenomenon,” Walter Chapman, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Rice, added in the release. “That is crucial when lives and technologies depend on accurate scientific understanding.”

The study was backed by The Ken Kennedy Institute, Rice Creative Ventures Fund, Robert A. Welch Foundation and Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

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