that we have. we just got personal data and consumer spending data today. in february, better than expected. the first couple months, the flow of economic data relating to the consumer has been better. home sales up. auto sales up. you see the green arrows there. all going in the right direction. now, throws being fueled by the fact that more people, we have two million more people working today than there were this time last year. housing prices are up which makes people feel more wealthy. the stock market at record highs. and those people are outweighing the fact that we re all losing $50 or so every couple weeks to our paychecks. to this higher social security tax. and in addition, higher capital gains, higher income taxes on the very wealthy. and the owncare tax, we were told the rich would stop investing. if you look at what s happening on wall street, they seem to be investing plenty. dan gross.
good morning and welcome to early start. i m ali velshi. zoraida is off today. i like these hours. i m eating a hot dog this morning. i love that about you, ali velshi. i m ashleigh banfield. it is 5:01. it s the holiday but this fourth of july is less about celebration and more about patience for many americans. and in some cases, even survival. because for six days now there have been many of your fellow countrymen with no power in this extraordinary heat wave. at least 20 people have now died since thursday when deadly storms slammed the east, slammed the midwest. and about 1.2 million people are still waiting to get their power back, to get a fan on, to get the ac back. this is right across the country. here are the states without power today. power companies are repairing damaged transmitters as fast as they can, but customers still could be waiting until the weekend. still until the weekend until they can get that electricity back. and all of this, while those u