RATES, PRICES and other economic data for the Mid-coast on Aug. 20. New this week: commodities, July unemployment, Q2 and June retail sales, bank rates

Commodities

		This	Last	Last
week			week	year
Heating oil #21	.	$3.40	$3.34	—
Propane2	.	2.89	3.03	—
Gas, unlead3	.	3.70	3.73	3.84
Kerosene1	.	3.80	3.75	—
Firewood, dry4		235	235	205
Hard lobster,	whsl5	3.75	—	—
Soft lobster, whsl	5 .	3.25	2.75	—

Unemployment6

		July	June	July ’12
Bath	.	5.9%	6.1%	7.1%
Brunswick	.	6.4%	6.4%	7.2%
Freeport	.	5.0%	5.2%	5.9%
Harpswell	.	4.5%	5.4%	5.0%
Lisbon	.	6.1%	6.7%	7.8%
Richmond	.	7.3%	7.3%	6.4%
Topsham	.	6.0%	6.1%	6.5%
Wiscasset	.	5.5%	6.4%	6.0%

Retail sales7

			June	May	June ’12
B’wick		area .	$66,297	$57,830	$65,429
Q2				Q1	Q2‘12
Bath		.	$20,515	$16,891	$20,031
Brunswick		.	91,183	69,269	86,068
Freeport		.	67,338	48,105	61,859
Harpswell		.	4,765	2,411	4,369
Lisbon		.	9,749	8,423	9,564
Richmond		.	4,132	3,345	3,837
Topsham		.	46,678	37,678	46,359
Wiscasset		.	17,706	12,426	16,419

Building permits8

		July	June	July ‘12
Bath	.	$47,100	$523,000	$50,300
B’wick	.	1,975,969	698,944	760,237
F’port	.	1,386,000	1,475,700	1,042,147

Bank rates

			This week	Last week
30-	year	mortgage9	. 4.77%	4.60%
1-year		CD10	0.22%	0.22%

QUOTED DATA is deemed an accurate reflection of average economic conditions on the date listed. Sources: 1– TR survey of local dealers 2– TR survey of local dealers based on 600 gal/yr., 3 – TR staff survey averaged, 4 – split, delivered, TR survey averaged 5 – TR wholesalers survey, per pound, 6 – Maine Department of Labor, not seasonally adjusted, 7 – Maine State Planning Office, in thousands 8 – Total project value, permits filed in town offices, 9 – 30-year, fixed-rate loan of $165,000, 0 points, TR survey of local banks, averaged, 10 – TR survey of rates from local banks, averaged.

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