Evelyn Reynolds

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    Watch CNBC’s live coverage of Friday’s key inflation data

    [The stream is slated to start at 8:15 a.m. ET. Please refresh the page if you do not see a player above at that time.]
    The Commerce Department on Friday will release the February reading for the personal consumption expenditures price index, which the Federal Reserve considers its most important inflation measure.

    CNBC TV will have special coverage starting at 8:15 a.m. ET that you can only watch here. The PCE data is released at 8:30 a.m. ET.
    CNBC will analyze the numbers and what it means for markets Monday. U.S. financial markets are closed Friday for Good Friday.
    Excluding food and energy, the core index was expected to rise 0.3% in February and 2.8% from a year ago, according to the Dow Jones consensus estimate, after respectively rising 0.4% and 2.8% in January. For the main number, the respective estimates are 0.4% and 2.5%, compared to 0.3% and 2.4%.
    While the Fed looks at both numbers, it considers core a more reliable indicator of longer-term inflation trends.
    Along with the PCE numbers, the department will release the figures for personal income and consumer spending. They are expected to show respective increases of 0.4% and 0.5%.

    Read moreFed holds rates steady and maintains three cuts coming sometime this yearNow comes the hard part for the Fed to achieve its goal of getting inflation to 2%Long-term inflation expectations rise, spelling possible trouble for the Fed, survey shows
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    The Dali Is a Big Ship. But Not the Biggest.

    Sources: “The Geography of Transport Systems,” by Jean-Paul Rodrigue; VesselFinder; the Empire State Building; the Eiffel Tower; ShipHub; Maryland Port Administration Note: Widths shown are for the widest point for each ship. The container ship that hit the Francis Scott Key Bridge early Tuesday while leaving Baltimore Harbor is enormous. When fully loaded, the vessel, […] More

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    California $20 Fast-Food Minimum Wage Is Coming April 1

    The nation’s highest state minimum wage for fast-food workers takes effect on Monday. Owners and employees are sizing up the potential impact.A decade ago, Jamie Bynum poured his life savings into a barbecue restaurant now tucked between a Thai eatery and a nutrition store in a Southern California strip mall.As a franchise owner of a Dickey’s Barbecue Pit, Mr. Bynum is pridefully particular about the details of his establishment — the size of the hickory wood pile on display near the entrance, the positioning of paper towel rolls on each table, the careful calibration it takes to keep his restaurant staffed 10 hours a day with a small crew.The staffing, he said, has become harder in recent years, as the state’s minimum wage has steadily increased since 2017, often rising by a dollar per year. Today, it’s $16 an hour.But on Monday, it will jump to $20 an hour for most fast-food workers in California, propelling them to the top of what minimum-wage earners make anywhere in the country. (Only Tukwila, Wash., a small city outside Seattle, sets the bar higher, with a minimum wage of $20.29 for many employees.)The ambitious law, which supporters hope to see replicated nationwide, has been characterized by opposing sides in stark terms. To backers, it is a step toward fair compensation for low-wage workers who faced significant risk during the pandemic. To opponents, it is a cataclysmic move that will raise food prices, lead to job losses and force some franchisees to consider closing.“People don’t understand that when wages rise, so do the prices,” Mr. Bynum said.Mr. Bynum has, in recent years, raised prices to try to maintain profit margins — and each time, he said, he has noticed a drop in customers. That, in turn, forced painful decisions about cutting staffing and trimming hours.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Another Wayward Container Ship Shows World Trade’s Fragility

    The destruction of a Baltimore bridge is hampering a busy port, adding to the strains confronting the global supply chain.Even before an enormous container ship rammed a bridge in Baltimore in the early hours of Tuesday, sending the span hurtling into the Patapsco River, and halting cargo traffic at a major American port, there was ample reason to worry about the troubles dogging the global supply chain.Between swirling geopolitical winds, the variables of climate change and continued disruptions resulting from the pandemic, the risks of depending on ships to carry goods around the planet were already conspicuous. The pitfalls of relying on factories across oceans to supply everyday items like clothing and critical wares like medical devices were at once vivid and unrelenting.Off Yemen, Houthi rebels have been firing missiles at container ships in what they say is a show of solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. That has forced ocean carriers to largely bypass the Suez Canal, the vital waterway linking Asia to Europe, and instead circumnavigate Africa — adding days and weeks to journeys, while forcing vessels to burn additional fuel.In Central America, a dearth of rainfall, linked to climate change, has limited passage through the Panama Canal. That has impeded a crucial link between the Atlantic and the Pacific, delaying shipments to the East Coast of the United States from Asia.These episodes have played out amid memories of another recent blow to commerce: the closing of the Suez Canal three years ago, when the container ship Ever Given hit the side of the waterway and got stuck. While the vessel sat, and social media filled with memes of modern life stopped, traffic halted for six days, freezing trade estimated at $10 billion a day.Now the world has gained another visual encapsulation of globalization’s fragility through the abrupt and stunning elimination of a major bridge in an industrial city distinguished by its busy docks.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Happy-Go-Lucky Australia Is Feeling Neither Happy, Nor Lucky

    After enjoying decades of prosperity, the country has hit stubborn economic turbulence.For nearly three decades, Australia seemed to have a sort of get-out-of-jail card that allowed it to glide through the dot-com bust and the global financial crisis without a recession, while its citizens mostly enjoyed high wages, affordable housing and golden prospects.When a recession did arrive, in 2020, it was because of the Covid-19 pandemic.But four years later, Australia has been unable to shake off some of the headwinds, including a high cost of living — the price of bread has risen 24 percent since 2021 — a choppy labor market and rising inequality. While these and similar issues are also troubling nations like Britain and the United States, they are particularly stinging to many in Australia, which has long seen itself as the “lucky country.”Australia is among the wealthiest, most resource-rich and stable countries in the world. But millions of residents are experiencing levels of hardship not seen in many decades. They say they are struggling to put food on the table, pay for housing and health care and cover their utility bills. And many young Australians are confronting a reality that their ancestors never had to: that they will be worse off than their parents or grandparents.Robyn Northam, 28, once dreamed of becoming a hairdresser. But rising rent and exorbitant child care costs for her two children have put training out of reach. Just two generations ago, she said, her grandmother raised a family in her own home as a single parent, while working part-time as a nurse.“If you’re an average Australian, that’s virtually impossible,” said Ms. Northam, a content creator in Cairns who, with her partner, pays 600 Australian dollars, or about $400, a week in rent. “It’s a totally different world now.”A residential neighborhood in Melbourne’s inner north suburbs. Rents in some Melbourne neighborhoods are up almost 50 percent year-over-year.Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    They Grow Your Berries and Peaches, but Often Lack One Item: Insurance

    Farmers of fruits and vegetables say coverage has become unavailable or unaffordable as drought and floods increasingly threaten their crops.Farmers who grow fresh fruits and vegetables are often finding crop insurance prohibitively expensive — or even unavailable — as climate change escalates the likelihood of drought and floods capable of decimating harvests.Their predicament has left some small farmers questioning their future on the land.Efforts to increase the availability and affordability of crop insurance are being considered in Congress as part of the next farm bill, but divisions between the interests of big and small farmers loom over the debate.The threat to farms from climate change is not hypothetical. A 2021 study from researchers at Stanford University found that rising temperatures were responsible for 19 percent of the $27 billion in crop insurance payouts from 1991 to 2017 and concluded that additional warming substantially increases the likelihood of future crop losses.About 85 percent of the nation’s commodity crops — which include row crops like corn, soybeans and wheat — are insured, according to the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, a nonprofit promoting environmentally friendly food production.In contrast, barely half the land devoted to specialty crops — supermarket staples like strawberries, apples, asparagus and peaches — was insured in 2022, federal statistics show.Among those going without insurance is Bernie Smiarowski, who farms potatoes on 700 acres in western Massachusetts, along with 12 acres for strawberries. His soil is considered some of the nation’s most fertile. The trade-off is the proximity to the Connecticut River, a bargain that grows more tenuous as a warming world heightens the likelihood of flooding.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Baltimore Bridge Collapse Creates Upheaval at Largest U.S. Port for Car Trade

    The Baltimore bridge disaster on Tuesday upended operations at one of the nation’s busiest ports, with disruptions likely to be felt for weeks by companies shipping goods in and out of the country — and possibly by consumers as well.The upheaval will be especially notable for auto makers and coal producers for whom Baltimore has become one of the most vital shipping destinations in the United States.As officials began to investigate why a nearly 1,000-foot cargo ship ran into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in the middle of the night, companies that transport goods to suppliers and stores scrambled to get trucks to the other East Coast ports receiving goods diverted from Baltimore. Ships sat idle elsewhere, unsure where and when to dock.“It’s going to cause a lot of chaos,” said Paul Brashier, vice president for drayage and intermodal at ITS Logistics.The closure of the Port of Baltimore is the latest hit to global supply chains, which have been strained by monthslong crises at the Panama Canal, which has had to slash traffic because of low water levels; and the Suez Canal, which shipping companies are avoiding because of attacks by the Houthis on vessels in the Red Sea.The auto industry now faces new supply headaches.Last year, 570,000 vehicles were imported through Baltimore, according to Sina Golara, an assistant professor of supply chain management at Georgia State University. “That’s a huge amount,” he said, equivalent to nearly a quarter of the current inventory of new cars in the United States.Baltimore Ranks in the Top 20 U.S. PortsTotal trade in 2021 in millions of tons

    Source: Bureau of Transportation StatisticsElla KoezeWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Former Fed Vice Chair Clarida sees possibility of fewer rate cuts than expected this year

    Former Fed Vice Chair Richard Clarida said policymakers need to be on guard against sticky prices that could thwart plans to ease monetary policy this year.
    “If the Fed were targeting CPI right now, we wouldn’t even be discussing rate cuts,” he said.

    Stubbornly high inflation could push the Federal Reserve into a more cautious stance this year regarding interest rate cuts, the central bank’s former vice chair said Friday.
    Richard Clarida, who served as Fed governor until January 2022 and is now a global economic advisor at asset management giant Pimco, said his former colleagues need to be on guard against sticky prices that could thwart plans to ease monetary policy this year.

    At its meeting earlier this week, the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee indicated it would likely decrease rates three times this year, assuming quarter percentage point intervals. Chair Jerome Powell said receding inflation and a strong economy give policymakers room to cut.
    “This may be more of a hope than a forecast,” Clarida said during an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “I do hope that the Fed really moves into data-dependent mode, because there can be a very good case if inflation is sticky and stubborn that they shouldn’t deliver three cuts this year.”
    Markets also are expecting three cuts this year, though that pricing has been scaled back after data to start the year showed inflation higher than expected.
    Fed officials are banking that elevated shelter inflation is on its way down, paving the way to lower their key borrowing rate from its highest level in more than 23 years. Clarida, however, said the extent to which the Fed can cut is unclear.
    “Under a pretty broad range of scenarios, they’re going to get at least one cut in this year,” he said.

    However, the calculus gets different as inflation data provides mixed signals.
    The Fed prefers the Commerce Department’s measure of personal consumption expenditures prices, with a particular focus on the core reading that excludes food and energy. The headline 12-month PCE reading for January was 2.4% and core was at 2.8% — both above the Fed’s 2% goal but headed in the right direction.
    However, the more commonly followed consumer price index in February was at 3.2% for headline and 3.8% for core, both well above the central bank target. Moreover, the Atlanta Fed’s measure of “sticky” inflation was at 4.4% on a 12-month basis and even higher, at 5%, on a three-month annualized basis, which marked the highest since April 2023.
    “If the Fed were targeting CPI right now, we wouldn’t even be discussing rate cuts,” Clarida said.
    He also noted that even though Powell on Wednesday said financial conditions are tight, they in fact are “a lot easier than they were in November.” A Chicago Fed measure of financial conditions is at its loosest since January 2022.
    “What I think is going on here is a delicate balance that [Powell is] trying to navigate,” Clarida said. “Financial conditions will very naturally start to ease when they get the sense the Fed is done and [will start] cutting. Then of course that improves the economic outlook and potentially makes it harder to get inflation down to 2” percent.

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