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    Bed Bath & Beyond’s Stock Offering Is Backed by Hudson Bay Capital

    Hudson Bay Capital has essentially agreed to make sure the troubled retailer will sell roughly $1 billion in shares as it tries to avoid bankruptcy.Bed Bath & Beyond’s plan to use a public stock offering as a way to raise more than $1 billion and avoid bankruptcy will be backed by the investment firm Hudson Bay Capital Management, two people familiar with the situation said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the terms of the deal have not been made public.Bed Bath & Beyond disclosed the deal on Monday without naming Hudson Bay. It hopes that raising enough cash will restore the confidence of suppliers, preserve jobs and allow the company to pursue a turnaround plan it announced in August.The retailer said on Tuesday that it had already underwritten the initial $225 million worth of shares it was selling. It plans to sell an additional $800 million over time, assuming “certain conditions are met.” The company did not disclose what those conditions were.Hudson Bay, though, has essentially agreed to buy the stock, assuming Bed Bath & Beyond sells the additional shares.Hudson Bay is a multibillion-dollar fund based in Greenwich, Conn. It often acts as a mergers specialist, either betting passively on whether company deals go through or fall apart or, at other times, pushing for such moves.The firm is likely looking to take advantage of Bed Bath & Beyond’s rising share price, with hopes of selling when it goes even higher. Retail investors helped drive the price up nearly 100 percent on Monday, before Bed Bath & Beyond announced its plan to offer stock. Shares fell nearly 50 percent in trading on Tuesday, to around $3.“This transformative transaction will provide runway to execute our turnaround plan,” Sue Gove, Bed Bath & Beyond’s chief executive, said in a statement. “As we make important strategic and operational changes, we will continue to take disciplined steps to enhance our cost base and improve our financial position.”The Downfall of Bed Bath & BeyondThe home goods retailer, which was founded in New Jersey in 1971, faces an uncertain future amid worsening financial woes.Few Options: After a disappointing holiday season, Bed Bath & Beyond is said to be in discussions to sell pieces of its business and has warned investors of a potential bankruptcy.A Warning Sign: The disclosure that the retailer had defaulted on certain debt payments was the most salient sign of financial strain yet for the company.Turnaround Plan: The company laid out an aggressive plan in August to turn itself around that included store closings, cost cuts and layoffs. But it needs cash to execute its strategy.Selling Stock: Bed Bath & Beyond announced plans for a public offering, saying that it hoped the move would help it raise more than $1 billion and pay off its debts.A spokesperson for Hudson Bay did not respond to request for comment. Bed Bath & Beyond did not respond to a request for additional comment on the transaction. The deal between the hedge fund and the retailer was reported earlier by Bloomberg.Some analysts doubt whether the deal will be enough to help the struggling home goods retailer.“The fundamental story for Bed Bath & Beyond is so broken at this point,” David Silverman, retail analyst at Fitch Ratings, said. “I don’t know that a short-term cash infusion that could buy them a few months, a couple of quarters, is going to change their fate.”The deal with Hudson Bay came together within the past several weeks, the two people familiar with the matter said. Late last month, JPMorgan Chase, which helped give Bed Bath & Beyond a lifeline this summer by expanding its credit line, froze the retailer’s credit accounts after notifying it that it was in breach of the terms of its debt. As Bed Bath & Beyond raced to find cash to pay its debts, tensions built over the amount information it was sharing with its banks and other creditors and how quickly it was relaying it to them, the people said..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source.Learn more about our process.The retailer’s lenders had dealt with a great deal of turbulence over the past few months. In early September, weeks after Bed Bath & Beyond secured rescue financing from JPMorgan and the investment firm Sixth Street, the company’s chief financial officer died in what was ruled a suicide. Industry executives have questioned whether the retailer had the right management in place to weather its challenges.On Monday, Bed Bath & Beyond said Holly Etlin had been hired as the interim chief financial officer. Ms. Etlin has experience with restructurings and company turnarounds.Rising interest rates have also made lenders warier of plowing more money into distressed companies like Bed Bath & Beyond. But equity may prove to be a new alternative.Bed Bath & Beyond’s move echoes what appears to be a new playbook for distressed retailers. Another indebted company favored by meme traders, AMC Entertainment, sold investors preferred shares in August after common shareholders balked at its efforts to issue more stock, which dilutes the value of shares that are already held. Both sets of AMC shares have remained volatile. In 2020, Hertz tried to sell shares after filing for bankruptcy, but the Securities and Exchange Commission squashed those efforts.“For those who are in this situation, for those who are desperate, this will be one instrument that they can use,” said Douglas Chia, the head of Soundboard Governance, a corporate governance consultancy. “Every couple years there’s a new instrument that investment bankers come up with, and it’s creative and it becomes the flavor of the month and everyone starts to use that. This could be the same thing.”The question for Bed Bath & Beyond and the roughly 30,000 people it employed as of last February is whether it will be enough. Even if this financing goes through, the company faces the same challenges that have plagued it the past couple of months. The retailer is contending with low inventory in its stores as vendors hold back on shipping items because of worries about its finances. It also has a less sophisticated e-commerce operation than many of its competitors and a dwindling customer base.The stock offering “by itself doesn’t change the business model or any of those tough decisions that they need to make,” said Patrick Collins, a partner who works on bankruptcies and restructurings at the law firm Farrell Fritz.The deal could give Bed Bath & Beyond only a few more quarters of financial runway, said Seth Basham, a retail analyst at the investment firm Wedbush Capital.The company is ramping up the number of stores it’s closing to more than 400, including Harmon stores. That’s a significant chunk of the 950 stores that it had when the closings began in August.Sales keep sliding as well. Bed Bath & Beyond has said it expects comparable sales in the first quarter to decline 30 to 40 percent from a year earlier, but expects to see quarterly sales improving afterward.It projects that its ability to have goods in stock will return to normal levels by the important back-to-college shopping season.Not everyone is convinced.“It is very difficult to see where they could be able to reverse those trends quickly, particularly given we’re in a somewhat challenging environment for retail goods,” Fitch’s Mr. Silverman said. “You’ve got competitors like Target, Amazon, Walmart and low- and mid-tier department stores that aren’t relinquishing market share.” More

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    U.S. Trade Deficit Surged in 2022

    The gap between what the United States imports and what it exports hit a record as more foreign goods came into the country.WASHINGTON — The overall U.S. trade deficit rose 12.2 percent last year, nearing $1 trillion as Americans purchased large volumes of foreign machinery, medicines, industrial supplies and car parts, according to data released Tuesday by the Commerce Department.The goods and services deficit reached $948.1 billion, its largest total on record, after rising $103 billion from the previous year.The data showed evidence of the U.S. economy’s continuing recovery from the pandemic, which had held down spending on services like travel and entertainment and pushed up purchases of imported goods. Rapid inflation and higher energy prices were responsible for some of the growth, because the trade data is not adjusted for inflation.The numbers also showed signs that global supply chains appear to be reshuffling somewhat, as the U.S. government erects more barriers to trade with China and businesses seek to diversify where they get materials and goods. The Biden administration has identified the nation’s reliance on China for materials like solar panels and electric vehicle batteries as a security risk, and introduced incentives and penalties to try to persuade companies to change supply chains that proved vulnerable to pandemic disruptions.The U.S. trade deficit in goods with Mexico, Canada, India, South Korea, Vietnam and Taiwan all grew strongly last year as manufacturers sought new sources of foreign products.Inflation F.A.Q.Card 1 of 5What is inflation? More

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    Immigration Rebound Eases Shortage of Workers, Up to a Point

    While the Biden administration has accelerated processing after Trump-era restrictions and a pandemic slowdown, visa backlogs remain large.The flow of immigrants and refugees into the United States has ramped up over the past year, helping to replenish the American labor force after a decline that began with restrictions imposed under the Trump administration and that was compounded by the pandemic.The Biden administration has been accelerating visa processing and broadly using humanitarian parole programs for migrants fleeing war and economic instability. Those efforts have driven a rebound in the foreign-born population — welcome news for the Federal Reserve, which has been concerned that a persistent shortage of workers could send wages higher and lead inflation to become entrenched.Friday’s employment report for January, showing a blockbuster gain of 517,000 jobs, confirms that the economy continues to demand more labor. Moderating wage growth, however, suggests that enough workers are arriving to keep costs in check.“When the unemployment rate goes down, you would normally expect wage inflation to go up, but that’s not what’s happening,” said Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management. “So there must be something else moving in the labor force, and there is a very likely explanation here that immigrants are coming in and taking jobs.”But despite the resurgence in the foreign-born labor force — about four-fifths of it are people legally allowed to work in the United States, by one calculation — there are bottlenecks.Legal immigration remains below pre-Trump levels. Hundreds of thousands of people await interviews with U.S. consular officials to obtain immigrant visas. Millions of asylum cases are pending, and getting work authorization for those already here can take years.The uneasy state of immigration policy, a contentious political issue for years, is felt every day by Al Flores, the general counsel at a group of Tex-Mex restaurants in the Houston area and a restaurant owner himself.When the restaurants reduced staffing during the pandemic, many of their workers went to places that were hiring — like the construction industry — and rehiring was a challenge given the sharp immigration slowdown of 2020.The company now employs about 2,500 people, at least 12 percent of whom are able to work under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, which has been in jeopardy since Mr. Trump decided to terminate it; challenges are winding their way through the courts. Another 10 percent have temporary protected status, a designation granted to people who have fled from countries in turmoil, which often allows them to stay in the United States for years.Alma Moreno, a cook at Hacienda Tacos y Tamales in Houston, is a Salvadoran who has temporary protected status in the United States.Callaghan O’Hare for The New York Times“It’s gotten a little bit better, but we’re seeing a drop in permanent visas and an increase in temporary ones,” Mr. Flores said. “At some point those folks have to move on, sometimes to other countries where there’s more open arms. And that’s tough for us, because we need the labor.”The State of Jobs in the United StatesEconomists have been surprised by recent strength in the labor market, as the Federal Reserve tries to engineer a slowdown and tame inflation.Job Trends: The Labor Department reported that the nation’s demand for labor only got stronger in December, as job openings rose to 11 million.Burrito Season: Chipotle Mexican Grill, the fast-casual food chain, said that it planned to hire 15,000 workers ahead of its busiest time of year, from March to May.Retail Industry: With consumers worried about inflation in the prices of day-to-day necessities like food, retailers are playing defense and reducing their work forces.Tech Layoffs: The industry’s recent job cuts have been an awakening for a generation of workers who have never experienced a cyclical crash.The path of immigration policy will have a substantial bearing on the nation’s supply of workers, which has been expanding more slowly as native-born workers have fewer children. The Congressional Budget Office projects that by 2042, net immigration will be the nation’s only source of population growth.The dip in immigration occurred in multiple ways, beginning with the inauguration of Donald J. Trump as president in 2017. The cap on refugees allowed to enter the United States dropped to 15,000 in 2020, the lowest level in decades. Measures like a ban on immigrants from Muslim countries, even though the courts eventually overturned it, deterred people from trying to come.Some of Mr. Trump’s changes were more subtle. The Department of Homeland Security slow-walked visas by asking for more evidence and interviews, said Shev Dalal-Dheini, head of government affairs for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, and then it shut down processing — which is largely paper-based, not electronic — during the pandemic.Even when lockdowns eased, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services had a difficult time ramping back up because with no processing fees, it lacked the funds to rehire staff who had left. Staffing at U.S. embassies, which conduct visa interviews in other countries, had also atrophied.“They’ve had to play catch-up with that for a long, long time,” said Ms. Dalal-Dheini, who left the immigration agency in 2019. “Once the Biden administration came in, they reset some of those policies designed to slow down the process, and then were focused on building back up their work force.”The result has been that visas for visitors, temporary workers and permanent immigrants rose to 7.3 million in 2022, up from 3.1 million the previous year but still down from the more than 10 million issued annually in the three years before Mr. Trump took office. President Biden also granted humanitarian parole and temporary protected status to migrants from several more countries, including Ukraine and Afghanistan, allowing hundreds of thousands more people to stay and the opportunity to work in the United States.The number of new citizens hit a 15-year high in 2022. And the cap on refugees was raised to 125,000 in 2022, although the administration managed to process only about 25,000.Those measures increased net immigration to about a million people last year, the highest level since 2017, according to the Census Bureau. The foreign-born work force grew much more quickly than the U.S.-born work force, Labor Department figures show. (According to an analysis by FWD.us, a business-backed group that favors more immigration, 78 percent of the foreign-born labor force has legal work status.)The growth in immigration has helped power the job recoveries in leisure and hospitality and in construction, where immigrants make up a higher share of employment, and where there were bigger increases in wages and job vacancies. More

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    January Jobs Report Contained Hopeful and Worrying News for the Fed

    The Federal Reserve is tracking incoming labor figures as it decides how high interest rates need to go and how long they should stay elevated.WASHINGTON — Federal Reserve officials have said they are looking for the labor market to cool as they assess how much more they need to do to slow the economy, and the job report on Friday underscored that policymakers may still have a ways to go.Employers hired ravenously in January, adding 517,000 workers. The jobless rate dipped to a level not seen since 1969, and revisions to last year’s data showed that job growth was even stronger in 2021 and 2022 than previously understood — all signs that the demand for labor is booming.Yet at the same time, wage growth continued to moderate. Average hourly earnings climbed 4.4 percent over the year, more than forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists but less than the 4.8 percent year-over-year increase in December. Pay growth has been decelerating for months, though it remains faster than is typical and notably quicker than the pace that Fed officials have at times suggested would be consistent with their 2 percent inflation goal.For central bankers who are trying to bring down the fastest inflation in decades, the report offered both encouraging and worrying news. On one hand, the continued slowdown in pay increases was a welcome sign that, if it persists, could pave the way for slower price increases down the road. But Fed policymakers who spoke on Friday focused more intently on the fresh evidence that demand for workers remains intense despite their efforts, suggesting that they have more work to do before they will be able to feel confident that rapid inflation will fade fully.“The biggest surprise — and the thing to take the most signal from — is the combination of the job gains over the past month and the restatement over the past year,” Thomas Barkin, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, said in an interview with The New York Times. “We still have more to do. Inflation is the guidepost.”Fed officials have already lifted rates from near zero a year ago to more than 4.5 percent, ushering in a quarter-point move just this week. While they have signaled more to come, investors and economists had been betting that they might stop moving after their next meeting, in March.The strong job numbers upended that expectation. Investors on Friday penciled in another rate move in May, and stocks fell in response to the jobs data as Wall Street braced for a more aggressive central bank. Higher rates weigh on demand by making it more expensive to borrow to buy a house or expand a business.The State of Jobs in the United StatesEconomists have been surprised by recent strength in the labor market, as the Federal Reserve tries to engineer a slowdown and tame inflation.Job Trends: The Labor Department reported that the nation’s demand for labor only got stronger in December, as job openings rose to 11 million.Burrito Season: Chipotle Mexican Grill, the fast-casual food chain, said that it planned to hire 15,000 workers ahead of its busiest time of year, from March to May.Retail Industry: With consumers worried about inflation in the prices of day-to-day necessities like food, retailers are playing defense and reducing their work forces.Tech Layoffs: The industry’s recent job cuts have been an awakening for a generation of workers who have never experienced a cyclical crash.Fed officials themselves underlined that further rate adjustments are coming.“The number today on the jobs report was a ‘wow’ number,” Mary C. Daly, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, said on Fox Business. She added that it did not change the economic narrative: It was just additional confirmation that the labor market is strong.She said the Fed’s December forecast — which called for two more quarter-point rate increases, pushing rates just above 5 percent — remained “a good indicator of where policy is at least headed,” adding that she is “prepared to do more than that if more is needed.”Wage growth is slowing along with inflationYear-over-year percentage change in earnings vs. inflation More

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    Job Growth Is a Boost for Biden as He Bets on a Lasting Turnaround

    PHILADELPHIA — President Biden on Friday seized on what he called “strikingly good news” about the economy, hailing the addition of a half-million jobs and capping a week of presidential swagger about the direction of the country.Just days before he delivers his second assessment of the State of the Union in an address before Congress next week, Mr. Biden has all but dropped the “I feel your pain” message he frequently delivered last year as inflation soared.Instead, Mr. Biden traveled around the country this week, pointing to the real-world impact of legislation he championed to spend billions of dollars on the nation’s crumbling infrastructure and unabashedly taking credit for what he is betting will be a lasting turnaround as the Covid-19 pandemic wanes.In Philadelphia, Mr. Biden boasted about the new bridges that will be built and rusty lead pipes that will be replaced because of his efforts. And he praised the country’s businesses for creating 12 million jobs since he took office.“There’s now 12 million more Americans who can look at their kid and say: ‘It’s going to be OK,’” he told a group of workers at a water treatment plant. “And what it’s done mostly is to provide dignity for those families.”But looking on the bright side has its risks, especially since the red-hot job growth in January has the potential to trigger more aggressive interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve as it tries to keep a lid on high inflation. Prices have still risen at a rate of 6.5 percent, down from last year but well above the average for the last several decades.And economic uncertainty is far from gone as Republicans threaten not to raise the debt limit later this year, a move that economists say would shatter global financial confidence and plunge the nation into recession.The Biden PresidencyHere’s where the president stands as the third year of his term begins.State of the Union: President Biden will deliver his second State of the Union speech on Feb. 7, at a time when he faces an aggressive House controlled by Republicans and a special counsel investigation into the possible mishandling of classified information.Chief of Staff: Mr. Biden named Jeffrey D. Zients, his former coronavirus response coordinator, as his next chief of staff. Mr. Zients replaces Ron Klain, who has run the White House since the president took office.Economic Aide Steps Down: Brian Deese, who played a pivotal role in negotiating economic legislation Mr. Biden signed in his first two years in office, is leaving his position as the president’s top economic adviser.Eyeing 2024: Mr. Biden has been assailing House Republicans over their tax and spending plans, including potential changes to Social Security and Medicare, as he ramps up for what is likely to be a run for re-election.Previous presidents who have been too rosy about the economy have been punished by voters who see them as out-of-touch with their real-life issues. President George Bush lost his re-election bid in 1992 after seeming to dismiss the impact of an inflation-driven recession on middle-class workers.“This is the hardest thing to do in politics,” said James Carville, the Democratic strategist who helped Bill Clinton defeat Mr. Bush that year. “In a recovery, when can you say there’s a recovery and things are good? When people don’t think it’s good and you say it’s good, they get angry with you.”That same dynamic hurt Mr. Clinton politically in 1994, Mr. Carville recalled.“Although the economy was doing better, if we said it, the blowback was: ‘The guy is out of touch,’” he said. “That’s the most difficult and vexing problem that any incumbent has.”The White House has also been anxious over a worker shortage as Mr. Biden focuses on the implementation of his infrastructure, economic and climate legislation this year to galvanize voters. The labor market has remained tight; data released this week showed that the number of posted jobs per available unemployed worker rose again in December.But Mr. Biden and his team appear to have decided that it is not a time to hold back.The United States added 517,000 jobs in January alone, the Labor Department said on Friday, and the unemployment rate fell to 3.4 percent, the lowest rate of joblessness since before the first moon landing in the summer of 1969.The 12 million jobs added since Mr. Biden took office amount to “the strongest two years of job growth in history — by a long shot,” Mr. Biden crowed in remarks at the White House, adding that the new jobs report proves that a “chorus of critics” were just plain wrong about his approach to the economy..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Those critics often note that the dramatic job growth during Mr. Biden’s term is the result of needed rebuilding after the loss of about 10 million jobs in the country because of pandemic-related shutdowns.Just moments after Friday’s jobs report came out, members of Mr. Biden’s team took to social media. Shalanda Young, the president’s budget director, noted the unemployment rate, saying “@POTUS’s economic plan is delivering.” Ian Sams, the spokesman for the White House Counsel’s Office, criticized Republicans for “political stunt” investigations.“House Rs could instead join @POTUS to focus on issues affecting people’s lives like jobs & work together on this historic progress,” he wrote alongside a chart showing the decline in the unemployment rate since Mr. Biden took office.The president and his team are unlikely to get that kind of cooperation from his adversaries, especially after an announcement on his likely re-election bid, a move expected in the coming weeks or months.Despite his administration’s accomplishments, Mr. Biden remains in a politically perilous situation with voters after two years in office. A recent public opinion survey by NBC News indicated that a plurality of voters do not think he is “honest and trustworthy,” has the “ability to handle a crisis,” is “competent and effective,” or is “uniting the country.”In the survey, 54 percent said Mr. Biden does not have the “necessary mental and physical health to be president.” Only 28 percent said he does.Still, the president’s aides are betting that voters will be more focused on how they experience the economy: Do they have jobs? Can they afford to buy groceries and gas? Do they have the resources to take a vacation or buy a car?A year ago, with gas prices soaring, Mr. Biden went out of his way to make sure Americans knew he felt their financial frustration with the situation, saying “I get it,” and adding: “I know how much it hurts.”On Friday, that sentiment was largely replaced by an unrestrained enthusiasm in the wake of one of the biggest employment increases in months.Mr. Biden has for months pointed to job growth as evidence that his agenda has rebuilt the economy after the coronavirus pandemic shuttered much of the United States. On Friday, he amplified that narrative to draw a contrast between what he says are policies that produced steady growth and the tax and spending plans of some House Republicans.Throughout his time in office, rising consumer prices have been one of the more glaring political vulnerabilities for Mr. Biden. The Fed on Wednesday raised interest rates for an eighth consecutive time in a year in an effort to cool rapid inflation.Republicans have accused the White House of worsening inflation by injecting too much money into the economy and have called for major spending cuts.Asked after his remarks whether he takes responsibility for inflation that remains high, Mr. Biden said he does not.“Because it was already there,” he said. “When I got here, man. Remember what the economy was like? Jobs were hemorrhaging. Inflation was rising? We weren’t manufacturing a damn thing here. We were in real economic difficulty.”“That’s why I don’t,” he said. More

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    Biden Weighs State of the Union Focus on His Unfinished Agenda

    As the president prepares for his national address, his aides debate an emphasis on his still-unrealized plans for child care, prekindergarten and more.WASHINGTON — President Biden’s top economic aides have battled for weeks over a key decision for his State of the Union address on Tuesday: how much to talk about child care, prekindergarten, paid leave and other new spending proposals that the president failed to secure in the flurry of economic legislation he signed in his first two years in office.Some advisers have pushed for Mr. Biden to spend relatively little time on those efforts, even though he is set to again propose them in detail in the budget blueprint he will release in March. They want the president to continue championing the spending he did sign into law, like investments in infrastructure like roads and water pipes, and advanced manufacturing industries like semiconductors, while positioning him as a bipartisan bridge-builder on critical issues for the middle class.Other aides want Mr. Biden to spend significant time in the speech on an issue set that could form the core of his likely re-election pitch to key swing voters, particularly women. Polls by liberal groups suggest such a focus, on helping working families afford care for their children and aging parents, could prove a winning campaign message.The debate is one of many taking place inside the administration as Mr. Biden tries to determine which issues to focus on in a speech that carries extra importance this year. It will be Mr. Biden’s first address to the new Republican majority in the House, which has effectively slammed the brakes on his legislative agenda for the next two years. And it could be a preview for the themes Mr. Biden would stress on the 2024 campaign trail should he run for a second term.Administration officials caution that Mr. Biden has not finalized his strategy. A White House official said Friday that the president was preparing to tout his economic record and his full vision for the economy.The Biden PresidencyHere’s where the president stands as the third year of his term begins.State of the Union: President Biden will deliver his second State of the Union speech on Feb. 7, at a time when he faces an aggressive House controlled by Republicans and a special counsel investigation into the possible mishandling of classified information.Chief of Staff: Mr. Biden named Jeffrey D. Zients, his former coronavirus response coordinator, as his next chief of staff. Mr. Zients replaces Ron Klain, who has run the White House since the president took office.Economic Aide Steps Down: Brian Deese, who played a pivotal role in negotiating economic legislation Mr. Biden signed in his first two years in office, is leaving his position as the president’s top economic adviser.Eyeing 2024: Mr. Biden has been assailing House Republicans over their tax and spending plans, including potential changes to Social Security and Medicare, as he ramps up for what is likely to be a run for re-election.Few of Mr. Biden’s advisers expect Congress to act in the next two years on paid leave, an enhanced tax credit for parents, expanded support for caregivers for disabled and older Americans or expanded access to affordable child care. All were centerpieces of the $1.8 trillion American Families Plan Mr. Biden announced in the first months of his administration. Mr. Biden proposes to offset those and other proposals with tax increases on high earners and corporations.Earlier this week, Mr. Biden hinted that he may be preparing to pour more attention on those so-called “care economy” proposals, which he and his economic team say would help alleviate problems that crimp family budgets and block would-be workers from looking for jobs.At a White House event celebrating the 30th anniversary of a law that mandated certain workers be allowed to take unpaid medical leave, Mr. Biden ticked through his administration’s efforts to invest in a variety of care programs in the last two years, while acknowledging failure to pass federally mandated paid leave and other larger programs.Mr. Biden said he remained committed to “passing a national program of paid leave and medical leave.”“And, by the way, American workers deserve paid sick days as well,” he said. “Paid sick days. Look, I’ve called on Congress to act, and I’ll continue fighting.”.css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.For Mr. Biden, continuing to call for new spending initiatives aimed at lower- and middle-income workers would draw a clear contrast with the still-nascent field of Republicans seeking the White House in 2024. It would cheer some outside advocacy groups that have pushed him to renew his focus on programs that would particularly aid women and children.The State of the Union speech “presents the president with a rare opportunity to take a victory lap and, simultaneously, advance his agenda,” the advocacy group First Focus on Children said in a news release this week. “All to the benefit of children.”The efforts could also address what Mr. Biden’s advisers have identified as a lingering source of weakness in the recovery from the pandemic recession: high costs of caregiving, which are blocking Americans from looking for work. The nonprofit group ReadyNation estimates in a new report that child care challenges cost American families $78 billion a year and employers another $23 billion.“Among prime-age people not working in the United States, roughly half of them list care responsibilities as the main reason for not participating in the labor force,” Heather Boushey, a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, told reporters this week. She noted that the jobs rebound has lagged in care industries like nursing homes and day care centers.“These remain economic challenges and addressing them could go a long ways towards supporting our nation’s labor supply,” she said.But focusing on that unfinished economic work could conflict with Mr. Biden’s repeated efforts this year to portray the economy as strong and position him as a president who reached across the aisle to secure big new investments that are lifting growth and job creation. On Friday, the president celebrated news that the economy created 517,000 jobs in January, in a brief speech that did not mention the challenges facing caregivers.Calling for vast new spending programs also risks further antagonizing House conservatives, who have made government spending their first large fight with the president. Republicans have threatened to allow the United States to fall into an economically catastrophic default on government debt by not raising the federal borrowing limit, unless Mr. Biden agrees to sharp cuts in existing spending.“Revenue into the government has never been higher,” Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California, told reporters on Thursday, a day after he met with Mr. Biden at the White House to discuss fiscal issues and the debt limit. “It’s the highest revenue we’ve ever seen in. So it’s not a revenue problem. It’s a spending problem.”Catie Edmondson More

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    U.S. Hiring Surges With January Gain of 517,000 Jobs

    The report defied expectations and underscored the challenges for the Federal Reserve, which is trying to cool the labor market to fight inflation.Soft landing? The American labor market is still soaring.After months of gentle but steady declines in job growth, employers unleashed an unexpected burst of hiring in January, adding 517,000 jobs on a seasonally adjusted basis, the Labor Department said on Friday.The increase was the largest since July, and it drew exclamations from economists steeped in labor market trends, who had been expecting another month of gradual cooling.“So much for moderation!” said Beth Ann Bovino, the chief U.S. economist at S&P Global Ratings. “We certainly didn’t see it in this report.”Underscoring the labor market’s extraordinary vibrancy was the unemployment rate, which fell to 3.4 percent, the lowest level since 1969.But even as businesses hired with striking zeal in January — or at least laid off fewer seasonal employees than in most years — wage growth continued to moderate. Average hourly earnings increased 0.3 percent from December, and 4.4 percent over the year, an indication that some of the pressure to lure employees with pay raises may be easing.Wage growth is slowing along with inflationYear-over-year percentage change in earnings vs. inflation More