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    Jobs Aplenty, but a Shortage of Care Keeps Many Women From Benefiting

    A lack of child care and elder care options has forced some women to limit their hours or sidelined them altogether, hurting their career prospects.A dearth of child care and elder care choices is causing many women to reorganize their working lives and prompting some to forgo jobs altogether, hurting the economy at a moment when companies are desperate to hire, and forcing trade-offs that could impair careers.Care workers have left the industry in large numbers amid the pandemic, shrinking the number of nursery and nursing home employees by hundreds of thousands. At the same time, coronavirus outbreaks have led to intermittent school shutdowns, which, in turn, have made care demands less predictable and increased the need for reliable backup options.Although plenty of men have also taken on increased care duties since the pandemic began, women perform most caregiving in America, according to the Labor Department. They have made a surprising return to the labor market in spite of that challenge.Federal data shows that the share of women participating in the labor market by working, or by looking for jobs, remains depressed relative to 2019, but it has recovered roughly as much as the share for men has. Mothers still work less than other women, but the gap between the two has narrowed to about the level that prevailed before the pandemic, an analysis by the Federal Reserve found.Yet those signs of a comeback hide strains beneath the surface. A deeper dive into the Labor Department’s monthly survey of households shows that unmarried women without college degrees who have young children have returned to work more slowly than others, a sign that the shortage of care is making them particularly vulnerable.Self-employment has also surged among mothers, suggesting that many women are finding ways to make work more flexible as they scramble to balance care responsibilities with their need to earn money. Other women talk about putting in fewer hours and juggling increased workloads.In February, about 39 percent of women with children younger than 5 told Stanford’s RAPID Survey that they had quit their jobs or reduced their hours since the pandemic began, up from 33 percent at the same time last year. More than 90 percent of those women said they did so of their own accord, not because they were laid off or had their hours cut. Last year, that number was 65 percent.Change in women’s employment rate since Jan. 2020

    Notes: Three-month rolling average of seasonally adjusted data for women ages 20-44. “Young children” are under age 5. Women with older children not shown. College graduates have bachelor’s degrees.Source: Current Population Survey via IPUMSBy The New York TimesThose forced to cut back on work could face lasting disadvantages. They are missing out on an unusual moment of worker power, in which many employees are bargaining for higher wages or switching to more lucrative jobs. Right now, the fields where women are most concentrated — including service sector jobs in hospitality and health care — have some of the most openings and the most rapid pay growth.“I think it will be really interesting to see what the long-term consequences are on mothers’ career opportunities,” said Ariane Hegewisch, the program director in employment and earnings at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. “Women have continued to work, but they clearly had to cut back.”The State of Jobs in the United StatesJob gains continue to maintain their impressive run, even as government policymakers took steps to cool the economy and ease inflation.May Jobs Report: U.S. employers added 390,000 jobs and the unemployment rate remained steady at 3.6 percent ​​in the fifth month of 2022.Downsides of a Hot Market: Students are forgoing degrees in favor of the attractive positions offered by employers desperate to hire. That could come back to haunt them.Slowing Down: Economists and policymakers are beginning to argue that what the economy needs right now is less hiring and less wage growth. Here’s why.Opportunities for Teenagers: Jobs for high school and college students are expected to be plentiful this summer, and a large market means better pay.America’s long-running caregiving shortage, for both children and older adults, was compounded by the pandemic.The professional caregiving work force — also disproportionately female — hasn’t recovered. More than one child care worker in 10 hasn’t returned, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (although that data may not capture all the single-employee, home-based operators that make up a huge part of the sector). The number of nursing home workers remains 11.5 percent below its level in February 2020. Together, the two categories represent a loss of 500,000 jobs.“For women, that’s the double whammy — most of those workers are women, and most of the people who need those supports to enter the work force themselves are women,” said Katherine Gallagher Robbins, a senior fellow with the National Partnership for Women and Families.At the same time, there is new demand for care. After a decrease in the number of births early in the pandemic, nearly 3.7 million people were born last year, up 1 percent from 2020 and the first such increase since 2014.Christy Charny, a college administrative assistant in Fort Collins, Colo., recently talked to her manager about dialing back her hours from full time to part time. She likes her job and needs it for the health insurance it provides, but her 12-week-old daughter was having trouble nursing, and paying for full-time infant care was a nonstarter for her and her husband.“There is no way that we can afford $1,500 a month for child care on our full-time salaries,” said Ms. Charny, 32. “We would go into debt just so that I could work full time.”For a while, she was struggling to find any child care at all. She couldn’t afford full-time help, and the day care center where she had put down a deposit wouldn’t give her a discount if she used it only part time. She was frantically looking for other options when good news arrived: The most affordable nursery in her area, where she had been on the waiting list since October 2021, had a part-time opening.The days — Tuesday, Thursday and Friday — were not exactly right for her professional schedule, but the place was just $246 per week, so she was going to try it.“I know we can make it work if we’re careful and we cut back on other expenses,” she said. Ms. Charny’s husband sells shoes at REI, and together they make about $60,000 before taxes.Economists have long identified a lack of available and affordable child care as a reason that American women do not work more, sometimes by comparing the United States with Canada — which is economically similar in many ways but has more generous child care and parental leave policies and a higher rate of female employment. The same is true for parts of Europe.“Until 1995, the U.S. was the world’s leader in terms of female labor force participation,” said Claudia Goldin, an economist at Harvard. “Now, this host of countries that we used to think were backward in terms of gender norms have exceeded the U.S.”And it is no surprise that the burden of care without professional help falls on workers with less education, who tend to earn less.There is a “financial trade-off between work and child care” that hinges on “what share of your income that child care eats up,” said Sarah House, an economist at Wells Fargo. “It’s a much smaller share if you’re a working professional with a six-figure salary than if you are working a restaurant job and barely clearing $30,000.”Stanford’s RAPID Survey also showed that most mothers who cut back on work did so even though they didn’t have adequate income without it. And for those staying on the job, volatility in the child care industry can add considerable stress.“If you were hanging on to an official home-based provider to take your kid so you could go to your work, and that person closed their doors, you probably couldn’t afford to stop working,” said the survey’s director, Philip Fisher. “So you’d have to rely on anything you could pull together.”As some mothers pull back, there are implications for the economy. Employers are missing a key source of labor at a time when they have nearly two job openings for every unemployed person.Washington has tried to offset the problem to allow more parents to return to work. The American Rescue Plan, enacted last year, supplied $39 billion to help child care providers stay open, and probably prevented even larger reductions in care. Some states have supplemented that money, while others have relaxed licensing requirements and allowed a bigger ratio of children to care providers.The White House’s Build Back Better legislation included $400 billion for child care and prekindergarten, and a recent study by a team of economists estimated a similar plan could raise the rate at which mothers are employed by six percentage points. But the legislation floundered as concerns about spending mounted.Finding care for older adults also grew more difficult after Covid-19 ripped through nursing homes and sent nurses fleeing the bedside.Because of its dedicated federal funding stream, the elder care industry is larger and more formalized than the child care sector. But its work force is similarly low paid, and has gone through a harrowing time during the pandemic.Dorinda McDougald has been a clinical nursing assistant at Ellicott Center in Buffalo for 25 years.Malik Rainey for The New York TimesAccording to a recent survey conducted by ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​the American Health Care Association, a nursing home trade group, wages for nurses have increased by between 28 percent and 34 percent since the pandemic began. But only about 5 percent of the nurses who left have returned to such institutionalized settings, according to federal data. Among the challenges for such centers is the tight labor market.Dorinda McDougald is one of those who have stuck it out. She has been a clinical nursing assistant at Ellicott Center in Buffalo for 25 years and makes about $18 an hour.“I stay there for the residents, because they deserve quality care,” she said. But not everyone makes the same choice: One of Ms. McDougald’s colleagues recently left to work at a Red Lobster. “You’d have to compete with the area,” Ms. McDougald said. “Everybody else is paying $16, $17, $18.”Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that about 31 percent of nursing homes are reporting staffing shortages, which can prevent them from taking in more residents.Part of that reflects a shift toward home-based care, which both workers and patients have found safer and otherwise more appealing. Nursing home workers have also left for staffing agencies and hospitals, which offer better pay and more opportunities for advancement.Among the states reporting the most widespread staffing shortages is Minnesota, where 69 percent of nursing homes say they don’t have enough caregivers. That state has a higher-than-average share of nonprofit facilities that depend on Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements, which the industry says have not been adjusted for the increased cost of operations.That’s where Staci Drouillard, 54, has been trying to find a place for her parents.She lives in Grand Marais, on Lake Superior, two hours northeast of Duluth. Her father, who is 87 years old and a lifelong resident of the town, has dementia. Her mother, 83, cared for him until she had a series of strokes.Both parents worked, but they weren’t able to build enough savings to afford home-based care, even if a local aide were available. The county’s only nursing home has 37 beds, but six are empty because of staff vacancies, according to the facility’s chief executive.Now, the task falls to Ms. Drouillard, who goes to her parents’ house most days. After getting a promotion at the radio station where she works, she shifted to a position that is home-based, with fewer hours, lower pay and less authority, as caregiving consumed more and more of her time.“As I watched my parents’ health deteriorate and decline, I realized I needed to pivot to a job that has less responsibility,” Ms. Drouillard said. “Their care is kind of like having another job, except you don’t really know what hours you’re going to work.” More

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    Fed officials Waller and Bullard back another big interest rate increase in July

    The Fed is well on its way to another sharp interest rate hike in July and perhaps September as well, even if it slows the economy, two officials said Thursday.
    “I’m definitely in support of doing another 75 basis point hike in July, probably 50 in September,” Fed Governor Christopher Waller said.

    The Marriner S. Eccles Federal Reserve Board Building in Washington, D.C.
    Sarah Silbiger | Reuters

    The Federal Reserve is well on its way to another sharp interest rate hike in July and perhaps September as well, even if it slows the economy, according to statements Thursday from two policymakers.
    Fed Governor Christopher Waller left little doubt that he believes increases are necessary if the institution is to meet its duties, and the market’s expectations, as an inflation fighter.

    “I’m definitely in support of doing another 75 basis point hike in July, probably 50 in September, and then after that we can debate whether to go back down to 25s,” Waller told the National Association for Business Economics. “If inflation just doesn’t seem to be coming down, we have to do more.”
    In June, the Fed approved a 75 basis point, or 0.75 percentage point, increase to its benchmark borrowing rate, the biggest such move since 1994.
    Markets widely expect another such move in July and continued increases until the fed funds rate hits a range of 3.25%-3.5% by the end of 2022. The increases are an attempt to control inflation running at its highest level since 1981.

    “Inflation is a tax on economic activity, and the higher the tax the more it suppresses economic activity,” Waller added. “If we don’t get inflation under control, inflation on its own can place us in a really bad economic outcome down the road.”
    St. Louis Fed President James Bullard echoed Waller’s comments in a separate appearance, saying he believes the best approach is to act quickly now then evaluate the impact the hikes are having.

    “I think it would make a lot of sense to go with the 75 at this juncture,” said Bullard, a Federal Open Market Committee voting member this year. “I’ve advocated and continue to advocate getting to 3.5% this year, then we can see where we are and see how inflation’s developing at that point.”
    Both officials said they think recession fears are overblown, though Waller said the Fed needs to risk an economic slowdown so it can get inflation under control.
    “We’re going to get inflation down. That means we are going to be aggressive on rate hikes and we may have to take the risk of causing some economic damage, but I don’t think given how strong the labor market is right now that that should be that much,” he said.

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    Goldman slashes GDP forecast for the second quarter to just barely above water

    Goldman sliced its second-quarter outlook for GDP to just 0.7%, down from the previous expectation of a 1.9% increase.
    Combined with the decline of 1.6% in the first quarter that would bring the first half to within a whisker of a recession.
    Wells Fargo economists said they expect more aggressive Fed policy to step up the timeline for a “moderate” recession starting soon and lasting a year.

    A Goldman Sachs Group Inc. logo hangs on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York, U.S., on Wednesday, May 19, 2010.
    Daniel Acker | Bloomberg | Getty Images

    Amid heightened concerns that a recession is looming, Goldman Sachs economists expect the U.S. economy barely grew in the second quarter.
    The Wall Street firm’s forecasters on Thursday sliced their outlook for gross domestic product in the April-to-June period to an annualized gain of just 0.7%, down from the previous expectation of a 1.9% increase.

    Combined with the decline of 1.6% in the first quarter that would bring the first half to within a whisker of a recession, which is generally defined as two straight quarterly declines in GDP.
    Goldman’s adjustment follows a report Thursday morning showing that the U.S. trade deficit declined in May to $85.5 billion, the lowest level of 2022, but deeper than the Dow Jones estimate for $84.7 billion. The number was influenced by a $2.8 billion decrease in the shortfall with China, as the nation grappled with lockdowns brought on by a Covid surge.
    “The details of the May trade report were weaker than our previous assumptions, and we now expect real goods imports to remain elevated through June,” Goldman said in a client note.
    The GDP adjustment comes amid a darkening outlook for the economy and some expectations that a shallow recession may even have arrived already.

    In a related adjustment, the Atlanta Federal Reserve updated its GDPNow tracker Thursday morning to show an expected Q2 decline of 1.9%. That, however, was a slight improvement from July 1, when the gauge pointed to a 2.1% drop.

    Fed officials have expressed optimism that the economy can skirt a recession despite tighter policy aimed at controlling runaway inflation. The central bank has raised benchmark borrowing rates by 1.5 percentage points this year and expects to keep going to a “restrictive” rate aimed at pulling back growth.
    Wells Fargo economists said they expect the more aggressive Federal Reserve rate-cutting policy to step up the timeline for a “moderate” recession that they see beginning soon and lasting into mid-2023.
    “Our outlook through 2023 has evolved based on how strong labor market and abundant cash supports are eroding under persistent inflation and [the Fed’s] increasingly aggressive policy response,” the firm wrote. “Whether inflation peaks this summer or autumn matters less to our view than inflation’s staying power, no matter when it peaks. The erosion is quickening and the path to recession appears to have sharpened its trajectory for the U.S. and, a little later, for the eurozone.”
    New Wells Fargo forecasts see GDP falling 0.2% in 2022 and rising 0.9% in 2023. The previous respective forecasts were for a gain of 1.5% and a decline of 0.5%

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    Start-Up Funding Falls the Most It Has Since 2019

    SAN FRANCISCO — For the first time in three years, start-up funding is dropping.The numbers are stark. Investments in U.S. tech start-ups plunged 23 percent over the last three months, to $62.3 billion, the steepest fall since 2019, according to figures released on Thursday by PitchBook, which tracks young companies. Even worse, in the first six months of the year, start-up sales and initial public offerings — the primary ways these companies return cash to investors — plummeted 88 percent, to $49 billion, from a year ago.The declines are a rarity in the start-up ecosystem, which enjoyed more than a decade of outsize growth fueled by a booming economy, low interest rates and people using more and more technology, from smartphones to apps to artificial intelligence. That surge produced now-household names such as Airbnb and Instacart. Over the past decade, quarterly funding to high growth start-ups fell just seven times.But as rising interest rates, inflation and uncertainty stemming from the war in Ukraine have cast a pall over the global economy this year, young tech companies have gotten hit. And that foreshadows a difficult period for the tech industry, which relies on start-ups in Silicon Valley and beyond to provide the next big innovation and growth engine.“We’ve been in a long bull market,” said Kirsten Green, an investor with Forerunner Ventures, adding that the pullback was partly a reaction to that frenzied period of dealmaking, as well as to macroeconomic uncertainty. “What we’re doing right now is calming things down and cutting out some of the noise.”The start-up industry still has plenty of money behind it, and no collapse is imminent. Investors continue to do deals, funding 4,457 transactions in the last three months, up 4 percent from a year ago, according to PitchBook. Venture capital firms, including Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital, are also still raising large new funds that can be deployed into young companies, collecting $122 billion in commitments so far this year, PitchBook said.The State of the Stock MarketThe stock market’s decline this year has been painful. And it remains difficult to predict what is in store for the future.Grim Outlook: The stock market is on track for its worst first six months of the year since at least 1970. And that’s only part of the horror story for investors and companies this year.Advice for Investors: Bear markets and recessions are far more common than many people realize. Being prepared can minimize hardship and even offer investing opportunities, our columnist says.Recession Risks: As investors focus on the threat that inflation and higher interest rates pose to the economy, they are betting that volatility is here to stay.Crypto Meltdown: Amid a dire period for digital currencies, crypto companies are laying off staff and freezing withdrawals, raising questions about the health of the ecosystem.Start-ups are also accustomed to the boy who cried wolf. Over the last decade, various blips in the market have led to predictions that tech was in a bubble that would soon burst. Each time, tech bounced back even stronger, and more money poured in.Even so, the warning signs that all is not well have recently become more prominent.Venture capitalists, such as those at Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners, have cautioned young firms to cut costs, conserve cash and prepare for hard times. In response, many start-ups have laid off workers and instituted hiring freezes. Some companies — including the payments start-up Fast, the home design company Modsy and the travel start-up WanderJaunt — have shut down.Shares of Bird Global, the scooter start-up, have tumbled from a high last year.Tara Pixley for The New York TimesThe pain has also reached young companies that went public in the last two years. Shares of onetime start-up darlings like the stocks app Robinhood, the scooter start-up Bird Global and the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase have tumbled between 86 percent and 95 percent below their highs from the last year. Enjoy Technology, a retail start-up that went public in October, filed for bankruptcy last week. Electric Last Mile Solutions, an electric vehicle start-up that went public in June 2021, said last month that it would liquidate its assets.Kyle Stanford, an analyst with PitchBook, said the difference this year was that the huge checks and soaring valuations of 2021 were not happening. “Those were unsustainable,” he said.The start-up market has now reached a kind of stalemate — particularly for the largest and most mature companies — which has led to a lack of action in new funding, said Mark Goldberg, an investor at Index Ventures. Many start-up founders don’t want to raise money these days at a price that values their company lower than it was once worth, while investors don’t want to pay the elevated prices of last year, he said. The result is stasis.“It’s pretty much frozen,” Mr. Goldberg said.Additionally, so many start-ups collected huge piles of cash during the recent boom times that few have needed to raise money this year, he said. That could change next year, when some of the companies start running low on cash. “The logjam will break at some point,” he said.David Spreng, an investor at Runway Growth Capital, a venture debt investment firm, said he had seen a disconnect between investors and start-up executives over the state of the market.“Pretty much every V.C. is sounding alarm bells,” he said. But, he added, “the management teams we’re talking to, they all seem to think: We’ll be fine, no worries.”The one thing he has seen every company do, he said, is freeze its hiring. “When we start seeing companies miss their revenue goals, then it’s time to get a little worried,” he said.Still, the huge piles of capital that venture capital firms have accumulated to back new start-ups has given many in the industry confidence that it will avoid a major collapse.“When the spigot turns back on, V.C. will be set up to get back to putting a lot of capital back to work,” Mr. Stanford said. “If the broader economic climate doesn’t get worse.” More

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    Fed sees 'more restrictive' policy as likely if inflation fails to come down, minutes say

    Federal Reserve officials at their June meeting said another interest rate increase of 50 or 75 basis points is likely at the July meeting, according to minutes released Wednesday.
    Policymakers “recognized the possibility that an even more restrictive stance could be appropriate if elevated inflation pressures were to persist,” the document said.

    Federal Reserve officials in June emphasized the need to fight inflation even if it meant slowing an economy that already appears on the brink of a recession, according to meeting minutes released Wednesday.
    Members said the July meeting likely also would see another 50 or 75 basis point move on top of a 75 basis point increase approved in June. A basis point is one one-hundredth of 1 percentage point.

    “In discussing potential policy actions at upcoming meetings, participants continued to anticipate that ongoing increases in the target range for the federal funds rate would be appropriate to achieve the Committee’s objectives,” the minutes said. “In particular, participants judged that an increase of 50 or 75 basis points would likely be appropriate at the next meeting.”
    Raising benchmark borrowing rates by three-quarters of a percentage point in June was necessary to control cost-of-living increases running at their highest levels since 1981, central bankers said. They said they will continue to do so until inflation gets close to their 2% long-run goal.
    “Participants concurred that the economic outlook warranted moving to a restrictive stance of policy, and they recognized the possibility that an even more restrictive stance could be appropriate if elevated inflation pressures were to persist,” the document said.
    They acknowledged the policy tightening likely would come with a price.

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    “Participants recognized that policy firming could slow the pace of economic growth for a time, but they saw the return of inflation to 2 percent as critical to achieving maximum employment on a sustained basis,” the meeting summary stated.The move to hike rates by 75 basis points followed an unusual sequence in which policymakers appeared to have a last-minute change of heart after saying for weeks that a 50 basis point move was almost certain.Following data showing consumer prices running at an 8.6% 12-month rate and inflation expectations rising, the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee chose the more stringent path.

    Fed’s resolve

    Officials at the June14-15 meeting remarked that they needed to make the move to assure markets and the public that they are serious about fighting inflation.”Many participants judged that a significant risk now facing the Committee was that elevated inflation could become entrenched if the public began to question the resolve of the Committee to adjust the stance of policy as warranted,” the minutes stated.The document added that the moves, combined with communication regarding the stance of policy, “would be essential in restoring price stability.”However, the approach comes with the U.S. economy on shaky ground.Gross domestic product in the first quarter fell 1.6% and is on pace to decline 2.1% in the second quarter, according to an Atlanta Fed data tracker. That would put the economy in a technical, though historically shallow, recession.
    “Since the last meeting, economic conditions have weakened as financial conditions have tightened. What markets want to hear now, is what the Fed has in mind if economic data releases continue to signal a deeper more serious downturn without a commensurate easing in inflation,” said Quincy Krosby, chief equity strategist at LPL Financial.Fed officials at the meeting expressed optimism about the longer-term path of the economy, though they did lower GDP forecasts sharply, to 1.7% in 2022 from a previous estimate of 2.8% in March. 
    They noted some reports of consumer sales slowing and businesses holding back on investments due to rising costs. The war in Ukraine, ongoing supply chain bottlenecks and Covid lockdowns in China also were cited as concerns.Officials penciled in a much bigger inflation surge than before, now anticipating headline personal consumption expenditures prices to jump 5.2% this year, compared with the 4.3% previous estimate. PCE 12-month inflation was 6.3% in May.The minutes noted that risks to the outlook were skewed lower for GDP and higher for inflation as tighter policy could slow growth. The committee prioritized fighting inflation.Officials noted that the policy moves, which put the Fed’s benchmark funds rate in a range of 1.5%-1.75%, already have yielded results, tightening financial conditions and lowering some market-based inflation measures.Two such measures, which compare inflation-indexed government bonds with Treasurys, have moved to their lowest levels since autumn of 2021.The minutes noted that after a series of rate hikes, the Fed would be well positioned to evaluate the success of the moves before deciding whether to keep going. They said “more restrictive policy” could be implemented if inflation fails to come down. Officials indicated a series of increases that would take the funds rate to 3.4% this year, above the longer-run neutral rate of 2.5%. Futures markets are pricing in a possibility that the Fed will have to start cutting rates as soon as the summer of 2023.

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    Fed Moves Toward Another Big Rate Increase as Inflation Lingers

    As the Federal Reserve battles rapid inflation, officials are likely to stay on an aggressive path even as signs of economic cooling emerge.WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve, determined to choke off rapid inflation before it becomes a permanent feature of the American economy, is steering toward another three-quarter-point interest rate increase later this month even as the economy shows early signs of slowing and recession fears mount.Economic data suggest that the United States could be headed for a rough road: Consumer confidence has plummeted, the economy could post two straight quarters of negative growth, new factory orders have sagged and oil and gas commodity prices have dipped sharply lower this week as investors fear an impending downturn.But that weakening is unlikely to dissuade central bankers. Some degree of economic slowdown would be welcome news for the Fed — which is actively trying to cool the economy — and a commitment to restoring price stability could keep officials on an aggressive policy path.Inflation measures are running at or near the fastest pace in four decades, and the job market, while moderating somewhat, remains unusually strong, with 1.9 available jobs for every unemployed worker. Fed policymakers are likely to focus on those factors as they head into their July meeting, especially because their policy interest rate — which guides how expensive it is to borrow money — is still low enough that it is likely spurring economic activity rather than subtracting from it.Minutes from the Fed’s June meeting, released Wednesday, made it clear that officials are eager to move rates up to a point where they are weighing on growth as policymakers ramp up their battle against inflation.The central bank will announce its next rate decision on July 27, and several key data points are set for release between now and then, including the latest jobs numbers for June and updated Consumer Price Index inflation figures — so the size of the move is not set in stone. But assuming the economy remains strong, inflation remains high and glimmers of moderation remain far from conclusive, a big rate move may well be in store.The Fed chair, Jerome H. Powell, has said that central bankers will debate between a 0.5- or 0.75-percentage-point increase at the coming gathering, but officials have begun to line up behind the more rapid pace of action if recent economic trends hold.“If conditions were exactly the way they were today going into that meeting — if the meeting were today — I would be advocating for 75 because I haven’t seen the kind of numbers on the inflation side that I need to see,” Loretta J. Mester, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, said during a television interview last week.The Fed raised interest rates by 0.75 percentage points in June, its first move of that size since 1994 and one fueled by a growing concern that fast inflation had failed to fade as expected and was at risk of becoming a more permanent feature of the economy.While the big increase came suddenly — investors did not expect such a large change until right before the meeting — policymakers have begun to signal earlier on in the decision-making process that they are in favor of going big in July.Part of the amped-up urgency may stem from a recognition that the Fed is behind the curve and trying to fight inflation when interest rates, while rising quickly, remain relatively low, economists said.If Americans come to believe that inflation will remain high year after year, they might demand bigger wage increases to cover those anticipated costs.Scott McIntyre for The New York Times“It is starting to look like 75 is the number,” said Michael Feroli, the chief U.S. economist at JPMorgan Chase. “We’d need a serious disappointment for them to downshift at this meeting.”Fed interest rates are now set to a range of 1.5 to 1.75 percent, which is much higher than their near-zero setting at the start of 2022 but still probably low enough to stoke the economy. Officials have said that they want to “expeditiously” lift rates to the point at which they begin to weigh on growth — which they estimate is a rate around 2.5 percent.The way they see it, “with inflation being this high, with the labor market being this tight, there’s no need to be adding accommodation at this point,” said Alan Detmeister, a senior economist at UBS who spent more than a decade as an economist and section chief at the Fed’s Board of Governors. “That’s why they’re moving up so aggressively.”Central bankers know a recession is a possibility as they raise interest rates quickly, though they have said one is not inevitable. But they have signaled that they are willing to inflict some economic pain if that is what is needed to wrestle inflation back down.Mr. Powell has repeatedly stressed that whether the Fed can gently slow the economy and cool inflation will hinge on factors outside of its control, like the trajectory of the war in Ukraine and global supply chain snarls.For now, Fed officials are unlikely to interpret nascent evidence of a cooling economy as a surefire sign that it is tipping into recession. The unemployment rate is hovering near the lowest level in 50 years, the economy has gained an average of nearly 500,000 jobs per month so far in 2022 and consumer spending — while cracking slightly under the weight of inflation — has been relatively strong.Meanwhile, officials have been unnerved by both the speed and the staying power of inflation. The Consumer Price Index measure picked up by 8.6 percent over the year through May, and several economists said it probably continued to accelerate on a yearly basis into the June report, which is set for release on July 13. Omair Sharif, the founder of Inflation Insights, estimated that it could come in around 8.8 percent.“You do probably get a few months of moderation after we get this June report,” he said.The Fed’s preferred inflation measure, the Personal Consumption Expenditures index, may have already peaked, economists said. But it still climbed by 6.3 percent over the year through May, more than three times the central bank’s 2 percent target. Many households are struggling to keep up with the rising cost of housing, food and transportation.While there are encouraging signs that inflation might slow soon — inventories have built up at retailers, global commodity gas prices have fallen this week and consumer demand for some goods may be beginning to slow — those indicators may do little to comfort central bankers at this stage.Inflation F.A.Q.Card 1 of 5What is inflation? More

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    Job Openings Eased, in a Sign of the Cooling Labor Market

    Employers became slightly less desperate for workers in May as job openings declined for the second straight month from a record high in March.The number of open positions fell to 11.3 million, down from an upwardly revised 11.6 million in April, the Labor Department said Wednesday in the monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. That still leaves nearly two jobs available for every unemployed person in the United States.The job openings rate jumped in retail, hotels and restaurants as Americans returned to summer leisure spending and employers struggled to keep up.By most indications, the labor market has remained very strong, with initial claims for unemployment insurance only inching up in recent months. In the May survey, the share of the work force quitting jobs remained steady, as did the share who were laid off.Concern over finding enough qualified workers increased among business leaders in the second quarter of the year, according to a survey of chief financial officers by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.“The labor shortage is absolutely top of mind for every industry I talk to,” said Dave Gilbertson, vice president of UKG, the payroll and shift management software company, which monitors four million hourly workers. “Every single one of them is struggling to hire. So far I haven’t seen job openings come down. A lot of those jobs have been open for a long time.”The Federal Reserve has been trying to stem inflation by using interest rates to slow down business activity just enough that the shortfall of workers becomes less of a constraint on productive capacity, but without throwing large numbers of people out of work. The gradual decrease in job openings, while layoffs remain low, is evidence that its strategy may be working. More

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    in Economy

    China Offers Women Perks for Having Babies, if They’re Married

    Beijing is giving incentives to stem a demographic crisis, but its control over childbirth and its suppression of women’s rights are making it difficult for some aspiring parents to start a family.When Chan Zhang heard about the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, she was baffled that Americans were still arguing over abortion rights.“Here, overall, the society does not encourage abortion,” said Ms. Zhang, a 37-year-old junior faculty member at a prestigious university on China’s east coast, “but I feel like women have the right in terms of whether they want to get an abortion.”Abortion, like almost all reproductive issues in China, is heavily centered on Chinese Communist Party authority. The party for decades forced abortions and sterilizations on women as part of its one-child policy. Now, faced with a demographic crisis, it wants women to have more than one baby — and preferably three.But Beijing is still dictating who can have babies, discriminating against single women like Ms. Zhang and minorities through draconian family planning policies. The question now, many women say, is why they would choose to have any babies at all.With China’s birthrate at a historical low, officials have been doling out tax and housing credits, educational benefits and even cash incentives to encourage women to have more children. Yet the perks are available only to married couples, a prerequisite that is increasingly unappealing to independent women who, in some cases, would prefer to parent alone.Babies born to single parents in China have long struggled to receive social benefits like medical insurance and education. Women who are single and pregnant are regularly denied access to public health care and insurance that covers maternity leave. They are not legally protected if employers fire them for being pregnant.The sweeteners offered to new mothers by the government are not doing much to reverse the demographic crisis, especially in the face of China’s steadily declining marriage rate.Gilles Sabrié for The New York TimesSome single women, including Ms. Zhang, are simply choosing not to have a child, quietly pushing back against Beijing’s control over women’s bodies. Those who find ways to get around the rules often face consequences from the state.“Many people think that being a single mom is a process of confrontation with public opinion, but it’s not,” said Sarah Gao, 46, a single parent who lives in Beijing and is outspoken about reproductive rights. “It’s actually this system.”Chinese law requires a pregnant woman and her husband to register their marriage to get prenatal care at a public hospital. When Ms. Gao found out that she was pregnant, she had to tell doctors at one hospital that her husband was overseas to be admitted.Her daughter was born in November 2016. Eight months later, Ms. Gao was fired from her job, prompting her to file a lawsuit accusing the company of workplace discrimination. The company won because Ms. Gao does not qualify for legal benefits and protections as an unmarried mother.The court said her unmarried birth “did not conform to China’s national policy.” She is appealing for a third time.China’s national family planning policy does not explicitly state that an unmarried woman cannot have children, but it defines a mother as a married woman and favors married mothers. Villages offer cash bonuses to families with new babies. Dozens of cities have expanded maternity leave and added an extra month for second- and third-time married mothers. One province in northwestern China is even considering a full year of leave. Some have created “parenting breaks” for married couples with young children.China’s national family planning policy is meant to favor married mothers. Some single women are choosing to remain childless, quietly pushing back against Beijing’s control over reproductive rights.Gilles Sabrié for The New York TimesBut the sweeteners are not doing much to reverse the demographic crisis, especially in the face of China’s steadily declining marriage rate, which reached a 36-year low last year. Women who came of age during the greatest period of economic growth in China’s modern history increasingly worry that their hard-earned independence will be taken away if they settle down.A politician at China’s most recent annual meeting of its rubber-stamp legislature suggested that the party be more tolerant toward single women who wanted children, giving them the same rights as married couples. Yet even as a shrinking population threatens Beijing’s long-term economic ambitions, the Chinese authorities have often failed to introduce lasting policy changes.The authorities moved last year to scrap the use of “social support” fees — a sort of penalty — that single mothers pay to get benefits for their children. But some areas have been slow to adopt the new rules, and the regulations can vary because enforcement is left to the discretion of local governments. Recent changes to Chinese law make it illegal to discriminate against the children of single parents, but some women still have to navigate an unsympathetic bureaucracy.Last year, landlocked Hunan Province said it would consider providing fertility services for single women, but it has not made much progress. When Shanghai decided to drop its policy of giving maternity benefits only to married women, it reversed the decision just a few weeks later, underlining just how hard it is for the authorities to loosen their grip on family planning.Chinese law requires a pregnant woman and her husband to register their marriage to get prenatal care at a public hospital. To be admitted at a hospital, one single mother had to tell doctors that her husband was overseas.Gilles Sabrié for The New York Times“At the societal level, it is a threat to the legally recognized marriage institution and social stability,” said Zheng Mu, an assistant professor of sociology at the National University of Singapore who studies fertility in China.Ten years ago, Kelly Xie, 36, got married because she wanted to have a child. “I had got to that age at the time, then I was picking and choosing and it seemed that he was the most suitable one,” she said. Four years later, she gave birth to a daughter, but she was unhappy in her marriage.The Latest on China: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 6Pressure on Taiwan. More