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    Fed Officials Are on the Defensive as High Inflation Lingers

    Christopher Waller, a governor at the Federal Reserve, faced an uncomfortable task on Friday night: He delivered remarks at a conference packed with leading academic economists titled, suggestively, “How Monetary Policy Got Behind the Curve and How to Get Back.”Fed officials — who set America’s monetary policy — have found themselves on the defensive in Washington, on Wall Street and within the economics profession as inflation has run at its fastest rate in 40 years. Friday’s event, at Stanford University’s Hoover Institute, was the clearest expression yet of the growing sense of skepticism around the Fed’s recent policy approach.The Fed is raising interest rates, and on Wednesday lifted them by the largest increment since 2000. But prominent economists on Friday blasted America’s central bankers for being slow to realize that inflation was going to run meaningfully higher in 2021 as big government spending goosed consumer demand. They criticized the Fed for taking monetary policy support away from the economy too haltingly once it began to react. Some suggested that it was still moving tentatively when more decisive action was warranted.Mr. Waller defended and explained the decisions the Fed made last year. Many inflation forecasters failed to predict the 2021 price burst, he noted, pointing out that the Fed pivoted toward removing policy support starting as early as September, when it became clear that inflation was a problem.“The Fed was not alone in underestimating the strength of inflation that revealed itself in late 2021,” said Mr. Waller, who expected inflation to be slightly higher than many of his colleagues. He noted that the Fed’s policy-setting committee had to coalesce around policy moves, which can take time given its size: It has 12 regional presidents and up to seven governors in Washington.Understand Inflation in the U.S.Inflation 101: What is inflation, why is it up and whom does it hurt? Our guide explains it all.Your Questions, Answered: Times readers sent us their questions about rising prices. Top experts and economists weighed in.Interest Rates: As it seeks to curb inflation, the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates for the first time since 2018. Here is what the increases mean for consumers.How Americans Feel: We asked 2,200 people where they’ve noticed inflation. Many mentioned basic necessities, like food and gas.Supply Chain’s Role: A key factor in rising inflation is the continuing turmoil in the global supply chain. Here’s how the crisis unfolded.“This process may lead to more gradual changes in policy as members have to compromise in order to reach a consensus,” Mr. Waller said.Such explanations have done little to shield the Fed so far. Lawrence H. Summers, a former Harvard president and Treasury secretary, suggested earlier Friday that an economic overheating was predictable last year as the government spent heavily and that “it was reasonable to expect that the bathtub would overflow.” Kevin Warsh, a former Fed governor, called inflation “a clear and present danger to the American people,” and declared the Fed’s reaction “slow.”And even as the Fed comes under fire for responding too ploddingly as inflation pressures began to build, a new debate is evolving over how quickly — and how much — rates need to increase to catch up and wrestle fast price increases back under control.The Fed lifted interest rates half a percentage point this week and forecast more to come. Still, Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, said officials were not discussing an even larger, 0.75-point move — suggesting that central bankers are still hoping to control inflation without choking off growth abruptly and shocking the economy.“If supply constraints unwind quickly, we might only need to take policy back to neutral or go modestly above it to bring inflation back down,” Neel Kashkari, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, wrote in a post on Friday. “Neutral” refers to the policy setting that neither stokes nor slows the economy.Inflation F.A.Q.Card 1 of 6What is inflation? More

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    April Jobs Report: Gain of 428,000 Shows Vibrant Labor Market

    The Labor Department reported a gain of 428,000 jobs in April, along with a 5.5 percent increase in average hourly earnings from a year earlier.The U.S. economic rebound from the pandemic’s devastation held strong in April with another month of solid job growth.Employers added 428,000 jobs, matching the previous month, the Labor Department reported Friday, with the growth broad-based across every major industry.The unemployment rate remained 3.6 percent, just a touch above its level before the pandemic, when it was the lowest in half a century.The challenge of a highly competitive labor market for employers — a shortage of available workers — persisted as well. In fact, the report showed a decline of 363,000 in the labor force.The economy has regained nearly 95 percent of the 22 million jobs lost at the height of coronavirus-related lockdowns two years ago. But the labor supply has not kept up with a record wave of job openings as businesses expand to match consumers’ continued willingness to buy a variety of goods and services. There are now 1.9 job openings for every unemployed worker.The hiring scramble has driven up wages, and employers are largely passing on that expense, helping fuel inflation that Americans have cited as their leading economic concern. On that front, Friday’s report showed an easing in the acceleration of average hourly earnings, which increased 0.3 percent from the month before, after a 0.5 percent gain in March.President Biden pointed to the latest data as evidence of “the strongest job creation economy in modern times,” a message the White House is increasingly amplifying ahead of the congressional elections.The unemployment rate stayed under 4 percent in April.The share of people who have looked for work in the past four weeks or are temporarily laid off, which does not capture everyone who lost work because of the pandemic. More

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    Amazon Fires Senior Managers Tied to Unionized Staten Island Warehouse

    Company officials said the terminations were the result of an internal review, while the fired managers saw it as a response to the recent union victory.After Amazon employees at a massive warehouse on Staten Island scored an upset union victory last month, it turned the union’s leaders into celebrities, sent shock waves through the broader labor movement and prompted politicians around the country to rally behind Amazon workers. Now it also appears to have created fallout within Amazon’s management ranks.On Thursday, Amazon informed more than half a dozen senior managers involved with the Staten Island warehouse that they were being fired, said four current and former employees with knowledge of the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation.The firings, which occurred outside the company’s typical employee review cycle, were seen by the managers and other people who work at the facility as a response to the victory by the Amazon Labor Union, three of the people said. Workers at the warehouse voted by a wide margin to form the first union at the company in the United States, in one of the biggest victories for organized labor in at least a generation.Word of the shake-up spread through the warehouse on Thursday. Many of the managers had been responsible for carrying out the company’s response to the unionization effort. Several were veterans of the company, with more than six years of experience, according to their LinkedIn profiles.Workers who supported the union complained that the company’s health and safety protocols were too lax, particularly as they related to Covid-19 and repetitive strain injuries, and that the company pushed them too hard to meet performance targets, often at the expense of sufficient breaks. Many also said pay at the warehouse, which starts at over $18 per hour for full-time workers, was too low to live on in New York City.Understand the Unionization Efforts at AmazonBeating Amazon: A homegrown, low-budget push to unionize at a Staten Island warehouse led to a historic labor victory. (Workers at another nearby Amazon facility rejected joining a similar effort shortly after.)Retaliation: Weeks after the landmark win, Amazon fired several managers in Staten Island. Some see it as retaliation for their involvement in the unionization efforts.A New Playbook: The success of the Amazon union’s independent drive has organized labor asking whether it should take more of a back seat.Amazon’s Approach: The company has countered unionization efforts with mandatory “training” sessions that carry clear anti-union messages.An Amazon spokeswoman said the company had made the management changes after spending several weeks evaluating aspects of the “operations and leadership” at JFK8, which is the company’s name for the warehouse. “Part of our culture at Amazon is to continually improve, and we believe it’s important to take time to review whether or not we’re doing the best we could be for our team,” said Kelly Nantel, the spokeswoman.The managers were told they were being fired as part of an “organizational change,” two people said. One of the people said some of the managers were strong performers who recently received positive reviews.The Staten Island facility is Amazon’s only fulfillment center in New York City, and for a year current and former workers at the facility organized to form an upstart, independent union. The company is challenging the election, saying that the union’s unconventional tactics were coercive and that the National Labor Relations Board was biased in the union’s favor. And the union is working to maintain the pressure on Amazon so it will negotiate a contract.Christian Smalls, the president of the Amazon Labor Union, testified on Thursday before a Senate committee that was exploring whether companies that violate labor laws should be denied federal contracts. Mr. Smalls later attended a White House meeting with other labor organizers in which he directly asked President Biden to press Amazon to recognize his union.A White House spokeswoman said it was up to the National Labor Relations Board to certify the results of the recent election but affirmed that Mr. Biden had long supported collective bargaining and workers’ rights to unionize.Amazon has said that it invested $300 million on safety projects in 2021 alone and that it provides pay above the minimum wage with solid benefits like health care to full-time workers as soon as they join the company.More than 8,000 workers at the warehouse were eligible to vote, and the union made a point of reaching out to employees from different ethnic groups, including African Americans, Latinos and immigrants from Africa and Asia, as well as those of different political persuasions, from conservatives to progressives.Company officials and consultants held more than 20 mandatory meetings per day with employees in the run-up to the election, in which they sought to persuade workers not to support the union. The officials highlighted the amount of money that the union would collect from them and emphasized the uncertainty of collective bargaining, which they said could leave workers worse off.Labor experts say such claims can be misleading because it is highly unusual for workers to see their compensation fall as a result of the bargaining process.Roughly one month after the union victory at JFK8, Amazon workers at a smaller facility nearby voted against unionizing by a decisive margin.The votes came during what could be an inflection point for organized labor. While the rate of union membership reached its lowest point in decades last year (about 10 percent of U.S. workers) petitions to hold union elections were up more than 50 percent over the previous year during the six months ending in March, according to the National Labor Relations Board. The number of petitions is on pace to reach its highest point in at least a decade.Since December, workers at Starbucks have won initial union votes at more than 50 stores nationwide, while workers have organized or sought to organize at other companies that did not previously have unions, such as Apple and the outdoor apparel retailer REI.Grace Ashford More

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    Here's where the jobs are — in one chart

    Hiring in the manufacturing, transportation and health-care sectors helped the U.S. economy add more than 400,000 jobs in April.
    Leisure and hospitality, the industry that saw the largest one-month pop in job gains, added 78,000 jobs during the first month of the second quarter.
    “We’re seeing [strong numbers in] the manufacturing sector — we saw some great growth, we’re very happy about that,” Labor Secretary Marty Walsh told CNBC. “We saw some good growth in retail as well.”

    Arrows pointing outwards

    Strong hiring in the manufacturing, transportation and warehousing and health-care sectors during April helped the U.S. economy notch its 12th straight month of job gains of 400,000 or more.
    The U.S. economy added 428,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department reported Friday, the same gain as in March that followed a jump of 714,000 in February and 504,000 in January.

    Leisure and hospitality, the industry that saw the largest one-month pop in job gains, added 78,000 jobs during the first month of the second quarter.
    Within that industry, restaurants and bars added 43,800 jobs, hotels and other lodging businesses tacked on 22,300 and performing arts and spectator sports businesses added 13,300.
    Despite the long string of robust monthly job gains, however, employment in leisure and hospitality is still down by 1.4 million jobs, or 8.5%, since February 2020.
    Manufacturers, another bright industry group in the April 2022 jobs report, added 55,000 jobs last month.
    Government economists said the majority of manufacturers’ gains came from hiring at durable goods plants. Wood product producers added 3,600 positions, machinery makers tacked on 7,400 and businesses that craft transportation equipment — including motor vehicle parts — added 13,700 jobs.

    Department of Labor Secretary Marty Walsh touted the past year’s healthy jobs figures and acknowledged manufacturers’ solid performance last month.
    “We’re seeing [strong numbers in] the manufacturing sector — we saw some great growth, we’re very happy about that,” Walsh told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” Friday morning. “We saw some good growth in retail as well. Not just the online side, we saw it in the stores.”
    Walsh’s boss, President Joe Biden, is visiting Cincinnati on Friday to promote advanced manufacturing and is expected to offer comments later in the day on the administration’s efforts to expand domestic production in the coming years.

    Retailers, which market and sell goods to American consumers, added 29,200 jobs in April.
    While retail employment statistics have been volatile in recent years due to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and government-imposed lockdowns, those figures are routinely susceptible to seasonal shopping trends. Stores tend to bulk up on staff in the fall and winter to prepare for the busy holiday season, and trim down payrolls in the spring and summer.
    The Labor Department does attempt to control for those seasonal variations, but even with that consideration, retail’s gain of 29,200 represents the sector’s best April jobs performance since 2014.
    Transportation and warehousing, an industry scrutinized for potential supply chain relief, also posted a solid month of job creation with a net gain of 52,000. The Labor Department said warehousing and storage facilities added 17,000 jobs, couriers and messengers rose by 15,000, truck transportation gained 13,000, and air transportation climbed 4,000.
    Employment in transportation and warehousing is 674,000 above its February 2020 level, led by strong growth in warehousing and storage and in couriers and messengers, which have risen by 467,000 and 259,000, respectively, since Covid-19 reached U.S. shores.
    The broad health and social services sector added 40,900 jobs to payrolls, thanks in large part to gains among ambulatory health-care workers, a broad definition that includes private doctors’ and dentists’ offices and other outpatient care facilities.
    — CNBC’s Crystal Mercedes contributed reporting.
    Correction: The hospital and leisure sector had the highest single-month jobs increase; an earlier version misstated the sector. The health and social services sector added 40,900 jobs to payrolls; an earlier version misstated that figure.

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    Payroll growth accelerated by 428,000 in April, more than expected as jobs picture stays strong

    Nonfarm payrolls grew by 428,000 for April, a bit above the Dow Jones estimate of 400,000 and identical to March.
    The unemployment rate held at 3.6% after being expected to nudge lower to 3.5%.
    Leisure and hospitality led job gains followed by manufacturing and transportation and warehousing.
    Wages rose 0.3% and were up 5.5% from a year ago, about the same as March.

    The U.S. economy added slightly more jobs than expected in April amid an increasingly tight labor market and despite surging inflation and fears of a growth slowdown, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.
    Nonfarm payrolls grew by 428,000 for the month, a bit above the Dow Jones estimate of 400,000. The unemployment rate was 3.6%, slightly higher than the estimate for 3.5%. The April total was identical to the downwardly revised count for March.

    There also was some better news on the inflation front: Average hourly earnings continued to grow, but at a 0.3% level for the month that was a bit below the 0.4% estimate. On a year-over-year basis, earnings were up 5.5%, about the same as in March but still below the pace of inflation.
    An alternative measure of unemployment that includes discouraged workers and those holding part-time jobs for economic reasons, sometimes referred to as the “real” unemployment rate, edged higher to 7%.
    Unemployment for Blacks has showed a steady decline and fell again, to 5.9%, while Hispanic unemployment dropped to 4.1% and Asian unemployment rose to 3.1%. The jobless rate for those with disabilities dropped to 8.3%, a 0.5 percentage point decrease from March.
    “The job market continues to plow forward, buoyed by strong employer demand. After just over two years of the pandemic, the job market is remaining resilient and on track for a return to pre-pandemic levels this summer,” said Daniel Zhao, senior economist at jobs review site Glassdoor. “However, the job market is showing some signs of cooling as it turns the corner and the recovery enters a new phase.”

    The labor force participation rate, a key measure of worker engagement, fell 0.2 percentage point for the month to 62.2%, the first monthly decline since March 2021 as the labor force contracted by 363,000. The level is of particular importance with a gap of about 5.6 million between job postings and available workers.

    “Demand for labor remains very strong; the problem is a shortage of available workers, and the decline in the labor force participation rate in April could add to wage pressures,” wrote PNC’s chief economist, Gus Faucher.
    Leisure and hospitality again led job growth, adding 78,000. The unemployment rate for the sector, which was hit hardest by the Covid pandemic, plunged to 4.8%, its lowest since September 2019 after peaking at 39.3% in April 2020. Average hourly earnings for the sector increased 0.6% on the month and are up 11% from a year ago.
    Other big gainers included manufacturing (55,000), transportation and warehousing (52,000), professional and business services (41,000), financial activities (35,000) and health care (34,000). Retail also showed solid growth, adding 29,000 primarily from gains in food and beverage stores.
    Some of the details in the report, though, were not as strong.
    The survey of households actually showed a decline of 353,000, leaving the level 761,000 short of where it was in February 2020, just before the start of the pandemic. April marked the first monthly decrease in the household survey since April 2020.
    Stock futures moved lower as Wall Street digested the data and government bond yields were mostly higher.
    The report likely will do little to sway the Federal Reserve from its current path of interest rate increases. The central bank announced Wednesday it would raise its benchmark interest rate half a percentage point in what will be an ongoing effort to stamp out price increases running at their fastest pace in more than 40 years.
    “Overall, with labor market conditions still this strong — including very rapid wage growth — we doubt that the Fed is going to abandon its hawkish plans because of the current bout of weakness in equities,” said Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics.
    The job growth comes with the U.S. economy experiencing its worst growth quarter since the start of the pandemic, and worker output for the first three months that declined 7.5%, the biggest slowdown since 1947 and the second-worst quarter ever recorded. GDP was off 1.4% for the January-through-March period.

    Looking for bargains amidst the selloff? Subscribe to CNBC Pro to see which stocks are most likely to rebound.
    Correction: The nonfarm payrolls count for March was revised downward. An earlier version misstated the direction.

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    Biden and Harris meet with labor organizers from Amazon and Starbucks.

    President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Labor Secretary Martin J. Walsh met Thursday at the White House with several union organizers involved in successful campaigns at companies including Amazon and Starbucks.The meeting was intended to discuss how the recent organizing successes can inspire other workers to join or form a union, according to the White House.Alex Speidel, an employee and union leader at Paizo, a publisher of role-playing games in the Seattle area, said the administration officials “were interested in hearing about how we had been successful — what things we had done to motivate people without the union history in their families, first-time union joiners.”A high-profile White House event focused primarily on rank-and-file union members and grassroots organizers is unusual for a president of either party. But a task force on worker organizing led by Ms. Harris, which officially organized Thursday’s meeting, has met with workers outside the White House on several occasions, and rank-and-file union members have attended White House events under Mr. Biden. There have also been White House meetings with labor leaders and senior labor officials.Christian Smalls, president of the Amazon Labor Union, asked Mr. Biden to press Amazon’s leadership to recognize the union and to begin collective bargaining, and Mr. Biden expressed general support in response, according to Mr. Speidel and another attendee, Jaimie Caldwell, a librarian at the Baltimore County Public Library in Maryland. A White House spokeswoman said it was up to the National Labor Relations Board, an independent agency, to certify unions. She also pointed to earlier remarks by Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, noting that President Biden is a longtime advocate “for collective bargaining, for the rights of workers to organize, and their decision to do exactly that” in the case of Amazon.The meeting comes at a time when union organizers have won several high-profile elections, including more than 50 at Starbucks locations and at the Staten Island warehouse where Mr. Smalls led a unionization effort.In addition to union leaders and workers from Amazon, Starbucks, Paizo and the Baltimore County Public Library, the meeting included workers from the outdoor apparel retailer REI and the animation production company Titmouse.Labor leaders often describe Mr. Biden as the most pro-labor president of their lifetimes, pointing to his replacement of government officials they disliked with those more sympathetic to unions, and to the undoing of Trump-era rules that weakened worker protections.During a high-profile union campaign at Amazon last year, Mr. Biden warned that “there should be no intimidation, no coercion, no threats, no anti-union propaganda,” and he later criticized Kellogg for its plans to permanently replace striking workers during a labor dispute. Both were unusual interjections by a sitting president. More

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    'Unretirement' is becoming a hot new trend in the sizzling U.S. labor market

    The level of workers who retired then came back a year later is running around 3.2%, just about where it was before the pandemic.
    A thriving jobs market in which workers virtually have their pick on where to go, coupled with soaring inflation and the fading of Covid fears all are contributing to the trend.

    A worker grinds a weld on a safe that is being manufactured at Liberty Safe Company on March 22, 2022 in Payson, Utah.
    George Frey | Getty Images

    The Covid pandemic sent more than 8 million workers to the sidelines at one point, including many folks who decided it was the right time to retire as the workplace as they knew it faded out of sight.
    But with a thriving jobs market in which workers virtually have their pick on where to go, coupled with soaring inflation and the fading of Covid fears, some are finding it a good time to rethink their plans and come back to the fold.

    In fact, the level of workers who retired then came back a year later is running around 3.2%, just about where it was before the pandemic, after dipping to around 2% during Covid’s worst days, according to calculations from job placement site Indeed.
    “The unretirement trend is emblematic of what we’re seeing in the labor market overall, which is seeing increasing labor force participation for a broad swath of workers,” said Nick Bunker, economic research director for North America at Indeed.

    Along with the other factors, Bunker said employers are ramping up incentives to fill 11.5 million job openings. There are about 5.6 million more vacancies than there are available workers, creating a strong power base for those looking for work, no matter the age.
    “Employers are taking steps to entice people. There’s an elevated share of postings that mention terms like hiring bonuses, retention bonuses,” Bunker said. “There are signs that employers are starting to lure people in with bonuses like that.”
    A much higher cost of living than two years ago also is factoring in.

    Prices in March increased 8.5% from a year ago, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and that higher cost of living is posing hardship for people living on fixed incomes.
    “For people who were formerly retired and are now returning to work, it certainly is having an impact,” said Bunker, though he added that he is “skeptical it’s the main factor.” He pointed, for instance, to conditions following the financial crisis in 2008 when retirees started coming back even though inflation was nowhere near the level it is now.
    For Tommy Benz, a former executive at Verizon Wireless who retired from a position at Endurance International, returning to work was a bit about a desire to stay busy but also about loyalty to his high school alma mater.
    Benz, a 54-year-old Mountain Top, Pa., resident, has been taking substitute teaching jobs recently as a way to help out Crestwood High School, which needed classroom help badly. The town is in the northeast part of the state, about 110 miles north of Philadelphia.
    “While subbing was not something I aspired to do in retirement, it was always in the back of my mind,” Benz said. “When I learned of the shortage they were facing, it became an easy decision.”
    How many more people have come back to work will become a little clearer Friday when the BLS releases its nonfarm payrolls report for April.
    The labor force participation rate was 62.4% in March, roughly a full percentage point up from its pre-pandemic level but well off the low of 60.2% in April 2020. The total labor force level, after sinking by more than 8.2 million from February 2020 to April of the same year, is about 200,000 shy of the pre-Covid state.
    Economists surveyed by Dow Jones expect that payrolls increased by 400,000 in April and the unemployment rate fell to 3.5%, which would bring it back to its February 2020 level.

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    Worker output fell 7.5% in the first quarter, the biggest decline since 1947

    Worker productivity fell 7.5% in the first quarter, the fastest decline since 1947.
    At the same time, labor costs as measured against productivity soared 11.6%, bringing the increase over the past four quarters to 7.2%, the fastest rise in about 40 years.
    Weekly jobless claims increased to 200,000, well above the Wall Street estimate.

    People work at the Rivian Automotive electric vehicle factory in Normal, Illinois, April 11, 2022.
    Kamil Krzaczynski | Reuters

    Worker productivity fell to start 2022 at its fastest pace in nearly 75 years while labor costs soared as the U.S. struggled with surging Covid cases, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday.
    Nonfarm productivity, a measure of output against hours worked, declined 7.5% from January through March, the biggest fall since the third quarter of 1947.

    At the same time, unit labor costs soared 11.6%, bringing the increase over the past four quarters to 7.2%, the biggest gain since the third quarter of 1982. The metric calculates how much employers pay workers in salary and benefits per unit of output.

    Wall Street already had been looking for a 5.2% drop in productivity and an increase of 10.5% in unit labor costs. On a four-quarter basis, productivity fell 0.6%, the biggest decline since the fourth quarter of 1993.
    Taken together, the numbers underline the inflation surge in the U.S., which has seen prices rise at the fastest level in more than 40 years. Federal Reserve officials on Wednesday announced they would be raising interest rates half a percentage point as part of an ongoing effort to control inflation.
    A separate Labor Department report Thursday showed that jobless claims increased to 200,000 for the week ended April 30, a 19,000 gain from the previous period and above the Dow Jones estimate for 182,000.
    Continuing claims, which run a week behind the headline number, fell 19,000 to 1.38 million, the lowest level since Jan. 17, 1970.

    The productivity data reflect a quarter in which a variety of factors converged to cause a 1.4% decline in the rate of economic growth as measured by gross domestic product.
    Rising Covid cases, runaway inflation and the Russian invasion of Ukraine dented activity, though most economists expect growth to resume later in the year. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said at his post-meeting news conference Wednesday that he still sees the U.S. in a strong position though inflation must be tamed if the recovery is to remain strong.

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