Economy

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for freeYour guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the worldFederal Reserve chair Jay Powell played down concerns over US growth after U-turns by Donald Trump’s administration, disappointing jobs numbers and a tumultuous week in financial markets.Powell on Friday said the world’s largest economy remained “in good shape” despite the elevated “uncertainty”, after the president launched an aggressive agenda of tariffs and spending cuts.“We are focused on separating the signal from the noise as the outlook evolves,” Powell said, adding the Fed was in no “hurry” to cut interest rates and was “well positioned to wait for greater clarity”.Powell’s comments came as the blue-chip S&P 500 ended the week down 3.1 per cent, its worst run since early September. US stocks have pulled back sharply in recent weeks after gloomy economic reports prompted worries Trump’s tariffs will slow growth. Corporate executives warned the chaotic pivots in trade policy, including a major reversal this week on the administration’s plans to tariff goods from Canada and Mexico, had made it difficult to run their businesses, and could stymie fresh investments into the US. Show video infoThe US is “at a crossroads, economically”, said Charles Lemonides, chief investment officer at ValueWorks, a New York-based hedge fund. “We don’t know where policy is going and it creates huge turmoil.”The Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday released data showing the US created 151,000 jobs in February, falling short of the 160,000 forecast by economists polled by Reuters.The unemployment rate was 4.1 per cent last month, compared with expectations it would hold steady at 4 per cent. “Investor sentiment was euphoric after the election but there’s been a whole lot of cold water thrown on that euphoria over the past month,” said Jim Tierney, head of the concentrated US growth fund at AllianceBernstein. “Powell is saying everything is fine, but that’s not what consumer sentiment is saying and it’s not where we’ve heard business sentiment to be, either,” he added.The Fed chair had recently signalled the central bank would keep its main interest rate at its current range of between 4.25 per cent and 4.5 per cent as it assessed the impact of Trump’s policies. But markets are increasingly betting the Fed will be forced to cut rates more aggressively this year than thought, dragging Treasury yields lower and weighing on the dollar. The US dollar index, which tracks the greenback’s strength against six other currencies, has lost 4.3 per cent this year.Asked what would prompt the Fed to respond to tariffs imposed on US imports, Powell said on Friday: “What would really matter is what’s happening with longer-term inflation expectations and how persistent are the inflationary effects.”Some economists have warned Trump’s spending cuts and the slashing of the federal workforce through the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency”, led by billionaire Elon Musk, could also be a drag on the economy. Earlier in the week, Trump rolled back some of the tariffs he imposed on Canada and Mexico in an attempt to soothe markets. On Friday, he acknowledged some economic pain might come from his policies and their sometimes chaotic rollout.“There could be some disturbance, a little bit of disturbance,” the president said, repeating a line from his speech to Congress on Tuesday night. “There will always be changes and adjustments.” More

Eggs are displayed for sale in a Manhattan grocery store in New York City on Feb. 25, 2025.
Spencer Platt | Getty Images

The U.S. Justice Department has opened an investigation into potential antitrust issues related to the surging price of eggs, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The investigation, which is in its early stages, includes a look at whether large egg producers have worked together to raise prices or reduce supply, the report said.

The news comes as the price of eggs has soared, leading some restaurants to announce menu changes and reports of grocery stores with empty shelves. For example, Denny’s announced last month that it was passing along rising egg costs to customers in the form of a surcharge.
In the latest consumer price index report, Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed the price of eggs up 53% year over year. On a seasonally adjusted basis, the cost of eggs rose 15.2% just between December and January. This marked the largest increase in the eggs index since June 2015.
The price increases appear to be at least in part due to an outbreak of avian flu that has led egg producers to cull their populations. However, advocacy group Farm Action sent a letter last month to the DOJ and Federal Trade Commission, calling for an investigation into other causes.
CNBC has not independently confirmed that this investigation is ongoing. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

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Donald Trump has threatened Russia with additional “large-scale” sanctions and tariffs, as the US president shifts to piling pressure on Moscow in an effort to broker a peace deal in Ukraine.Trump’s comments on Friday come as tensions have eased with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy following a public confrontation in the White House last week, which led to the US suspending military aid and intelligence support to Kyiv. US and Ukrainian officials are due to meet next week in Saudi Arabia for talks. National security adviser Mike Waltz and secretary of state Marco Rubio will head the US delegation.“Based on the fact that Russia is absolutely ‘pounding’ Ukraine on the battlefield right now, I am strongly considering large scale Banking Sanctions, Sanctions, and Tariffs on Russia until a Cease Fire and FINAL SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT ON PEACE IS REACHED,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.“To Russia and Ukraine, get to the table right now, before it is too late. Thank you!!!” he added.Trump has faced criticism from US allies as well as domestic lawmakers, including some Republicans, for his clashes with Zelenskyy. Concerns are growing that the White House is handing all the leverage to Russia even before direct talks begin between Moscow and Kyiv.In the Oval Office later on Friday, Trump returned to friendlier rhetoric towards Moscow.“I’m finding it more difficult, frankly, to deal with Ukraine [than Russia],” the president said. “I find that in terms of getting a final settlement, it may be easier dealing with Russia, which is surprising, because they have all the cards, and they’re bombing the hell out of them right now.”However, he did say that his Truth Social post was “a very strong statement” to Moscow saying it “can’t” continue its intense bombing of Ukraine.Trump said he did not think Russian President Vladimir Putin was taking advantage of the halted intelligence sharing from Washington to Kyiv and was instead “doing what anybody else would do”.“I think [Putin’s] hitting [Ukraine] harder than he’s been hitting them. And I think probably anybody in that position would be doing that right now. He wants to get it ended,” he said.Despite Moscow’s bombing campaign, Trump said he did not want to keep supplying Kyiv with air defences since “I have to know that they want to settle. I don’t know that they want to settle.” Trump added that before he thinks about US security guarantees for Ukraine, he wants the war settled. “Ukraine has to get on the ball and get a job done,” he said.US officials had previously threatened sanctions on Russia in an effort to push Putin towards the negotiating table, but Trump emphatically renewed that message on Friday.The White House has not offered any details of the threatened sanctions and tariffs on Russia. Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, told reporters on Friday that “there are a heck of a lot of things that are left, for sure” to sanction “but . . . let’s see how it goes”.Russia remains under sweeping sanctions imposed by former president Joe Biden, including on its financial services, defence and energy sectors. The US has also targeted top Russian business leaders and oligarchs with sanctions. The sanctions have cut Russia’s trade surplus by more than half, from $337bn in 2022, the first year of the war, to just $151bn last year, said Alexandra Prokopenko, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin. The most painful measures were the sanctions against oil exports, which have forced Russian companies to sell at a discount while raising their logistics and financial costs, and financial sanctions that have created cumbersome barriers for the country’s companies making international transactions, as well as sanctions on its airline sector.The sweeping approach taken by the Biden administration meant that Trump can do relatively little to ratchet up pressure, Prokopenko said. “There’s no sanctions bazooka any more and the US can’t inflict real pain,” she added.But Trump officials say the sanctions from Biden were ineffective, particularly with respect to Russia’s all-important energy sector. “A major factor that has enabled the Russian war machine’s continued financing was the Biden administration’s egregiously weak sanctions on Russian energy,” Scott Bessent, the US Treasury secretary, told the Economic Club of New York on Thursday.He suggested that the Biden administration had held back on imposing more severe sanctions due to “worries about upward pressure on US energy prices during an election season”.“What was the point of substantial US military and financial support over the past three years, without a commensurate and fulsome sanction support?” he asked. The White House has previously dangled the possibility of an easing of sanctions on Russia if it reaches a peace deal with Ukraine, and officials have even pointed to business opportunities for US investors in the country in the event an agreement is reached. Higher tariffs on Russian imports will have limited impact since the country’s trading with the US has collapsed in recent years. According to the US trade representative’s office, goods imports from Russia amounted to $3bn in 2024. More

A hiring sign is displayed in the window of a Chipotle on August 22, 2024 in Alexandria, Virginia. 
Anna Rose Layden | Getty Images

The unemployment rate among Black men saw a significant improvement in February – even as the rate ticked higher for U.S. workers in general.
The overall unemployment rate edged higher last month to 4.1% from 4% in January, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report on Friday. Nonfarm payrolls growth also came out underwhelming, according to the data.

To be sure, the unemployment data for February comes amid a push from President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to reduce the federal workforce. The full impact of those cuts have yet to unfold, and further uncertainties around the direction of the U.S. economy and tariff decisions could affect hiring, according to Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
“It’s the calm before the storm,” she said. “We’re not seeing the layoffs in the data yet, for the most part.”

An improvement in unemployment rates for Black men in February
For Black men aged 20 and older, the unemployment rate notably declined to 5.5% in February from 6.9% in January. That latest number shows a drop back down near levels seen in December, which had a 5.6% unemployment rate for Black men in this cohort.
The unemployment rate for Black women came out at 5.4% in February, holding steady from January and December. Those results come after the rate spiked to 5.9% in November of last year. By comparison, the jobless rate among Black workers overall edged lower to 6% in February, down from 6.2% in January.
“You see a fair amount of volatility month-to-month. It’s a little hard to ignore the huge drop in the unemployment rate for Black men … that’s a positive indication,” Gould said.

Higher unemployment rates for Hispanic and white women
The unemployment rate for Hispanic women climbed to 5.1% in February, up from 4.5% in the prior month. Hispanic men saw a similar jump in the unemployment rate, which rose to 4.6% last month from 4.0%.
For white women, the unemployment rate ticked up to 3.4% in February from 3.3%, and for white men it rose to 3.5% last month from 3.1%. White workers overall saw the jobless rate climb to 3.8% in February from 3.5% in January.
For Asian workers, the unemployment rate slid to 3.2% in February, down from 3.7% in the prior month.

Rick Rieder, BlackRock’s chief investment officer of global fixed income, said that February’s payrolls report comes with a “load of footnotes.”
“For instance, the reporting survey was conducted following a period of significant job displacement in California related to the wildfires and other adverse weather conditions around the U.S., in the midst of a changing immigration picture, more labor strikes, and the beginning of the impact of DOGE on federal government employment,” he said.
– CNBC’s Gabriel Cortes contributed to this report. More

If you’re reading this on a day that ends with -day, there’s been news that US tariffs are on, off, delayed, or exemption-riddled. This is surely the kind of strong, decisive leadership Americans voted for in November.Alphaville could spend lots of time thoroughly analysing the signs that the US is FAFOing itself into one of the dumbest economic downturns in history . . . But it’s been a disease-riddled week and it’s now Friday, so instead we’ll just sum up the current state of Trumponomics through its most appropriate medium: the meme.We’re crediting either the creator — when we think we know who it is — or the person who sent it to us first. Thanks to FTAV readers for stepping up to the plate.© @bisphamgreen.bsky.social‬© @TBPInvictus© Alexander Clarkson© Ben Carlson© Sean Tuffy© @SkylerforNY © Sean Tuffy More