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The Job Market Has Been Resilient. The Trade War Could Be Its Undoing.

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For three years, the U.S. economy has been buffeted by rapid inflation, high interest rates and political instability at home and abroad. Yet it has proved surprisingly resilient, supported by the sturdy pillars of robust consumer spending, a rising stock market, and healthy balance sheets for households and businesses alike.But one by one, those pillars have begun to crack under the weight of tariffs and uncertainty. The all-out global trade war that President Trump declared on Wednesday could be enough to shatter what had arguably been the economy’s final source of support, the strong job market.“The strength of the consumer is coming down to the jobs market,” said Sarah House, an economist at Wells Fargo. “And it’s increasingly perilous.”The sweeping tariffs that Mr. Trump announced on Wednesday, and the duties that U.S. trading partners quickly imposed in retaliation, sent stock indexes around the world tumbling on Thursday. The effects won’t be limited to the financial markets: Economists say tariffs will raise prices for consumers and businesses, which will lead employers to pull back on hiring and, if the tariffs remain in place long enough, lay off workers.“If the economy isn’t growing as fast, or it isn’t growing at all, you don’t need as many workers,” Ms. House said.Economists will get their latest glimpse of the job situation on Friday, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics will release March figures on hiring and unemployment.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    As Trump Stokes Uncertainty, the Fed Asks Businesses Where It Hurts

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    The central bank’s outreach to companies has taken on new significance as the outlook for growth and inflation gets cloudier.Chris Bergen, who runs a commercial greenhouse business in northern Minnesota, finds himself “walking a tightrope” roughly two months into President Trump’s second term. Acute uncertainty about how the administration’s trade and immigration policies will unfold and affect the economy has made him much more cautious about any expansion plans.As one of the country’s biggest producers of bedding plants, perennials and other flowers, Bergen’s Greenhouses is exposed on many fronts.Every June, it trucks in more than six million pounds of peat moss from Manitoba. Suppliers have stopped quoting prices until they have more clarity on tariffs. The plastic flower pots that Mr. Bergen imports from China could also wind up costing more if tariffs remain in place, squeezing already “razor-thin margins,” he said. He is also worried about needing to find workers if Mr. Trump, as part of an immigration crackdown, ends a program that provides temporary visas to many of the company’s agricultural workers.“We’re not putting our foot on the brake, but we are taking our foot off the gas,” said Mr. Bergen, whose family has run the business for over a century.That caution is one of the biggest concerns for the Federal Reserve, which is facing an increasingly challenging economic moment with little precedent. The central bank is trying to get a better read on the economy as it debates when — or if — it can again lower interest rates with inflation still too high for its liking. Businesses are warning of both higher prices and slower growth, effects that have yet to show up entirely in the economic data. The 12 regional presidents at the central bank have always kept close tabs on businesses in their districts in order to understand how economic conditions are evolving. That local outreach has taken on new significance as the range of possible outcomes has widened drastically.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Inflation Remained Sticky Ahead of Trump’s Escalating Trade War

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    The Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation measure showed underlying price pressures persisting in February.Americans hoping for some relief on inflation suffered a setback in February, as new data showed underlying price pressures intensifying even before the latest escalation in President Trump’s trade war.The Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, after stripping out volatile food and energy items, climbed 2.8 percent in February from a year earlier, outpacing January’s annual pace. On a monthly basis, these prices ticked up another 0.4 percent, higher than the monthly increase in January.Overall inflation came in at 2.5 percent, a level that sits well above the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target and has been more or less in place since November.The latest data from the Commerce Department highlights the extent of the challenge the central bank is confronting. Its debate over what to do about interest rates has been complicated by a rapidly escalating trade war, one that has bred extreme uncertainty about the economic outlook.On Wednesday, Mr. Trump announced 25 percent tariffs on cars and car parts imported into the United States and has vowed to unveil another set of tariffs next week.With the scope and scale of the tariffs not yet clear, and a host of other policies pertaining to immigration, taxes and deregulation still being worked out, the Fed has opted to stand pat until it gets more clarity about what exactly Mr. Trump will enforce and how consumers and businesses will respond.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    How Fed Rates Influence Mortgages, Credit Cards, Savings and More

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    The Federal Reserve is expected to keep its key rate steady on Wednesday, after a series of cuts that lowered rates by a full percentage point last year.That means consumers looking to borrow are likely to have to wait a bit longer for better deals on many loans, but savers will benefit from steadier yields on savings accounts.Economists don’t expect another rate cut for a while, as the central bank waits for more clarity on an increasingly uncertain outlook given President Trump’s policies on tariffs, immigration, widespread federal job cuts, among other things.The Fed’s benchmark rate is set at a range of 4.25 to 4.5 percent. In an effort to tamp down sky-high inflation, the central bank began lifting rates rapidly — from near zero to above 5 percent — between March 2022 and July 2023. Prices have cooled considerably since then, and the Fed pivoted to rate cuts, lowering rates in September, November and December.More recently,Mr. Trump’s inflation-stoking polices could prompt the Fed to delay more rate cuts. But at the same time, longer-term interest rates set by the markets have been drifting down, influencing a wide range of consumer and business borrowing costs.Here’s what to watch for in five areas of your financial life:Auto RatesCredit CardsMortgagesSavings Accounts and C.D.sStudent LoansWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • 125 Shares99 Views

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    The Fed’s Projections: How to Read Them Like a Pro

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    Federal Reserve officials are scheduled to release their first set of economic projections this year, alongside their interest rate decision, on Wednesday. Those forecasts will offer a fresh glimpse of the trajectory for monetary policy at a highly uncertain moment for the central bank.Policymakers paused interest rate cuts in January after reducing borrowing costs by a percentage point in the latter half of last year. They are expected to again stand pat on Wednesday as they await greater clarity on how far President Trump will push his global trade war and to what extent he will follow through on other central aspects of his agenda, including slashing government spending and deporting migrants.The big question now is when — and to some extent whether — the Fed will be able to restart cuts this year.When the Fed last released quarterly economic projections in December, officials penciled in two rate cuts that would reduce borrowing costs by half a percentage point in 2025. But economists now expect Mr. Trump’s policies to lead to more intense price pressures and slower growth, a tough dynamic for the central bank and one that could prompt policymakers to scale back how many cuts they project going forward.Here’s what could change and how to interpret those updates.The dot plot, decodedWhen the central bank releases its Summary of Economic Projections each quarter, Fed watchers focus on one part in particular: the dot plot.The dot plot will show Fed policymakers’ estimates for interest rates through 2027 and over the longer run. The forecasts are represented by dots arranged along a vertical scale — one dot for each of the central bank’s 19 officials.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • 125 Shares76 Views

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    Trump Primed to Clash With Fed After Key Rate Decision

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    President Trump has never been shy about criticizing the Federal Reserve, frequently seeking to pressure the nation’s central bank into reducing interest rates more swiftly.“Interest Rates should be lowered, something which would go hand in hand with upcoming Tariffs!!!,” Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social last month, adding: “Lets Rock and Roll, America!!!”But the Fed is expected to see things differently on Wednesday — choosing to hold rates steady in the face of rising prices and slowing growth — in a move that seems destined to stoke Mr. Trump’s anger.At the heart of the tension are Mr. Trump’s tariffs, which he has promised to apply more expansively beginning April 2. The White House contends its protectionist policies can rejuvenate American manufacturing and reduce the country’s reliance on imports, but economists believe that Mr. Trump risks touching off a protracted global trade war that will badly harm the U.S. economy.The latest dour projection arrived Tuesday, when Fitch Ratings cut its U.S. growth forecast for this year to 1.7 percent from 2.1 percent. It explicitly pointed to Mr. Trump’s tariffs — and the “huge uncertainty” around them — as two of the drivers behind a potential economic slowdown and short-term rise in prices.The uncertainty is likely to freeze any rate cutting at the Fed, perhaps straining an already tortured relationship between Mr. Trump and Jerome H. Powell, the man he handpicked to serve as chair of the central bank in 2017.In his first term, the president described Mr. Powell as the “enemy,” and blasted his colleagues as “boneheads,” in a bid to browbeat the Fed into slashing interest rates. Mr. Trump at one point even considered firing Mr. Powell, raising fears that the White House might try to undermine the Fed’s political independence.Soon after returning to the White House, the president revived his attacks: He said, again, that he would “demand that interest rates drop immediately,” and one of his leading advisers — the tech billionaire Elon Musk — signaled support for an audit of the central bank. When the Fed chose to hold rates steady at its last meeting, Mr. Trump charged anew that Mr. Powell and the Fed had “failed to stop the problem they created with inflation.”“If the Fed had spent less time on DEI, gender ideology, ‘green’ energy, and fake climate change, Inflation would never have been a problem,” Mr. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. More

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    U.S. Inflation Eased More Than Expected in February

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    Inflation eased more than expected in February, a welcome sign for the Federal Reserve as it grapples with the prospect of higher prices and slower growth as a result of President Trump’s trade war.The Consumer Price Index was up 2.8 percent from a year earlier, after rising another 0.2 percent on a monthly basis. That was a step down from January’s surprisingly large 0.5 percent increase and came in below economists’ expectations.The “core” measure of inflation, which strips out volatile food and fuel prices to give a better sense of the underlying trend, also ticked lower. The index rose 0.2 percent from the previous month, or 3.1 percent from a year earlier. Both percentages were below January’s increases.The data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics underscored the bumpy nature of the Fed’s progress toward its 2 percent goal. Prices for consumer staples, such as eggs and other grocery items, are rising steeply again, but costs for other categories like gasoline fell. A 4 percent drop in airfares in February was a primary driver of the better-than-expected data.Egg prices rose another 10.4 percent in February, as an outbreak of avian influenza continued to exacerbate a nationwide egg shortage. Prices for eggs are up nearly 60 percent since last year. Food prices more broadly rose 0.2 percent, or 2.8 percent from a year earlier.The cost of used cars also rose 0.9 percent in February, although new vehicle prices declined slightly. Car insurance, which was a huge driver of the index’s unexpectedly large increase in January, rose again, but at a much slower pace of 0.3 percent. It is up just over 11 percent over the past year. More

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    Powell Says the Fed Is in No Hurry to Adjust Rates Amid Trump Policy Uncertainty

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    Jerome H. Powell says the Fed is focused on separating “signal from the noise,” as the president whipsaws on tariffs.Jerome H. Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve, said the central bank is focused on the “net effect” of President Trump’s sweeping economic agenda amid high uncertainty about which policies will actually be enacted, as he reiterated that officials are still not in a “hurry” to adjust interest rates.“As we parse the incoming information, we are focused on separating the signal from the noise as the outlook evolves,” Mr. Powell said at an event on Friday. “We do not need to be in a hurry, and are well positioned to wait for greater clarity.”If inflation stays sticky but the economy remains strong, the Fed chair said the central bank can “maintain policy restraint for longer.” But if either the labor market were to weaken more than expected, or inflation were to rapidly decline, Mr. Powell said officials can “ease policy accordingly.”His comments underscore the delicate balancing act that Fed is trying to navigate at a tenuous moment for the economy.In an interview on Friday, Austan D. Goolsbee, president of the Chicago Fed and a voting member on this year’s policy-setting committee, warned that a situation in which inflation stayed sticky while growth deteriorated at the same time would be a “harder problem” for the Fed to solve and something that is increasingly “on the radar screen” as a result of the policies that Mr. Trump is pursuing.“Tariffs on intermediate goods are a negative supply shock,” he said, referring to goods that are used to make other products and services for consumers. “If there were large negative supply shocks that were to hit the economy, they would have a tendency to both drive down employment and drive up prices.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More