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    Stocks Rise as Fed Chair Powell Signals Rate Cuts in Jackson Hole Speech

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    Jerome H. Powell made it clear that the Federal Reserve will cut rates on Sept. 18, as the central bank turns the corner in its fight against inflation.Speaking in his most closely watched speech of the year, Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, clearly signaled on Friday that the central bank was poised to cut interest rates in September.And while Mr. Powell stopped short of giving a clear hint at just how large that move might be, he forcefully underscored that the central bank stands prepared to adjust policy to protect the job market from weakening further and to keep the economy on a path for a soft landing.“The time has come for policy to adjust,” Mr. Powell said during the Kansas City Fed’s annual conference at Jackson Hole in Wyoming. “The direction of travel is clear, and the timing and pace of rate cuts will depend on incoming data, the evolving outlook and the balance of risks.”He then added: “We will do everything we can to support a strong labor market as we make further progress toward price stability.”Mr. Powell’s speech was his firmest declaration yet that the Fed is turning a corner in its fight against inflation. After more than a year of holding interest rates at 5.3 percent, the highest level in more than two decades, officials finally have enough confidence to change their stance by cutting rates at their Sept. 17-18 meeting.Policymakers have been using those high rates to try to cool the economy and, by doing so, wrestle down rapid inflation. But as price increases slow substantially and the job market shows signs of wobbling, officials no longer need to hit the brakes quite so hard.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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    Farm Workers Union Battles With California Grower, Wonderful Nurseries

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    Wonderful Nurseries, owned by Stewart and Lynda Resnick, has sued the state to overturn a labor organizing law championed by the United Farm Workers.The allegations ricocheted through the agricultural fields and into a Central Valley courthouse, where one of California’s most powerful companies and an iconic union were trading charges of deception and coercion in a fight over worker representation.Some farmworkers at Wonderful Nurseries — part of the Wonderful Company, the conglomerate behind famous brands of pomegranate juice and pistachios, as well as Fiji Water — said they had been duped into signing cards to join a union. On the other side, the United Farm Workers, the union formed in the 1960s by labor figures including Cesar Chavez, contends that the influential company, owned by the Los Angeles billionaires and powerhouse Democratic donors Stewart and Lynda Resnick, is trying to thwart the will of workers through intimidation and coercion.For months, the back and forth has played out before the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board, which arbitrates labor fights between workers and growers, and in a courthouse not far from Wonderful’s sprawling fields.In May, the company filed a legal challenge against the state that could overturn a 2022 law that made it easier for farmworkers to take part in unionization votes.After vetoing a previous version over procedural concerns, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the measure following public pressure from President Biden and Representative Nancy Pelosi, then the House speaker. The U.F.W. heralded the bill’s enactment as a critical victory, but several big growers said that it would allow union organizers to unfairly influence the process.The law paved the way for farmworkers to vote for union representation by signing union authorization cards, a process known simply as card check. Its passage coincided with an era of greater mobilization to unionize workers during the pandemic and a willingness to press demands for better working conditions and respect from employers, said Victor Narro, project director and labor studies professor at the U.C.L.A. Labor Center.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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    Powell Faces Economic Crossroads as He Prepares to Speak at Jackson Hole

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    Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, will deliver remarks as inflation cools and growth holds up — but as labor market weakening threatens to interrupt the soft landing.Two years ago, Jerome H. Powell took the podium at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s annual conference at Jackson Hole in Wyoming and warned America that lowering inflation would require some pain.On Friday, Mr. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, will again deliver his most important policy speech of the year from that closely watched stage. But this time, he is much more likely to focus on how the Fed is trying to pull off what many onlookers once thought was unlikely, and maybe even impossible: a relatively painless soft landing.Both the Fed and the American economy are approaching a crossroads. Inflation has come down sharply since its 2022 peak of 9.1 percent, with the year-over-year increase in the Consumer Price Index falling to 2.9 percent in July. Given the progress, the critical question facing Fed officials is no longer how much economic damage it will take to wrestle price increases back under control. It is whether they can finish the job without inflicting much damage at all.That remains a big if.Consumer spending and overall economic growth have held up in the face of high interest rates, which are meant to cool demand and eventually weigh down inflation. But the job market is beginning to weaken. Revisions released this week showed that employers hired fewer workers in 2023 and early 2024 than was previously reported. The unemployment rate rose to 4.3 percent in July, up from 4.1 percent in June and 3.5 percent a year earlier. The latest jump could be a fluke — a hurricane messed with the data — but it could also be an early warning that the economy is hurtling toward the brink of a recession.That makes this a critical moment for the Fed. Officials have held interest rates at a two-decade high of 5.3 percent for a full year. Now, as they try to secure a soft and gentle economic landing, they are preparing to take their foot off the brake. Policymakers are widely expected to begin lowering rates at their meeting in September.Mr. Powell could use his speech to confirm that a rate cut is imminent. But most economists think that he will avoid detailing just how much and how quickly rates are likely to drop. Fed officials will receive a fresh jobs report on Sept. 6, providing a clearer idea of how the economy is shaping up before their Sept. 17-18 meeting.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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    While the Public Awaited Jobs Data, Wall Street Firms Got a Look

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    A report was delayed on the Bureau of Labor Statistics website, but some investors got it in the meantime, raising new questions about agency practices.For more than half an hour on Wednesday morning, economists and investors were stuck repeatedly refreshing their browsers, looking for a delayed report on the U.S. job market from a government website.Not everyone had to wait that long.A number of Wall Street investment firms obtained details about the report — which showed a large downward revision to job growth in 2023 and early 2024 — at least 15 minutes before the information was posted on the Bureau of Labor Statistics website. That head start could, at least in theory, have given in-the-know investors an opportunity to profit on the information before the public at large.It isn’t clear how many people got early access to the data, or whether anyone actually traded on it. Markets seemed to react little to the revision in jobs data either before or after the general release. But the episode was the latest in a series of incidents in which the agency provided information to investors that wasn’t available to the general public.In February, an employee of the labor bureau sent information about housing inflation — at the time, an issue of intense interest to many investors — to a group of “super users” that included a number of hedge funds. The information turned out to be inaccurate, but even if that had not been the case, agency leaders said, it was inappropriate to share information selectively.Then, in May, the agency said it had inadvertently posted data on the Consumer Price Index — one of the highest-profile monthly economic reports — 30 minutes before the scheduled release time. The files in question are closely monitored by Wall Street firms but not by less sophisticated users.Taken together, the incidents raise concerns about the agency’s handling of sensitive information, said Julia Coronado, founder of MacroPolicy Perspectives, a research firm with Wall Street clients.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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    U.S. Added 818,000 Fewer Jobs Than Reported Earlier

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    The Labor Department issued revised figures for the 12 months through March that point to greater economic fragility.The U.S. economy added far fewer jobs in 2023 and early 2024 than previously reported, a sign that cracks in the labor market are more severe — and began forming earlier — than initially believed.On Wednesday, the Labor Department said monthly payroll figures overstated job growth by roughly 818,000 in the 12 months that ended in March. That suggests employers added about 174,000 jobs per month during that period, down from the previously reported pace of about 242,000 jobs — a downward revision of about 28 percent.The revisions, which are preliminary, are part of an annual process in which monthly estimates, based on surveys, are reconciled with more accurate but less timely records from state unemployment offices. The new figures, once they’re made final, will be incorporated into official government employment statistics early next year.The updated numbers are the latest sign of vulnerability in the job market, which until recently had appeared rock solid despite months of high interest rates and economists’ warnings of an impending recession. More recent data, which wasn’t affected by the revisions, suggests job growth slowed further in the spring and summer, and the unemployment rate, though still relatively low at 4.3 percent, has been gradually rising.Federal Reserve officials are paying close attention to the signs of erosion as they weigh when and how much to begin lowering interest rates. In a speech in Alaska on Tuesday, Michelle W. Bowman, a Fed governor, highlighted “risks that the labor market has not been as strong as the payroll data have been indicating,” although she also said the increase in the unemployment rate could be overstating the extent of the slowdown.This year’s revision was unusually large. Over the previous decade, the annual updates had added or subtracted an average of about 173,000 jobs. Still, substantial updates are hardly without precedent. Job growth for the year ending March 2019, for example, was revised down by 489,000, or about 20 percent.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 Shares119 Views

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    Fed Minutes Show a Cut ‘Likely’ to Come in September

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    Even before a disappointing July jobs report, Federal Reserve officials thought they would probably cut rates at their Sept. 17-18 meeting.Federal Reserve officials held off on cutting interest rates at their July meeting, but minutes from that gathering showed that they were clearly poised to lower them at their meeting in September, just weeks before the presidential election.“The vast majority” of officials thought that “if the data continued to come in about as expected, it would likely be appropriate to ease policy at the next meeting,” according to notes from the meeting released on Wednesday.Days after the Fed’s July gathering, a disappointing employment report showed that employers hired more slowly than expected. And in the weeks since, fresh data have showed that inflation continues to cool.That leaves the Fed primed to cut rates at their next meeting on Sept. 17-18, though just how much they will lower borrowing costs is still an open question. Investors think that a quarter-point reduction is most likely, but they see a half-point cut as a possibility.While the Fed is independent of politics, that move is likely to draw attention to the central bank. A reduction would come just weeks before November’s presidential election, and at a time when the Fed’s policies — especially its effort to fight inflation and its effect on the housing market through mortgage costs — have become a common topic of conversation on the campaign trail.The Fed has held interest rates steady at 5.3 percent, the highest level in more than two decades, since July 2023. At that level, interest rates are hefty enough to discourage many families and businesses from borrowing money, which weighs on demand and helps to cool the economy, making it harder for companies to lift 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

  • 63 Shares179 Views

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    Judge Blocks F.T.C.’s Noncompete Rule

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    The Federal Trade Commission was deemed to lack the authority to bar companies from restricting their employees’ ability to go to work for rivals.A federal judge on Tuesday upheld a challenge to the Federal Trade Commission’s ban on noncompete agreements, blocking it from taking effect in September as scheduled.Judge Ada Brown of U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas ruled that the antitrust agency lacked authority to issue substantive rules related to unfair methods of competition, including the noncompete rule, which would have prohibited companies from restricting their employees’ ability to work for rivals.The push to adopt the rule is part of the Biden administration’s effort to crack down on practices that regulators argue are anticompetitive, unfairly constraining workers.Judge Brown had temporarily blocked the ban in July. Her decision on Tuesday renders that injunction permanent, and nationwide in scope.Banning noncompete agreements would increase workers’ earnings by at least $400 billion over the next decade, the F.T.C. has estimated. The agreements affect roughly one in five American workers, or around 30 million people, according to the agency, whose purview includes antitrust and consumer protection issues.Victoria Graham, an F.T.C. spokeswoman, said the agency was disappointed by Judge Brown’s decision and would “keep fighting to stop noncompetes that restrict the economic liberty of hardworking Americans, hamper economic growth, limit innovation and depress wages.”“We are seriously considering a potential appeal, and today’s decision does not prevent the F.T.C. from addressing noncompetes through case-by-case enforcement actions,” Ms. Graham added.A tax firm, Ryan, sued to block the rule just hours after the F.T.C. voted 3 to 2 in April to adopt it. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce later joined the case as a plaintiff, as did the Business Roundtable and two Texas business groups.The Chamber of Commerce and other groups have asserted that the F.T.C. lacks constitutional and statutory authority to adopt the rule, with Ryan calling it “arbitrary, capricious and otherwise unlawful” — a position with which Judge Brown agreed. Business groups have also argued that the ban would limit their ability to protect trade secrets and confidential information.In response to Judge Brown’s ruling, G. Brint Ryan, chief executive of Ryan, called the rule “continuing overreach and overregulation” by the federal government, adding that the firm was “happy we were able to successfully stop the overreach in this instance.”But the three Democrats on the five-member F.T.C. maintain that it can legally issue rules defining unfair methods of competition under the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914, the law that created the agency.In a separate case, a federal judge in Pennsylvania declined last month to block the rule. Diverging rulings on the fate of the ban could leave the door open to review by higher courts.“Many businesses will welcome the reprieve, but the uncertainty continues as the fight now moves to the appellate courts,” said Kevin Goldstein, an antitrust partner at Winston & Strawn. More

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    Americans Growing Worried About Losing Their Jobs, Labor Survey Shows

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    The New York Fed’s labor market survey showed cracks just as Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, prepares for a closely watched Friday speech.Americans are increasingly worried about losing their jobs, a new survey from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York released on Monday showed, a worrying sign at a moment when economists and central bankers are warily monitoring for cracks in the job market.The New York Fed’s July survey of labor market expectations showed that the expected likelihood of becoming unemployed rose to 4.4 percent on average, up from 3.9 percent a year earlier and the highest in data going back to 2014.In fact, the new data showed signs of the labor market cracking across a range of metrics. People reported leaving or losing jobs, marked down their salary expectations and increasingly thought that they would need to work past traditional retirement ages. The share of workers who reported searching for a job in the past four weeks jumped to 28.4 percent — the highest level since the data started — up from 19.4 percent in July 2023.The survey, which quizzes a nationally representative sample of people on their recent economic experience, suggested that meaningful fissures may be forming in the labor market. While it is just one report, it comes at a tense moment, as economists and central bankers watch nervously for signs that the job market is taking a turn for the worse.The unemployment rate has moved up notably over the past year, climbing to 4.3 percent in July. That has put many economy watchers on edge. The jobless rate rarely moves up as sharply as it has recently outside of an economic recession.But the slowdown in the labor market has not been widely backed up by other data. Jobless claims have moved up but remain relatively low. Consumer spending remains robust, with both overall retail sales data and company earnings reports suggesting that shoppers continue to open their wallets.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