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    Fed Officials May Be Encouraged by the Latest Labor Data

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    Federal Reserve officials are likely to see the August jobs numbers as a sign their policies are working — though not that their job is done.Policymakers are closely parsing labor market data as they try to figure out how much underlying momentum the economy has and how much they need to raise interest rates to restrain growth and lower inflation.Fed officials have raised rates to a range of 2.25 to 2.5 percent in July from near zero in March, but they are still waiting for signs that those higher borrowing costs are cooling consumer spending and business expansions, lowering demand and giving supply a chance to catch up. So far, the evidence of a major slowdown has been spotty.In that context, the data released on Friday was encouraging. Job growth slowed, but not by so much that it suggested a recession was imminent. The unemployment rate rose, but mostly because more people joined the labor force, which should make it easier for companies to fill open positions. Wage growth slowed.“Overall there’s a lot to like if you’re a Fed official right now,” said Sarah House, an economist at Wells Fargo. “Hiring remains robust but on a more sustainable basis. Yes, unemployment was up, but it was for all the right reasons. We saw a surge in job seekers.”Still, Ms. House said, one good report will not convince the Fed that it is time to back off its efforts to tame inflation.Central bankers have been clear that they are carefully watching data on both employment and inflation — which is showing hopeful, but not yet conclusive, signs of slowing — as they decide how quickly to raise interest rates. Fed officials are contemplating an increase of either a half percentage point or three-quarters of a point at their meeting on Sept. 20-21.Higher interest rates work to counter inflation partly by weighing on the labor market. As businesses face steeper borrowing costs, they grow less and cut back on hiring. As job opportunities dwindle, competition for workers eases and wage growth slows — reining in consumer spending. As demand wanes, companies become less able to raise prices, lowering inflation.That process can push unemployment up and prove painful as people lose or struggle to find jobs. But Fed officials have argued that getting inflation under control is critical — and that delaying the tough choices now would only make the situation worse down the road. More

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    Job Openings Picked Up in July, Showing the Labor Market Remains Hot

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    Demand for workers remained strong in July, a sign that the U.S. labor market remains vibrant even as the Federal Reserve tries to cool the economy by raising interest rates.Job openings ticked up to 11.2 million, the Labor Department reported on Tuesday as part of its monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS.The survey included a large upward revision for openings in June, to 11 million from an estimated 10.7 million. The figure reached a record of more than 11.8 million in March.Substantial aid during the pandemic’s ups-and-downs has kept businesses of all sizes afloat and household finances relatively healthy, resulting in robust demand for a broad variety of goods and services. But the labor force is still smaller than it was before the pandemic, forcing employers to scramble to hire.Openings outnumber unemployed workers by a ratio of two to one.The largest increases in openings were in transportation, warehousing and utilities jobs. In a sign of continued recovery, postings surged in the arts, entertainment and recreation industries, which have greatly benefited from the easing of Covid-19 concerns and restrictions.The State of Jobs in the United StatesEmployment gains in July, which far surpassed expectations, show that the labor market is not slowing despite efforts by the Federal Reserve to cool the economy.July Jobs Report: U.S. employers added 528,000 jobs in the seventh month of the year. The unemployment rate was 3.5 percent, down from 3.6 percent in June.Black Employment: Black workers saw wages and employment rates go up in the wake of the pandemic. But as the Federal Reserve tries to tame inflation, those gains could be eroded.Slow Wage Growth: Pay has been rising rapidly for workers at the top and the bottom. But things haven’t been so positive for all professions, especially pharmacists.Care Worker Shortages: A lack of child care and elder care options is forcing some women to limit their hours or has sidelined them altogether, hurting their career prospects.Several prominent companies announced layoffs this summer. But both the overall rate and number of layoffs have been flat on a monthly basis, while the recently elevated rate of quitting declined only slightly in July, showing that workers remain able to leave jobs they find unsatisfying.There were some signs of weakness, however. The survey found that job openings decreased in durable-goods manufacturing by an estimated 47,000. Some economists say this is unsurprising after the intense consumer demand for goods at the beginning of the pandemic. But it may also be an early mark of tighter financial conditions as a result of the Fed’s bid to rein in price increases.Economists and bank analysts said the report made it likely that the Fed would remain aggressive in raising interest rates, as the central bank tries to weaken the labor market so that wage gains and consumer spending, which have slowed, will dip further in better alignment with the supply-constrained economy.“The job market remains surprisingly resilient to the Fed’s best efforts to cool it off,” said Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “The Fed desperately wants job growth to slow and unemployment to stabilize, even rise a bit, to quell wage and price pressures.”The Labor Department’s employment report for July was unexpectedly strong, showing a gain of 528,000. Mr. Zandi said the “red hot” JOLTS data would put even greater focus on the August hiring data, due Friday.The demand for labor is particularly remarkable because, based on inflation-adjusted gross domestic product, the economy contracted slightly in the first half of the year. Despite higher prices, the raw amount of goods and services being exchanged remains considerable, fueling demand for labor.“Millions of Americans still can find employment or even trade up to a higher-paying position,” said Robert Frick, an economist at Navy Federal Credit Union. “We may be seeing a second wind for economic growth after high inflation and slowing job growth in the spring.”Some commentators say the data on openings may be somewhat overstated because businesses have little incentive to take down listings, even if the urgency of hiring has waned.And there are signs that the tide may be shifting. A survey of more than 100 chief financial officers by Deloitte, a consulting and financial advisory firm, showed that nearly all of them expected decreases in revenue, hiring and overall expansion in the coming year.Their growth expectations for wages and staffing declined. They expect annual wage growth to be 4.8 percent and personnel growth to be 2.6 percent — both down from 5.3 percent in the previous quarterly survey. The Fed is also making a mark in corporate financing, which can affect hiring capacity or decisions: Roughly one in 10 chief financial officers at public companies viewed debt financing as attractive, down from nine in 10 a year ago.Still, executives remained relatively confident about the prospects for their own businesses, a disconnect that mirrors how consumers have maintained a gloomy economic outlook across the board while people in most income brackets continue to spend at heightened levels. More

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    This Remote Mine Could Foretell the Future of America’s Electric Car Industry

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    Hiding a thousand feet below the earth’s surface in this patch of northern Minnesota wetlands are ancient mineral deposits that some view as critical to fueling America’s clean energy future.Tim Gruber for The New York TimesA company called Talon Metals is drilling here around the clock, extracting samples of rock rich with nickel in a bid to become the country’s sole source of a material used to power zero-emission vehicles.But some locals are fighting the mine, for fear it could pollute their environment. The pushback hints at how difficult it may be to build an all-American supply chain that powers the country’s transition to electric vehicles.This Remote Mine Could Foretell the Future of America’s Electric Car IndustryTAMARACK, Minn. — In this isolated town of about 100 people, dozens of employees are at work for Talon Metals, drawing long cylinders of rock from deep in the earth and analyzing their contents. They liken their work to a game of Battleship — each hole drilled allows them to better map out where a massive and long-hidden mineral deposit is lurking below.The company is proposing to build an underground mine near Tamarack that would produce nickel, a highly sought-after mineral that is used to power electric vehicles. It would be a profitable venture for Talon, which has a contract to supply nickel for Tesla’s car batteries, and a step forward in the country’s race to develop domestic supply chains to feed the growing demand for electric vehicles.But mines that extract metal from sulfide ore, as this one would, have a poor environmental record in the United States, and an even more checkered footprint globally. While some in the area argue the mine could bring good jobs to a sparsely populated region, others are deeply fearful that it could spoil local lakes and streams that feed into the Mississippi River. There is also concern that it could endanger the livelihoods and culture of Ojibwe tribes whose members live just over a mile from Talon’s land and have gathered wild rice here for generations.Talon says it will invest heavily to design the world’s greenest and most responsible mine yet, one that they say “Joe Biden can love.” But some people in the community remain skeptical, including about the company’s promises to respect Indigenous rights, like the tribes’ authority over lands where their members hunt and gather food. Part of that mistrust stems from the fact that Talon’s minority partner, Rio Tinto, provoked outrage in 2020 by blowing up a 46,000-year-old system of Aboriginal caves in Australia in a search for iron ore.Kelly Applegate, the commissioner of natural resources for the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, said he was “very concerned” about how the mine might damage the environment. “This again is an assault on Native culture, a disturbance of our way of being, another trauma that could potentially happen to our people,” he said.He described it as a “huge environmental justice issue” to mine local resources for electric cars that the tribe’s members would be unable to afford. Except for some wealthy homeowners who spend their summers around the lakes, the area is one of the poorest parts of Minnesota. Native Americans in Minnesota experience poverty at higher rates than any other racial or ethnic group in the state. Locals say the only Tesla for miles is Talon’s company car.“Talon and Rio Tinto will come and go — greatly enriched by their mining operation. But we, and the remnants of the Tamarack mine, will be here forever,” Mr. Applegate said.The project, which lies 50 miles west of Lake Superior, highlights some of the challenges that are emerging as the Biden administration tries to transition America to electric vehicles. The administration has said it wants to make the supply chains for batteries more resilient by sourcing minerals inside North America. But that desire could bring its own potential for environmental damage and infringement of the rights of Indigenous Americans. Much of the nation’s supply of battery materials is near tribal land.The world urgently needs to switch to cleaner cars to limit the global damage from climate change, many climate activists say. Last week, California approved a plan to ban the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035.But current supply chains for electric vehicle batteries — and the batteries that would be needed for the electric grid that would charge that fleet of vehicles — rely on some adversarial and heavily polluting foreign nations. Much of the nickel that goes into car batteries is produced by strip mines that have decimated rainforests in Indonesia and the Philippines, releasing vast amounts of carbon dioxide before being refined in Chinese factories powered by coal.Read More on Electric VehiclesBanning Gasoline Cars: California is leading the way in the push to electrify the nation’s car fleet with a plan to ban sales of new internal-combustion vehicles by 2035, but the rule will face several challenges.Inflation Reduction Act: The law extends tax incentives in an effort to steer more U.S. consumers toward electric cars. But new rules complicate the qualification process.Plug-In Hybrids: After falling behind all-electric cars, U.S. sales of plug-in hybrids have been surging. The high cost of electric cars and gasoline have given them an opening.Car Crashes: Tesla and other automakers capture data from their vehicles to operate their products. Experts say the collected information could also improve road safety.Another source of nickel is a massive mining operation north of the Arctic Circle in Norilsk, Russia, which has produced so much sulfur dioxide that a plume of the toxic gas is big enough to be seen from space. Other minerals used in electric vehicle batteries, such as lithium and cobalt, appear to have been mined or refined with the use of child or forced labor.With global demand for electric vehicles projected to grow sixfold by 2030, the dirty origins of this otherwise promising green industry have become a looming crisis. The Democrats’ new tax and climate bill devotes nearly $400 billion to clean energy initiatives over the next decade, including electric vehicle tax credits and financing for companies that manufacture clean cars in the United States.New domestic high-tech mines and factories could make this supply chain more secure, and potentially less damaging to the global environment. But skeptics say those facilities may still pose a risk to the air, soil and water that surrounds them, and spark a fierce debate about which communities might bear those costs.The project is near lakes and streams that feed into the Mississippi River, and where Ojibwe tribes have gathered wild rice for generations.The potential risks to plants and wildlife come from the sulfide ores; the ores, in which materials like copper and nickel are lodged, can leach out sulfuric acid and heavy metals. More than a dozen former copper mines in the United States are now Superfund sites, contaminated locations where taxpayers can end up on the hook for cleanup.In January, the Biden administration canceled leases for another copper-nickel mine near a Minnesota wilderness area, saying the Trump administration had improperly renewed them.Talon Metals insists that it will have no such problems. “We can produce the battery materials that are necessary for the energy transition and also protect the environment,” said Todd Malan, the company’s chief external affairs officer and head of climate strategy. “It’s not a choice.”The company is using high-tech equipment to map underground flows of water in the area and create a 3-D model of the ore, so it can mine “surgically” while leaving other parts of the earth undisturbed, Mr. Malan said. Talon is also promising to use technology that will safely store the mine’s toxic byproducts and do its mining far underground, in deep bedrock where groundwater doesn’t typically penetrate.Talon has teamed up with the United Steelworkers union on work force development. And Rio Tinto has won a $2.2 million Department of Energy grant to explore capturing carbon near the site, which may allow the mine to market its products as zero emission.“We can produce the battery materials that are necessary for the energy transition and also protect the environment,” said Todd Malan, the chief external affairs officer and head of climate strategy at Talon.In a statement, Talon said it was committed to “meaningful consultations with tribal sovereign governments and tribal people” and producing a mine plan that addressed their concerns, as well as working with tribal governments interested in economic benefit sharing.The company has held several informational meetings with tribal staff and members, but some tribal members say they still need far more details from Talon about its plans.If the mine comes online in 2026 as scheduled, it will be positioned to feed a hungry market. The United States currently has one operating nickel mine, in Michigan, but its resources will be exhausted by 2026.In Washington, a bipartisan consensus is growing that the country should reduce its reliance on risky overseas minerals. To limit global warming to the levels that advanced countries have agreed on, the International Energy Agency estimates, the world will need roughly 20 times as much nickel and cobalt by 2040 as it had in 2020 and 40 times as much lithium.Recycling could play a bigger role in supplying these materials by the end of the decade, and some new car batteries do not use any nickel. Yet nickel is still highly sought after for electric trucks and higher-end cars, because it increases a vehicle’s range.The infrastructure law passed last year devoted $7 billion to developing the domestic supply chain for critical minerals. The climate and tax law also sets ambitious thresholds for ensuring that electric vehicles that receive tax incentives are partly U.S.-made.Elisabeth Kachinske logged core samples containing nickel at Talon’s offices in Tamarack, Minn.Talon’s proposed mine could help Tesla meet those thresholds. Tesla gets its nickel from China, Australia, New Caledonia and Canada, and its chief executive, Elon Musk, has begged miners to produce more.Some environmental and left-leaning groups that have long been skeptical of domestic mining are adjusting those positions, arguing that resources are needed for the energy transition.Collin O’Mara, the chief executive of the National Wildlife Federation, said that there was a growing need for battery materials that were mined responsibly, and that Talon was promising to use state-of-the-art techniques to minimize the mine’s footprint.But he acknowledged that for local residents it would still take a leap of faith in new technologies and Talon’s ability to apply them. “There still isn’t an example of an existing mine that has had no impacts,” he said.The economic potential — and the environmental risks — may go far beyond a single mine. The entire region is home to deposits of nickel, copper and cobalt, which were formed 1.1 billion years ago from a volcano that spewed out miles of liquid magma.Talon has leased 31,000 acres of land in the area, covering an 11-mile geological feature deep under the swamp. The company has zealously drilled and examined the underground resources along one of those 11 miles, and discovered several other potential satellite deposits.Elizabeth Skinaway, a member of the Sandy Lake Band of Minnesota Chippewa, is especially concerned about damage to the wild rice, which she has gathered in lakes near the proposed mine for 43 years.In August, the company announced that it had also acquired land in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to explore for more nickel.Talon will start Minnesota’s environmental review process within a few months, and the company says it anticipates a straightforward review. But legal challenges for proposed mines can regularly stretch to a decade or more, and some living near the project say they will do what they can to fight the mine.Elizabeth Skinaway and her sister, Jean Skinaway-Lawrence, members of the Sandy Lake Band of Minnesota Chippewa, are especially concerned about damage to the wild rice, which Ms. Skinaway has been gathering in lakes several miles from the proposed mine for 43 years.Ms. Skinaway acknowledges the need to combat climate change, which also threatens the rice. But she sees little justice in using the same kind of profit-driven, extractive industry that she said had long plundered native lands and damaged the global environment.“The wild rice, the gift from the creator, that’s going to be gone, from the sulfide that’s going to leach into the river and the lakes,” she said. “It’s just a really scary thought.”“We were here first,” said her sister. “We should be heard.”The Talon drill site near Tamarack. More

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    Fed Chair Signals More Rate Increases Ahead, Shaking Wall Street

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    JACKSON, Wyo. — Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, delivered a sobering message on Friday, saying the Fed must continue to raise interest rates — and keep them elevated for a while — to bring the fastest inflation in decades back under control.The central bank’s campaign is likely to come at a cost to workers and overall growth, he acknowledged; but he argued that not acting would allow price increases to become a more permanent feature of the economy and prove even more painful down the road.Stock prices plunged in the wake of Mr. Powell’s comments, as investors digested his stern commitment to raising rates and choking back inflation even if doing so damages growth and causes unemployment to rise. The S&P 500 fell 3.4 percent, its worst daily showing since mid-June, and investors in bonds began to bet that the central bank will raise rates by more than they had been expecting.Mr. Powell’s full-throated commitment to defeating inflation began to put to rest an idea that had been percolating among investors: that the central bank might lift rates slightly more this year but then begin to lower them again next year. Instead, the Fed chair echoed many of his colleagues in arguing that rates will need to go higher, and will need to stay in economy-restricting territory for a while, until inflation is consistently coming down.“Restoring price stability will take some time and requires using our tools forcefully to bring demand and supply into better balance,” Mr. Powell said in a speech on Friday. “While higher interest rates, slower growth and softer labor market conditions will bring down inflation, they will also bring some pain to households and businesses.”He then added: “These are the unfortunate costs of reducing inflation.”Mr. Powell was speaking at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s annual conference near Jackson, Wyo., in a speech that is typically his most closely watched appearance of the year. That prominent platform gave him an opportunity to clearly signal the Fed’s commitment to wrestle inflation lower to markets and the public, which he did in his terse and to-the-point eight-minute speech.“The process won’t be painless, and I think he’s being more upfront about that,” said Neil Dutta, head of U.S. economics at Renaissance Macro Research. “The likelihood of recession is rising, because that’s the solution to the inflation problem — that’s what they’re telling you.”While central bankers have spent much of the past year saying they hope to set the economy down gently — and not tip it into recession — Mr. Powell’s remarks made it clear that a bumpy landing would be a price worth paying to return price stability to the United States.The Fed has lifted interest rates from near zero in March to a range of 2.25 to 2.5 percent, and investors have been waiting for any hint at how fast and far the Fed will raise rates in coming months. Higher interest rates make it more expensive to borrow money to build a house or expand a business, slowing economic activity and cooling down the job market. That can eventually help reduce demand enough that supply catches up and price increases slow down.Mr. Powell did not say what pace lies ahead, suggesting that Fed officials will watch incoming data as they decide whether to make a third straight “unusually” large three-quarter-point rate increase at their Sept. 20-21 meeting. He reiterated that the Fed was likely to slow its increases “at some point,” but he also said central bankers had more work to do when it came to constraining the economy and bringing inflation back under control.Inflation F.A.Q.Card 1 of 5Inflation F.A.Q.What is inflation? More

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    Starbucks Illegally Denied Raises to Union Members, Labor Board Says

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    Federal labor regulators have accused Starbucks of illegally discriminating against unionized employees by denying them wage and benefit increases that the company put in place for nonunion employees.In a complaint on Wednesday, a regional office of the National Labor Relations Board accused the company of breaking the law when its chief executive, Howard Schultz, “promised increased wages and benefits at U.S. stores if its employees rejected the union as their bargaining representative,” and when it withheld raises and benefits from unionized workers.The labor board is seeking, among other things, that affected employees be made whole for the denial of benefits and wage increases. It is also asking that Mr. Schultz read a notice to all employees informing them that some had been unlawfully denied benefits and pay increases and explaining their rights under federal labor law. Alternatively, a board official could read this material to employees in Mr. Schultz’s presence.The labor board’s case is scheduled for a hearing on Oct. 25 before an administrative law judge, unless Starbucks settles with the agency beforehand. Starbucks could appeal any ruling by an administrative judge to the full board.In a statement, Starbucks said that it was required under federal law to negotiate changes in wages and benefits with the union and that it was therefore not allowed to make such changes unilaterally, as it can in nonunion stores. “Wage and benefits are ‘mandatory’ subjects of the collective bargaining process,” the statement said.Workers United, the union representing the company’s newly organized workers, said the complaint affirmed its contention that Starbucks was discouraging union activity.“He claims to run a ‘different kind of company,’ yet in reality, Howard Schultz is simply a billionaire bully who is doing everything he can to crush workers’ rights,” Maggie Carter, a worker who helped unionize her store in Knoxville, Tenn., said in a statement.More than 225 out of roughly 9,000 corporate-owned Starbucks locations in the United States have voted to unionize since last fall.Mr. Schultz began indicating that the company would roll out new benefits, but only for nonunion workers, shortly after he began his third tour as the company’s chief executive in April.The next month, the company announced a series of new benefits — including additional career development opportunities, better tipping options and more sick time — but only for stores that hadn’t unionized or weren’t in the process of unionizing. The benefits were to begin in the coming months.The company unveiled wage increases as well, some of which had already been announced and which the company said would apply to all workers. But other increases were new and would apply only to nonunion workers.For example, according to Reggie Borges, a Starbucks spokesman, all employees stood to benefit from a companywide $15-an-hour minimum wage, but nonunion workers hired by May 2 would get a 3 percent raise if that proved higher than $15.The wage policy appears to have sown confusion, with some employees briefly receiving a pay increase that was then withdrawn. Colin Cochran, a worker at a store near Buffalo that initially voted to unionize and then voted against the union in a rerun election decided this month, provided pay stubs showing that his $16.28 hourly wage had increased to $16.77 the first week of August, when Starbucks began the pay increases nationwide. But Mr. Cochran’s pay stub for the second week of August showed his hourly pay dropping back to $16.28. (The union is challenging the election loss at this store.)Mr. Borges said that the reversion to the previous wage had resulted from an inadvertent error and that unionized stores would get wage increases in September.Workers involved in union campaigns at other Starbucks locations said the denial of pay and benefit increases to unionized stores had slowed their organizing efforts.Kylah Clay, a Starbucks worker in Boston who helped organize several stores in the area, said inquiries from employees at other stores who were interested in unionizing had dropped off substantially not long after the company’s pay and benefits announcement in May. But they picked up recently after the pay and many benefit changes took effect, she said. More

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    What Will Happen to Black Workers’ Gains if There’s a Recession?

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    Black unemployment fell quickly after the initial pandemic downturn. But as the Federal Reserve fights inflation, those gains could be eroded.Black Americans have been hired much more rapidly in the wake of the pandemic shutdowns than after previous recessions. But as the Federal Reserve tries to soften the labor market in a bid to tame inflation, economists worry that Black workers will bear the brunt of a slowdown — and that without federal aid to cushion the blow, the impact could be severe.Some 3.5 million Black workers lost or left their jobs in March and April 2020. In weeks, the unemployment rate for Black workers soared to 16.8 percent, the same as the peak after the 2008 financial crisis, while the rate for white workers topped out at 14.1 percent.Since then, the U.S. economy has experienced one of its fastest rebounds ever, one that has extended to workers of all races. The Black unemployment rate was 6 percent last month, just above the record low of late 2019. And in government data collected since the 1990s, wages for Black workers are rising at their fastest pace ever.Now policymakers at the Fed and in the White House face the challenge of fighting inflation without inducing a recession that would erode or reverse those workplace gains.Decades of research has found that workers from racial and ethnic minorities — along with those with other barriers to employment, such as disabilities, criminal records or low levels of education — are among the first laid off during a downturn and the last hired during a recovery.William Darity Jr., a Duke University professor who has studied racial gaps in employment, says the problem is that the only reliable tool the Fed uses to fight inflation — increasing interest rates — works in part by causing unemployment. Higher borrowing costs make consumers less likely to spend and employers less likely to invest, reducing pressure on prices. But that also reduces demand for workers, pushing joblessness up and wages down.“I don’t know that there’s any existing policy option that’s plausible that would not result in hurting some significant portion of the population,” Mr. Darity said. “Whether it’s inflation or it’s rising unemployment, there’s a disproportionate impact on Black workers.”In a paper published last month, Lawrence H. Summers, a former Treasury secretary and top economic adviser to Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, asserted with his co-authors that the Fed would need to allow the overall unemployment rate to rise to 5 percent or above — it is now 3.5 percent — to bring inflation under control. Since Black unemployment is typically about double that of white workers, that suggests that the rate for Black workers would approach or reach double digits.In an interview, Mr. Summers said that outcome would be regrettable and, to some extent, unavoidable.“But the alternative,” Mr. Summers argued — “simply pretending” the U.S. labor market can remain this hot — “is setting the stage for the mistakes we made in the 1970s, and ultimately for a far larger recession, to contain inflation.”The State of Jobs in the United StatesEmployment gains in July, which far surpassed expectations, show that the labor market is not slowing despite efforts by the Federal Reserve to cool the economy.July Jobs Report: U.S. employers added 528,000 jobs in the seventh month of the year. The unemployment rate was 3.5 percent, down from 3.6 percent in June.Slow Wage Growth: Pay has been rising rapidly for workers at the top and the bottom. But things haven’t been so positive for all professions — especially for pharmacists.Care Worker Shortages: A lack of child care and elder care options is forcing some women to limit their hours or has sidelined them altogether, hurting their career prospects.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.“These arguments have nothing to do with how much you care about unemployment, or how much you care about the unemployment of disadvantaged groups,” he continued. “They only have to do with technical judgment.”Many progressive economists have been sharply critical of that view, arguing that Black workers should not be the collateral damage in a war on inflation. William Spriggs, an economist at Howard University, cautioned against overstating the Fed’s ability to bring inflation under control — especially when inflation is being driven in part by global forces — and underestimating the potential damage from driving interest rates much higher.Black workers will suffer first under a Fed-induced recession, Mr. Spriggs said. When that happens, he added, job losses across the board tend to follow. “And so you pay attention, because that’s the canary in the coal mine,” he said.In a June 2020 essay in The Washington Post and an accompanying research paper, Jared Bernstein — now a top economic adviser to President Biden — laid out the increasingly popular argument that in light of this, the Fed “should consider targeting not the overall unemployment rate, but the Black rate.”Fed policy, he added, implicitly treats 4 percent unemployment as a long-term goal, but “because Black unemployment is two times the overall rate, targeting 4 percent for the overall economy means targeting 8 percent for blacks.”The Fed didn’t take Mr. Bernstein’s advice. But in the years leading up to the pandemic, Fed policymakers increasingly talked about the benefits of a strong labor market for racial and ethnic minorities, and cited it as a factor in their policy decisions.After Mr. Biden took office, he and his economic advisers pushed for a large government spending bill — which became the $1.9 trillion American Recovery Plan — in part on the grounds that it would avoid the painful slog that job seekers, particularly nonwhite workers, faced after the 2007-9 recession and would instead deliver a supercharged recovery.Federal pandemic relief provided a cushion for Ms. Jordan, at her home near Atlanta with her husband and children. Rita Harper for The New York Times“It’s been faster, more robust for African Americans than any other post-recessionary periods since at least the 1970s,” Cecilia Rouse, the chair of Mr. Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers, said in an interview. Black workers are receiving faster wage gains than other racial and ethnic groups, and have taken advantage of the strong job market to move into higher-paying industries and occupations, according to an analysis of government data by White House economists shared with The New York Times.Menyuan Jordan is among them. Ms. Jordan, who has a master’s degree in social work and was making a living training child care providers in February 2020, saw her livelihood upended when Covid-19 struck.“The money was based off face-to-face professional development that went to zero almost immediately overnight,” she said. “I couldn’t afford the rent.”But pandemic relief packages from the federal government helped cushion the blow of lost earnings. And by last winter, Ms. Jordan had landed a job as a mental health clinician near her home in Atlanta — one that offered training and paid roughly $13,000 more than her prepandemic role, which she estimates brought in $42,000 annually.Administration officials say they are optimistic that Black workers can continue to see higher wages and improving job opportunities even if the labor market cools. But Goldman Sachs analysts, echoing a common view, recently concluded that average wage gains for workers would need to fall much further to be consistent with the Fed’s inflation goals.Fed policymakers are still somewhat hopeful that they can bring down inflation without causing a recession or undoing the gains of the past two years, in part because of a hope that the labor market can slow down mainly through reductions in job openings rather than layoffs.Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, has made the case that only by bringing inflation under control can the central bank create a sustainably strong labor market that will benefit all workers.“We all want to get back to the kind of labor market we had before the pandemic,” Mr. Powell said in a news conference last month. “That’s not going to happen without restoring price stability.”Some voices in finance are calling for smaller and fewer rate increases, worried that the Fed is underestimating the ultimate impact of its actions to date. David Kelly, the chief global strategist for J.P. Morgan Asset Management, believes that inflation is set to fall considerably anyway — and that the central bank should exhibit greater patience, as remnants of pandemic government stimulus begin to vanish and household savings further dwindle.“The economy is basically treading water right now,” Mr. Kelly said, adding that officials “don’t need to put us into a recession just to show how tough they are on inflation.”Michelle Holder, a labor economist at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, similarly warned against the “statistical fatalism” that halting labor gains is the only way forward. Still, she said, she’s fully aware that under current policy, trade-offs between inflation and job creation are likely to endure, disproportionately hurting Black workers. Interest rate increases, she said, are the Fed’s primary tool — its hammer — and “a hammer sees everything as a nail.”Reflecting on a dinner she recently attended in Washington with “really high-level, all-white progressive economists,” Ms. Holder, who is Black, said there was a “resigned attitude” among many of her peers, who want positive near-term outcomes for people of color overall but remain “wedded to the use of mainstream tools” and ask, “What else can we do?”Mr. Darity, the Duke professor, argued that one solution would be policies that helped insulate workers from an economic downturn, like having the federal government guarantee a job to anyone who wants one. Some economists support less ambitious policies, such as expanded benefits to help people who lose jobs in a recession. But there is little prospect that Congress would adopt either approach, or come to the rescue again with large relief checks — especially given criticism from many Republicans, and some high-profile Democrats, that excessive aid in the pandemic contributed to inflation today.“The tragedy will be that our administration won’t be able to help the families or individuals that need it if another recession happens,” Ms. Holder said.Morgani Brown, 24, lives and works in Charlotte, N.C., and has experienced the modest yet meaningful improvements in job quality that many Black workers have since the initial pandemic recession. She left an aircraft cleaning job with Jetstream Ground Services at Charlotte Douglas International Airport last year because the $10-an-hour pay was underwhelming. But six months ago, the work had become more attractive.Morgani Brown returned to an employer she had left in Charlotte, N.C., when the hourly pay rose. Damola Akintunde for The New York Times“I’d seen that they were paying more, at $14,” she said, “so I went and applied for Jetstream again.” She remains frustrated with some work conditions, but said the situation had “ended up being better.”With rents rising, she saves money rooming with her boyfriend and another friend, both of whom work at an Amazon fulfillment center. Ms. Brown, who has a baby on the way, is aware that the e-commerce giant has recently cut back its work force. (An Amazon official noted on a recent earnings call that the company had “quickly transitioned from being understaffed to being overstaffed.”)Ms. Brown said she and her roommates hoped that their jobs could weather any downturn. But she has begun hearing more rumblings about people she knows being fired or laid off.“I’m not sure exactly why,” she said. More

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    How Pharmacy Work Stopped Being So Great

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    If any group of workers might have expected their pay to rise last year, it would arguably have been pharmacists. With many drugstores dispensing coronavirus tests and vaccines while filling hundreds of prescriptions each day, working as a pharmacist became a sleep-deprived, lunch-skipping frenzy — one in which ornery customers did not hesitate to vent their frustrations over the inevitable backups and bottlenecks.“I was stressed all day long about giving immunizations,” said Amanda Poole, who left her job as a pharmacist at a CVS in Tuscaloosa, Ala., in June. “I’d look at patients and say to them, ‘I’d love to fill your prescriptions today, but there’s no way I can.’”Yet pay for pharmacists, who typically spend six or seven years after high school working toward their professional degree, fell nearly 5 percent last year after adjusting for inflation. Dr. Poole said her pay, about $65 per hour, did not increase in more than four years — first at an independent pharmacy, then at CVS.For many Americans, one of the pandemic’s few bright spots has been wage growth, with pay rising rapidly for those near the bottom and those at the top. But a broad swath of workers in between has lagged behind.In the two years after February 2020, income for those between the middle and the top tenth of earners grew less than half as quickly as income for those in the top 1 percent, according to data collected by a team of economists at the University of California, Berkeley.The gap is part of a long-term trend made worse by a slowdown in pay gains for middle- and upper-middle-income workers in the 2000s. “If you’re going to a hedge fund or investment bank or a tech company, you’ve done enormously well,” said Lawrence Katz, a labor economist at Harvard. Typical college graduates, he said, “have not done that great.”The stagnation appears to have moved up the income ladder in the last few years, even touching those in the top 10 percent.In some cases, the explanation may be a temporary factor, like inflation. But pharmacists illustrate how slow wage growth can point to a longer-term shift that renders once sought-after jobs less rewarding financially and emotionally.Growing Chains, Falling WagesIn 2018, Suzanne Wommack moved from western Missouri, where she had worked for several years as a pharmacist at a Hy-Vee supermarket, to the eastern part of the state, where she and her husband had relatives. The job she landed as a Walgreens pharmacy manager in Hannibal, roughly an hour-and-a-half outside St. Louis, paid her about $62 per hour — nearly $6 below her previous hourly wage, though regional pay differences helped to explain the drop.More striking was how few pharmacists Walgreens appeared to employ. At Hy-Vee, Dr. Wommack worked with one or two other pharmacists for most of the day. At Walgreens, the volume of business was similar, she said, but she was almost always the only pharmacist on duty during her shift, which often ran from 8 a.m. until the pharmacy closed at 8 p.m.Inflation F.A.Q.Card 1 of 5Inflation F.A.Q.What is inflation? More

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    Britons Brace for More Hardship as Prices Soar Amid Inflation

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    Cutting back on meat. Choosing cheaper supermarket brands. Stockpiling soap. Soaring prices force more sacrifices.LONDON — Stacey Smith grabbed some boxes of tea from a low shelf of a London supermarket on Wednesday, and then phoned the neighbor who had asked her to buy them.“They have gone up 20 pence,” she said. “Do you still want them?”Her neighbor agreed to accept the price increase, something that Ms. Smith, a teaching assistant and a single mother of three, has been unable to do with her own shopping. After she bought the tea, she headed to Aldi, a cheaper supermarket, to shop for her family.In the past months, as food prices have soared in Britain, she has cut down on meat and relied on pasta and sauces instead. Her children have stopped attending swimming lessons, she has limited their trips to the fridge for snacks and she has turned down their requests for money to spend at the bowling alley.“We need that money for food,” said Ms. Smith, who makes 1,200 pounds (about $1,400) a month. “Before, we were keeping our head just above the water. Now, we are literally sinking.”In Britain, inflation rose 10.1 percent in July compared to a year earlier, with consumer prices growing at their fastest pace since 1982. Many Britons, especially the most vulnerable, who have borne the brunt of the effects of inflation, braced for more sacrifices: for saying “no” more often to their children, for making more trips to multiple supermarkets to find discounts, for joining lines at the food banks and for making more compromises to their health.Many Britons are concerned that their leaders have left the country rudderless during the growing economic crisis. The government is embroiled in a leadership transition, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson working out his last few weeks in Downing Street before a successor is announced on Sept. 5. Parliament itself is not in session, and vacation season is in full swing, with Mr. Johnson being spotted in Greece over the weekend — his second foreign holiday in recent weeks.In the meantime, residents are scrambling to cope, often forced to make hard choices.At Iceland, a low-cost supermarket with an emphasis on frozen food, Tainara Graciano, 51, a housekeeper in London, carried a basket with two cartons of eggs and discounted chicken nuggets that were expiring on the same day. She had cut back on bottled water since prices began spiraling up.“He drinks a lot,” she said of the water, looking at her 11-year-old son as he strolled by. Then she pointed at her half-empty basket and said, “Five months ago, I carried two of those.”Britons have been making more trips to multiple supermarkets to seek out lower prices.Andy Rain/EPA, via ShutterstockAcross the street, Arwen Joseph, 47, was shopping for house supplies at the low-cost store Poundland.Ms. Joseph, who is on government benefits and sometimes uses a food bank, said it had been harder to buy healthful food that was compatible with her allergies, which give her severe eczema. As a result, she has cut back on other items.“We used to have ice cream or bubble tea maybe once a week,” said her 9-year-old daughter, Georgia Gold. “Now we haven’t had it so much.”Volunteers at food banks say they have been caught off guard and are now struggling to keep up as more people arrive asking for help.Solomon Smith, who runs the Brixton Soup Kitchen in South London, which provides hot meals and other food bank services to those in need, said the number of people using the service had more than doubled in recent months.“People are telling us they haven’t eaten properly for days,” he said. “Some of them have been forced to go into shops to steal. Others don’t know if they should pay their gas bills or eat food.”The food bank itself has not escaped the inflation squeeze. It has had to cut back on hot meals and food purchases, and has seen public donations dry up, according to Mr. Smith.“We just don’t have enough to give to everyone,” he said, his voice wavering. “I don’t know what is going to happen next week.”People across Britain are confronting similar problems.At the Blackburn Food Bank, in the north of England, more people with full-time employment are turning up as wages have not kept up with the inflation.“People are very shocked that they have to be here,” said Gill Fourie, operations manager at Blackburn. “People don’t even have gas and electricity to cook,” she said, referring to mounting household energy prices which are forecast to climb to 3,500 pounds (about $4,240) a year in October, triple what they were a year ago. She added, however, that the facility continued to receive support from the community. Even people who are in less vulnerable situations have had to watch their wallets.“I would love to get some Mutti, but I cannot afford it,” said Melanie McHugh, an actress, as she looked at cans of tomato sauce at her local supermarket in south London. She said she was going to make shakshuka, a vegetable dish that could last for several days. She went for a cheaper brand of sauce.Ms. McHugh, who has stopped buying butter, also grabbed a lower cost brand of chorizo.“I am aware that I am lucky,” she said. “But I am also aware my habits have changed.”The British government has allocated £15 billion (about $18 billion) in benefits for the most vulnerable families. Ms. Smith, the mother of three, said she had received about 300 pounds this month. She has also stockpiled laundry soap, but said that did not ease her worries. She has started thinking of giving up her car and getting another job, as a cleaner, on weekends.“It’s not what I would like to do,” she said. “But you have to do what you need to survive.” More