United States Politics and Government

More stories

  • 163 Shares139 Views

    in Economy

    The Jobs Report on Friday May Be a Fluke and a Political Football

    by

    This close to an election, even the driest economic data can be politicized. So if the monthly jobs report lands on Friday with an unusually low number of jobs created in October, Republican campaigns may blast it out as a sign that the labor market has taken a turn for the worse. (Last month, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida reacted to a strong report by calling it “fake.”)That wouldn’t necessarily be true.The last couple of months have seen an unusual amount of disruption. First came the Boeing strike in September, taking some 35,000 workers off payrolls, plus another 6,000 from smaller strikes. Then came Hurricanes Helene and Milton, which spiked unemployment claims by about 35,000 in early October.All in all, economists are forecasting a gain of 110,000 jobs in October. That would be a significant step down from the 186,000 jobs added on average over each of the previous three months, pending any revisions. But it also wouldn’t be an accurate representation of employers’ appetite to hire.In general, a broad spectrum of data suggests that the labor market has settled into a moderate pace of job growth, enough to soak up the 150,000 or so people who enter the work force each month. The unemployment rate has fallen back to 4.1 percent, and overall economic growth came in strong last quarter, showing that the foundations of the economy are sound. More

  • 100 Shares99 Views

    in Economy

    Inflation Cooled Further in September, PCE Index Shows

    by

    Overall inflation slowed in September from a year earlier, though some signs of stubbornness lingered under the surface.Inflation has been cooling for two years, and fresh data released on Thursday showed that trend continued in September. Prices climbed just 2.1 percent compared with a year earlier.That is nearly back to the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent inflation goal — good news for both the Fed and the White House. It is also slower than the previous reading, which stood at 2.3 percent.Still, the report also shows evidence that price increases remain stickier under the surface.A closely watched inflation measure that strips out volatile food and fuel costs to give a sense of the underlying trend in prices was up 2.7 percent in September compared with a year earlier. That “core” inflation figure was unchanged from the previous reading, a sign that it was proving slow to cool. And on a monthly basis, core inflation actually accelerated slightly.While the figures were largely in line with what economists had expected, the stubbornness in core inflation reinforced that the Fed’s campaign to wrestle price increases back under control was not entirely finished.“All in all, this is a relatively good report,” said Omair Sharif, founder of the firm Inflation Insights. But he added that he thought core inflation could remain too quick for comfort in coming months, before fading more completely early next year.“It’s not a mission accomplished kind of number,” he said.The Fed lifted interest rates sharply in 2022 and early 2023 to try to slow the economy and wrestle inflation under control. But officials slashed them by half a percentage point in September, cutting interest rates for the first time in four years.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

  • 150 Shares189 Views

    in Economy

    Inflation Is Basically Back to Normal. Why Do Voters Still Feel Blah?

    by

    Consumers still give the economy poor marks, though the job market is strong and price increases have faded for months.Grocery inflation has been cooling sharply, but Tamira Flamer, 27, says she hasn’t noticed. What she knows is that paper plates and meat remain more expensive than they were a few years ago.“I feel like it’s been rough,” said Ms. Flamer, a mother of two who drives for Amazon, while standing outside a Dollar General near her home in Norristown, Pa., on Sunday.Ms. Flamer, an undecided voter who says she is most focused on economic issues, underscores a challenge for Vice President Kamala Harris as the presidential election barrels toward its final days.Voters say that they are very focused on the economy as they head to the polls, yet surveys suggest that they feel relatively glum about its recent track record. That could hurt Ms. Harris while helping her opponent, former President Donald J. Trump.The lingering pessimism is also something of a puzzle. The job market has been chugging along, although more slowly, overall growth has been healthy and even inflation is more or less back to normal. Inflation data released on Thursday showed that prices have increased by a mild 2.1 percent over the past year.Confidence has crept back up as inflation has cooled, but it remains much lower than it was the last time the economy looked as solid as it does today. That is true for both the University of Michigan’s confidence index and a separate measure produced by the Conference Board, an organization that conducts business and economic research.Large Swing in Republican ConfidenceRepublicans were optimistic about the economy when former President Donald J. Trump was in office, and turned more negative as soon as President Biden was elected.

    .dw-chart-subhed {
    line-height: 1;
    margin-bottom: 6px;
    font-family: nyt-franklin;
    color: #121212;
    font-size: 15px;
    font-weight: 700;
    }

    Consumer Confidence Index
    Source: University of Michigan By The New York TimesWe 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

  • 138 Shares119 Views

    in Economy

    New York State Chosen as National Center for Chip Manufacturing Research

    by

    The Biden administration will place a hub of a newly created national semiconductor technology center in upstate New York.The Biden administration is set to announce on Thursday that it will invest an estimated $825 million in a new federally funded semiconductor research facility in upstate New York.The decision to locate the facility in Albany comes after a long-running push by Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader and a Democrat of New York, to base it in his home state.Albany will serve as one major hub of a bigger organization, the National Semiconductor Technology Center, which will focus on computer chip research and development, Mr. Schumer’s office said. The center is a key part of the Biden administration’s efforts to revitalize American high-tech manufacturing and lessen the country’s dependence on foreign sources of technology.The New York site will focus on research into the complex machinery that is necessary to manufacture chips. The locations of the other two hubs, which will focus on how chips are designed and packaged together, will be announced later.Mr. Schumer said in an interview on Wednesday that the New York investment would produce research that benefited the country, cement U.S. leadership in advanced chip technology over China and provide a major source of manufacturing employment for the area.“This is historic,” he said. “It’s going to keep our country, our national security and our economic security way ahead.”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 Shares99 Views

    in Economy

    Can Democrats Win Back Voters From Trump on Trade Policy?

    by

    The Biden administration has pursued a big shift in trade policy, but it’s not clear whether that will be enough to win votes.Since Donald J. Trump won over many working-class voters in 2016 with his vows to impose tariffs and rework “disastrous” trade deals, Democrats have been scrambling to win back supporters by taking a more protectionist trade approach.Over the last four years, the Biden administration spent more time emphasizing the harm trade policy has caused to American communities than the benefits. It hit the brakes on negotiating trade deals with other countries and chose to maintain and even increase Mr. Trump’s tariffs on Chinese products. And it pumped billions of dollars into new American factories to make semiconductors and solar panels.It’s a significant shift from the decades that both mainstream Democrats and Republicans spent working to promote trade and lower international barriers.For Vice President Kamala Harris, next week’s election will be a moment of truth for whether the strategy worked.Mr. Trump has helped bring trade to the forefront in presidential elections with his vitriolic criticisms of past policy and his proposals for high tariffs. It is an issue that resonates strongly with voters in Northern swing states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, where manufacturing employment fell steeply in recent decades as factories moved abroad.Biden officials have been trying to persuade more trade-skeptical voters that their policies to encourage manufacturing in the United States are working, pointing to a recent surge in U.S. factory construction.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

  • 150 Shares99 Views

    in Economy

    How Elon Musk Might Use His Pull With Trump to Help Tesla

    by

    Although Donald Trump has opposed policies that favor electric cars, if he becomes president he could ease regulatory scrutiny of Tesla or protect lucrative credits and subsidies.Former President Donald J. Trump has promised, if he is re-elected, to do away with Biden administration policies that encourage the use and production of electric cars. Yet one of his biggest supporters is Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, which makes nearly half the electric vehicles sold in the United States.Whether or not Mr. Trump would carry out his threats against battery-powered cars and trucks, a second Trump administration could still be good for Tesla and Mr. Musk, auto and political experts say.Mr. Musk has spent more than $75 million to support the Trump campaign and is running a get-out-the-vote effort on the former president’s behalf in Pennsylvania. That will almost surely earn Mr. Musk the kind of access he would need to promote Tesla.But Mr. Musk would also have to confront a big gap between his Washington wish list and Mr. Trump’s agenda.While Mr. Musk rarely acknowledges it, Tesla has collected billions of dollars from programs championed by Democrats like President Biden that Mr. Trump and other Republicans have vowed to dismantle.In Michigan, a battleground state and home to many auto factories, the Trump campaign has run ads that claim that Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, wants to “end all gas-powered cars” — a position that she does not hold.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 Shares169 Views

    in Economy

    Trump’s Vast Tariffs Would Rock Global Businesses and Shake Alliances

    by

    Economists said Donald Trump’s plan to return trade barriers to levels not seen in generations would be “a grenade thrown in the heart” of the international system.At a rally in Latrobe, Pa., earlier this month, former President Donald J. Trump paused in front of a crowd holding signs that read “Save Our Steel” to pay homage to one of his favorite concepts.Tariff, he said, “is the most beautiful word in the dictionary. More beautiful than love, more beautiful than respect.”Mr. Trump demonstrated a deep affinity for tariffs during his presidency, using them as a cudgel to punish both allies and rivals as he tried to force companies to make their products in the United States.If he wins again in November, he is promising a much more aggressive approach, a full-scale upending of the trading system in which the United States is no longer a partner in the global flow of goods, but a mercantilist nation intent on walling itself off from the world.The former president, who has described himself as a “Tariff Man,” has talked about tariffs as the solution to an array of problems, from making the country rich to funding tax cuts and paying for child care. But most central to his vision is the ability of tariffs to reverse decades of globalization and force factories to move back to the United States.Mr. Trump has threatened to slap steep tariffs on every country — the most punishing levies reserved for China — to raise the cost of foreign products and try to reorder global supply chains. His tariffs would hit almost all U.S. imports, more than $3 trillion of goods.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 Shares199 Views

    in Economy

    Global Economic Leaders Confront a New Era of Industrial Policy

    by

    Policymakers brace for more protectionism and the demise of “neoliberalism” if Donald J. Trump is re-elected in the U.S.At the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank this week, Kristalina Georgieva, the head of the I.M.F., expressed a mix of relief and trepidation about the state of the world economy.Policymakers had tamed rapid inflation without causing a global recession. Yet another big economic problem loomed. Rising protectionism and thousands of new industrial policy measures enacted by countries around the world over the last year are threatening future growth prospects.“Trade, for the first time, is not the engine of growth,” Ms. Georgieva said at an event sponsored by the Bretton Woods Committee.Economic policymakers who convened in Washington showed little indication that they might heed the warnings.Eighty years after the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank were created to stabilize the global economy in the wake of World War II, the role of those organizations and the guiding principles behind their creation has largely fallen out of fashion. The I.M.F. and World Bank were designed to embrace a new system of economic order and international cooperation, one that would stitch the world economy together and allow rich nations to help poorer ones through trade and investment.But today, those who espouse such “neoliberal” notions of open markets are increasingly lonely voices.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