Over the past six months, the personal consumption expenditure deflator excluding food and energy — I know that’s a mouthful, but it’s the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of underlying inflation — has risen at an annual rate of only 2.5 percent, down from 5.7 percent in March 2022. The Fed’s inflation target is 2 percent, […]
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The United States and 21 other countries pledged on Saturday at the United Nations climate summit in Dubai to triple nuclear energy capacity by 2050, saying the revival of nuclear power was critical for cutting carbon emissions to near zero in the coming decades. Proponents of nuclear energy, which supplies 18 percent of electricity in […]
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After several twists and turns this year, stock investors are in a celebratory mood. The S&P 500 set a new high for the year on Friday, a day after clocking its best month of 2023 in November, in a rally that quickly erased the benchmark index’s steep drop over the summer. The reversal has come […]
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A flurry of states now require financial literacy classes for high school students, covering topics like budgeting, saving and managing debt. Just seven states — Alabama, Iowa, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia — earned an A grade, meaning they require students to take a semester-long personal finance course, or its equivalent, on a “report […]
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Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, suggested on Friday that the central bank may be done raising interest rates if inflation and the economy continue to cool as expected, saying that central bankers could raise interest rates further if that became necessary. “It would be premature to conclude with confidence that we […]
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Donald Trump hasn’t talked much about policy in this election cycle, except for vague assertions that he’ll somehow bring back low unemployment and low inflation — which, by the way, has already happened. (Unemployment has been at or below 4 percent for almost two years. Thursday’s report on consumer spending showed the Federal Reserve’s preferred […]
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A closely watched measure of inflation showed continued signs of fading in October, encouraging news for the Federal Reserve as officials try to gauge whether they need to take further action in order to fully stamp out rapid price increases. The Personal Consumption Expenditures inflation measure, which the Fed cites when it says it aims […]
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He has taken dozens of trips abroad boosting his credentials on climate change, while raising taxes at home. He pledged to send his country’s police to quash gang violence in Haiti, though they stand accused of brutality at home. And he recently hosted an eight-course state dinner for King Charles III, amid skyrocketing food and […]
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The prediction was straightforward: A rapid rise in interest rates orchestrated by the Federal Reserve would confine consumer spending and corporate profits, sharply reducing hiring and cooling a red-hot economy. But it hasn’t worked out quite the way forecasters expected. Inflation has eased, but the biggest companies in the country have avoided the damage of […]
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Federal Reserve officials appear to be dialing back the chances of future interest rate increases, after months in which they have carefully kept the possibility of further policy changes alive for fear that inflation would prove stubborn. Several Fed officials — including two who often push for higher interest rates — hinted on Tuesday that […]
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It’s difficult for presidents to directly control inflation in the short term. But the White House has addressed a few specific costs that matter for families, by releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to contain surging oil prices in late 2022, for example. The Inflation Reduction Act reduced prescription drug prices under Medicare and […]
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The consumer is back — but for how long? Black Friday and today’s Cyber Monday shopping bonanzas hold outsize political significance this year with the retailing events emerging as key recession and inflation indicators. So far, so good. Bargain hunters turned out in force for Black Friday sales, and Cyber Monday is forecast to be […]
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Turkey’s central bank has raised interest rates to 40 percent, its highest level in nearly two decades, in a significant move to tame the country’s runaway inflation after the country’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, had previously defied economic convention by cutting rates to slow price increases. The increase of 5 percentage points on Thursday, which […]
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Marcelo Capobianco was inspecting the calf carcass he had just hung from a hook in his small butcher shop outside Buenos Aires on Tuesday when he admitted that the premium-grade beef would hardly earn him anything. That’s because since his preferred candidate, Javier Milei, won Argentina’s presidency two days earlier, the cost of the meat […]
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Black Friday was once a hallmark celebration of American consumerism. Lately, it has lost some of its thunder. It’s true that shoppers looking for big discounts can still line up early at Macy’s or Best Buy on the day after Thanksgiving, in hopes of snagging a bargain. But for many, the bargain has already been […]
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Christina Beck is approaching this holiday season cautiously. Ms. Beck, a 58-year-old administrative director at a school, makes lists of gifts she plans to buy for her family and friends and sticks with it. But her spending this year will be kept in check by the high cost of food in grocery stores and restaurants, […]
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Peter Coy: So, Binya, Americans seem very grumpy about the economy lately, despite what looks like some pretty good news. I bet a lot of people will be talking over Thanksgiving dinner about why that is. I think I have some ideas to chew on. Let me throw out one thing to start. One problem […]
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Federal Reserve officials are contemplating whether they will need to raise interest rates again to cool the economy and ensure that rapid inflation will fully fade, and minutes from their meeting earlier this month laid out the contours of that debate. “Participants noted that further tightening of monetary policy would be appropriate if incoming information […]
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Look at economic data, and you’d think that young voters would be riding high right now. Unemployment remains low. Job opportunities are plentiful. Inequality is down, wage growth is finally beating inflation, and the economy has expanded rapidly this year. Look at TikTok, and you get a very different impression — one that seems more […]
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What’s happening in the economy now will have a big effect — perhaps, a decisive one — on the presidential election and control of Congress in 2024. To a remarkable extent, the economy is what matters to voters, so much so that one long-running election model relies on economic data to produce accurate predictions without […]
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Days ahead of the start of the holiday shopping season, several major retailers expressed caution about consumers during the busiest selling period of the year. Walmart, the largest retailer in the United States, said on Thursday that sales rose about 5 percent in its latest quarter, which ran through late October, versus the previous year. […]
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Digging Deeper: Lower energy bills are driving down inflation. Last year, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine made wholesale energy prices soar, but price caps on bills in Britain meant that households felt these increases with a lag. The same has been true as wholesale prices have dropped this year. In October, the inflation rate was pulled […]
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Stocks soared on Tuesday, after an inflation reading raised hopes that the Federal Reserve’s campaign to slow inflation may have reached its limits. The S&P 500 rose 1.9 percent on Tuesday, while the Russell 2000 index of smaller companies’ stocks, which are more exposed to the ups and downs of the economy, climbed roughly 5 […]
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Inflation eased in October and price increases showed encouraging signs of slowing under the surface, according to fresh data released on Tuesday. The report provided the Federal Reserve with renewed evidence that its battle against rapid inflation is working — and likely reduced the need for further rate increases. The overall Consumer Price Index slowed […]
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Airfares to many popular destinations have recently fallen to their lowest levels in months, and even holiday travel is far cheaper than it was last year, providing some welcome relief to consumers who have been frustrated for months by high prices for all manner of goods and services. The glut of deals suggests that the […]
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If President Biden hopes to replicate his narrow victory in Arizona, he will need disillusioned voters like Alex Jumah. An immigrant from Iraq, Mr. Jumah leans conservative, but he said he voted for Mr. Biden because he could not stomach former President Trump’s anti-Muslim views. That was 2020. Since then, Mr. Jumah, 41, said, his […]
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Since Tuesday’s big Democratic electoral victories, I’ve been seeing some speculation to the effect that the 2024 election may be marked by a reverse coattail effect: that President Biden, whose poll numbers have supposedly been weighed down by a bad economy, may be lifted up by local candidates who have been racking up wins over […]
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Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, on Thursday expressed little urgency to make another interest rate increase. But he made clear that policymakers remain willing to adjust policy further if doing so proves necessary to cool the economy and fully restrain inflation. Mr. Powell and his Fed colleagues left their interest rates […]
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President Ronald Reagan rode a “Morning in America” message to a blowout re-election victory in 1984, based partly on warm feelings about his economic performance. Today’s economy is similar in many ways to Mr. Reagan’s as he entered that campaign, with one big difference: There is widespread voter angst over the incumbent’s economic stewardship. A […]
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Stocks and bonds rallied on Friday, extending a sharp reversal after fresh data about the health of the U.S. labor market capped a tumultuous week for investors. The 10-year government bond yield, which underpin rates on everything from mortgages to business loans, dropped more than 0.1 percentage points on Friday, another large decline for a […]
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Nov. 3, 2023, 6:30 a.m. ET Nov. 3, 2023, 6:30 a.m. ET Many employers are still struggling to find available workers, but the labor market is loosening. At the same time, companies are balancing cost concerns — especially as interest rates remain elevated — with the need to entice employees. Overall, labor market churn has […]
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