Tag: United States Economy

Biden Takes on MAGA Republicans in Boebert’s Backyard

President Biden’s visit to a wind turbine factory in Colorado on Wednesday was as much a rebuke of his far-right opponents in Congress as it was an official stop to show off investments in clean energy and manufacturing. Mr. Biden toured the Pueblo factory of CS Wind, which lies in the district of Representative Lauren […]

Read More

Before the DeSantis-Newsom Debate, Let’s Look at Their Economic Records

I’ll be glued to the TV on Thursday for the debate between Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Gov. Gavin Newsom of California on Fox News. (Not a plug.) It will pit a conservative Republican against a liberal Democrat, a one-time outfielder for Yale against a one-time pitcher for Santa Clara University, a fighter against […]

Read More

U.S. Debates How Much to Sever Electric Car Industry’s Ties to China

The Biden administration has been trying to jump-start the domestic supply chain for electric vehicles so cleaner cars can be made in the United States. But the experience of one Texas company, whose plans to help make an all-American electric vehicle were upended by China, highlights the stakes involved as the administration finalizes rules governing […]

Read More

Corporate America Has Dodged the Damage of High Rates. For Now.

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 […]

Read More

Even Most Biden Voters Don’t See a Thriving Economy

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 […]

Read More

There’s a Lot Riding on Black Friday and Cyber Monday

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 […]

Read More

Black Friday Isn’t What It Used to Be

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 […]

Read More

U.S. Gas Prices Drop Ahead of Thanksgiving Travel

U.S. gasoline prices are plunging just in time for Thanksgiving, and with the OPEC Plus oil cartel in apparent disarray, they could be heading lower for Christmas. Lower prices at the pump have helped ease the inflation rate most of this year. But this week, they fell to levels not seen at this time of […]

Read More

Happy Thanksgiving, Hermit Billionaires!

Gail Collins: Bret, I guess we should start with things we’re thankful for this year. Don’t suppose the imminent end of the political career of the dreadful Representative George Santos rises to the level of holiday cheer. So you go first. No fair counting family and friends. Bret Stephens: It’s a depressing world, Gail, so […]

Read More

Want to Know What’s Bedeviling Biden? TikTok Economics May Hold Clues.

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 […]

Read More

The Fed’s Decisions Now Could Alter the 2024 Elections

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 […]

Read More

Day After Xi Meeting, Biden Says U.S. Has ‘Real Differences’ With China

President Biden said Thursday that the United States has “real differences with Beijing,” one day after he held an hourslong meeting with President Xi Jinping of China at a moment of deep tension between the two countries. Speaking to executives at the APEC summit in San Francisco, Mr. Biden noted that he and Mr. Xi […]

Read More

Retailers Wary of Squeeze on Shoppers Ahead of Key Holiday Season

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. […]

Read More

Why Great G.D.P. Growth Isn’t Good Enough for Bidenomics

On Oct. 26, the Department of Commerce announced that gross domestic product had grown at an annual rate of 4.9 percent in the third quarter. This growth rate ran well above even optimistic forecasts, leading to what can only be called triumphalism from a White House dead-set on making “Bidenomics” a key to its 2024 […]

Read More

China’s Xi Jinping Draws Elon Musk, Tim Cook and Other U.S. CEOs to Gala in San Francisco

The streets outside the San Francisco hotel where Chinese leader Xi Jinping addressed a crowd of American business executives Wednesday night were chaotic, echoing with police sirens and the chants of protesters. A woman had strapped herself to a pole 25 feet in the air in front of the hotel, yelling “Free Tibet!” as a […]

Read More

Stock Market Rallies After CPI Inflation Report

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 […]

Read More

An Optimistic Inflation Report Reduces Pressure on the Fed to Raise Rates

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 […]

Read More

Bad Feelings About the Economy Sour Arizona Voters on Biden

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 […]

Read More

5th National Climate Assessment Lays Out Climate Threats and Solutions

The food we eat and the roads we drive on. Our health and safety. Our cultural heritage, natural environments and economic flourishing. Nearly every cherished aspect of American life is under growing threat from climate change and it is effectively too late to prevent many of the harms from worsening over the next decade, a […]

Read More

The Rise and Fall of the U.S.-China Economic Partnership

For more than a quarter century, the fortunes of the United States and China were fused in a uniquely monumental joint venture. Americans treated China like the mother of all outlet stores, purchasing staggering quantities of low-priced factory goods. Major brands exploited China as the ultimate means of cutting costs, manufacturing their products in a […]

Read More

Biden’s Pacific Trade Pact Suffers Setback After Criticism From Congress

The Biden administration has pulled back on plans to announce the conclusion of substantial portions of a new Asian-Pacific trade pact at an international meeting in San Francisco this week, after several top Democratic lawmakers threatened to oppose the deal, people familiar with the matter said. The White House had been aiming to announce that […]

Read More

Biden and a Feel-Bad Economy

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 […]

Read More

What Democrats Can Learn From Joe Biden and Poll Numbers

Well, this week has been an emotional roller coaster. On Sunday, a New York Times/Siena College poll showed President Biden behind Donald Trump in a bunch of battleground states, sending Democrats into a tizzy. Then on Tuesday, voters handed Democrats a string of election victories — the kind they have enjoyed in election after election […]

Read More

Biden Finalizes Significant Overhaul in Federal Regulations

The Biden administration has overhauled how the federal government assesses the costs and benefits of regulation and some government spending programs, clearing a path for more aggressive efforts to fight climate change and help the poor. Officials at the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, a branch of the Office of Management and […]

Read More

A New Law Supercharged Electric Car Manufacturing, but Not Sales

President Biden’s signature climate law has stimulated a surge of investment in electric vehicle production across the country, including tens of billions of dollars on battery plants across the South and new assembly lines near the Great Lakes. Based on early evidence, it is succeeding at a goal that economists have long considered difficult and […]

Read More

What Voters Want That Trump Seems to Have

At an even more basic level, Mr. Trump doesn’t have to promise positive change so much as the chance to stiff-arm the current leadership. Plenty of protest voters may not be looking to punish Mr. Biden for a particular action, or inaction, so much as for their inchoate disenchantment with the way things are. The […]

Read More

‘Morning in America’ Eludes Biden, Despite Economic Gains

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 […]

Read More

Automakers Delay Electric Vehicle Spending as Demand Slows

Normally a 50 percent increase in sales is considered very good. But when the number of electric vehicles sold in the United States grew that much during the third quarter from a year earlier, it was a disappointment. Carmakers and analysts had expected more. Instead of celebrating, auto executives worried that demand for electric vehicles […]

Read More

A Report Card for Bidenomics

Where the economy is working (and where it isn’t) With a year to go before Election Day, polls increasingly show that American voters believe next year will be a rematch between President Biden and Donald Trump — with the former president in the lead in key battleground states despite his legal troubles (more on that […]

Read More