President Biden enters his State of the Union speech on Thursday with an economic record that has defied forecasters’ gloomy expectations, avoiding recession while delivering stronger growth and lower unemployment than predicted. But polls suggest voters know relatively little about the legislation Mr. Biden has signed into law that seeks to boost the economy through […]
Read MoreTag: United States Economy
The School Issues We’re Battling Over Aren’t the Ones That Matter
A Florida school district, facing pressure about “nudity” in schools, removed from shelves a picture book that showed an illustration of a goblin’s bare bottom. Some students were saved from debauchery when school officials colored in a pair of pants on the goblin. That’s a particularly nutty example, from the newsletter “Popular Information” (the school […]
Read MoreFed Chair Powell Still Expects to Cut Rates This Year, but Not Yet
Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, said on Wednesday that he thinks the central bank will begin to lower borrowing costs in 2024 but that policymakers still needed to gain “greater confidence” that inflation was conquered before making a move. “We believe that our policy rate is likely at its peak for […]
Read MoreBrighter Economic Mood Isn’t Translating Into Support for Biden
Eight months before the election, Americans feel slightly better about the state of the economy as inflation recedes and the labor market remains stable, but President Biden doesn’t appear to be benefiting. Among registered voters nationwide, 26 percent believe the economy is good or excellent, according to polling in late February by The New York […]
Read MoreIs New York City Back? Not for Everyone.
Nearly four years after the coronavirus pandemic hit, New York City is back in many ways. As of September, New York City had the most jobs ever recorded. Tourism has mostly rebounded, with 62 million visitors last year. Subway ridership is still short of prepandemic levels, but has risen to nearly four million on weekdays. […]
Read MoreTrump’s Tax Cut Fueled Investment but Did Not Pay for Itself, Study Finds
The corporate tax cuts that President Donald J. Trump signed into law in 2017 have boosted investment in the U.S. economy and delivered a modest pay bump for workers, according to the most rigorous and detailed study yet of the law’s effects. Those benefits are less than Republicans promised, though, and they have come at […]
Read MoreHow 33-Year-Olds, the Peak Millennials, Are Shaping the U.S. Economy
I have covered economics for 11 years now, and in that time, I have come to the realization that I am a statistic. Every time I make a major life choice, I promptly watch it become the thing that everyone is doing that year. I started college in 2009, in the era of all-time-high matriculation […]
Read MoreThe U.S. Economy Is Surpassing Expectations. Immigration Is One Reason.
The U.S. economic recovery from the pandemic has been stronger and more durable than many experts had expected, and a rebound in immigration is a big reason. A resumption in visa processing in 2021 and 2022 jump-started employment, allowing foreign-born workers to fill some holes in the labor force that persisted across industries and locations […]
Read MoreFor Michigan’s Economy, Electric Vehicles Are Promising and Scary
Last fall, Tiffanie Simmons, a second-generation autoworker, endured a six-week strike at the Ford Motor factory just west of Detroit where she builds Bronco S.U.V.s. That yielded a pay raise of 25 percent over the next four years, easing the pain of reductions that she and other union workers swallowed more than a decade ago. […]
Read MoreU.S. Awards $1.5 Billion to Chipmaker GlobalFoundries
The Biden administration on Monday announced a $1.5 billion award to the New York-based chipmaker GlobalFoundries, one of the first sizable grants from a government program aimed at revitalizing semiconductor manufacturing in the United States. As part of the plan to bolster GlobalFoundries, the administration will also make available another $1.6 billion in federal loans. […]
Read MoreNo, Wind Farms Aren’t ‘Driving Whales Crazy’
As the South Carolina Republican primary approaches, former President Donald J. Trump, the front-runner, is increasingly hammering President Biden with inaccurate statements on energy issues. Mr. Trump — who has called climate change a “hoax,” “nonexistent” and “created by the Chinese” — rolled back more than 100 climate and environmental protections during his administration, while […]
Read MoreIsraelis Enter Gaza Hospital, and Super Bowl Parade Shooting
The New York Times Audio app is home to journalism and storytelling, and provides news, depth and serendipity. If you haven’t already, download it here — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter. The Headlines brings you the biggest stories of the day from the Times journalists […]
Read MoreThree Lessons From a Surprisingly Resilient Job Market
The pandemic created an economic crisis unlike any recession on record. So perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that the aftermath, too, has played out in a way that almost no economists expected. When unemployment soared in the first weeks of the pandemic, many feared a repeat of the long, slow rebound from the Great Recession: […]
Read MoreWhat’s Going on with the U.S. Economy?
The economy is probably headed toward a recession. No, it’s actually booming again. Inflation is plummeting. No, it has started rising again. If you find the cacophony of economic indicators to be confusing, don’t feel bad. It is confusing. Some numbers point in one direction, while others point in the opposite. Partisans from both political […]
Read MoreNeither Trumpism Nor Bidenomics Has an Answer to Inflation
The flare of inflation reported this week, the unwelcome guest still hanging around when everyone was hoping he’d been shown the door, is a useful reminder of one way to understand the Biden era’s frustrations. The administration’s defenders often argue that it has been more successful at legislating and policymaking than it’s given credit for, […]
Read MoreThe A.I. Economy Will Make Jobs More Human
There have been just a handful of moments over the centuries when we have experienced a huge shift in the skills our economy values most. We are entering one such moment now. Technical and data skills that have been highly sought after for decades appear to be among the most exposed to advances in artificial […]
Read MoreCan America Turn a Productivity Boomlet Into a Boom?
Kevin Rezvani came of age in kitchens: spending summers at his grandfather’s bakery in Japan, doing work-study in his college cafeteria and working for years as a line cook at mid-tier restaurants, along with some stints in fast food. By his late 20s, the biggest takeaway Mr. Rezvani had from his experience “working in every […]
Read MoreInflation Was Higher Than Expected in January, a Worrying Sign for the Fed
Inflation cooled less than expected in January and showed worrying staying power after volatile food and fuel costs were stripped out — a reminder that bringing price increases under control remains a fraught, bumpy process. The overall Consumer Price Index was up 3.1 percent from a year earlier, which was down from 3.4 percent in […]
Read MoreThis Arctic Circle Town Expected a Green Energy Boom. Then Came Bidenomics.
In Mo i Rana, a small Norwegian industrial town on the cusp of the Arctic Circle, a cavernous gray factory sits empty and unfinished in the snowy twilight — a monument to unfulfilled economic hope. The electric battery company Freyr was partway through constructing this hulking facility when the Biden administration’s sweeping climate bill passed […]
Read MoreInflation Was Higher Than
Inflation cooled less than expected in January and showed worrying staying power after volatile food and fuel costs were stripped out — a reminder that bringing price increases under control remains a fraught, bumpy process. The overall Consumer Price Index was up 3.1 percent from a year earlier, which was down from 3.4 percent in […]
Read MoreStocks Sink as Stubborn Inflation Resets Fed Rate Forecasts
Stock markets tumbled on Tuesday as investors slashed their bets on the Federal Reserve taking the brakes off the economy in the coming months, after hotter-than-expected inflation data led traders to expect interest rates will remain higher for longer. The benchmark S&P 500 stock index fell over 1 percent in early trading. The index has […]
Read MoreS&P 500 Closes Above 5,000 for First Time
The Numbers The S&P 500 climbed 0.6 percent on Friday to close at 5,026.61. It is now up more than 5 percent since the start of the year, and up nearly 40 percent since its October 2022 low. The Russell 2000, an index that measures smaller companies more closely tied to the health of the […]
Read MoreWhy the Cost of Biden’s Climate Law Keeps Going Up
The estimated price tag for President Biden’s clean-energy and climate agenda has effectively doubled since the Inflation Reduction Act was signed into law a year and a half ago. Nearly all of the increase is attributable to forecasters’ belief that the law will be more popular than they had originally expected, in part because of […]
Read MoreWe Americans Neglect Our Children
Individually, we adore and pamper our children. We shuttle them from soccer practice to music lessons and then organize their play dates with meticulous fanaticism. Yet collectively, we mistreat America’s children, especially by the standards of other wealthy countries. When we’re formulating policies for children as a whole rather than coddling our own little angels, […]
Read MoreNevada’s Struggling Economy Could Hold a Key to 2024
Nevada has the worst unemployment rate in the country, gas and grocery prices are still among the nation’s highest, and the cost of housing here has soared. President Biden’s policies are squarely to blame, Republicans argue, and former President Donald J. Trump will fix it if voters return him to the White House. Nevada’s unemployment […]
Read MoreU.S. Debt on Pace to Top $54 Trillion Over Next 10 Years
The United States is on a pace to add nearly $19 trillion to its national debt over the next decade as the mounting costs of an aging population and higher interest expenses continue to weigh on the nation’s fiscal outlook, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said on Wednesday. But the report did offer a sliver […]
Read MoreFor First Time in Two Decades, U.S. Buys More From Mexico Than China
In the depths of the pandemic, as global supply chains buckled and the cost of shipping a container to China soared nearly twentyfold, Marco Villarreal spied an opportunity. In 2021, Mr. Villarreal resigned as Caterpillar’s director general in Mexico and began nurturing ties with companies looking to shift manufacturing from China to Mexico. He found […]
Read MoreBiden Has Openings for a Comeback on Two Weak Points
President Biden’s approval ratings are as low as ever. An NBC poll this weekend was only the latest example, showing him trailing Donald J. Trump by five percentage points nationwide, with his approval down to 37 percent. But over the last few months, the conditions for a Biden comeback have gradually come into place. It […]
Read MoreImmigrants Make America Stronger and Richer
Modern nations can’t — practically or politically — have open borders, which allow anyone who chooses to immigrate. The good news is that America doesn’t have open borders, and there is no significant faction in our politics saying we should. In fact, immigrating to the United States legally is fairly difficult. The bad news is […]
Read MoreTop U.S. Treasury Officials to Visit Beijing for Economic Talks
The Biden administration is dispatching a high-level delegation of Treasury Department officials to Beijing this week for a round of economic talks as the world’s largest economies look to continue engagement efforts that President Biden and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, agreed to pursue last year. A Treasury official, speaking on the condition of anonymity […]
Read More