Recession and Depression
After a Burst of New Businesses, a Cooling Economy Intrudes
An unexpected result of the pandemic era has been a surge in entrepreneurial activity. Since 2020, applications to start new businesses have skyrocketed, reversing a decades-long slump. The reasons for the boom are manifold. Millions of people were suddenly laid off, giving them the time, and inclination, to start new businesses. Personal savings jumped, buoyed […]
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How This Economic Moment Rewrites the Rules
Indeed, the Federal Reserve is trying to cut it off. Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, has described the labor market, with twice as many open jobs as unemployed workers, as “unsustainably hot,” and is trying to cool it through aggressive interest rate increases. He and his colleagues have argued repeatedly that a more normal […]
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Good News on Jobs May Mean Bad News Later as Hiring Spree Defies Fed
America’s job market is remarkably strong, a report on Friday made clear, with unemployment at the lowest rate in half a century, wages rising fast and companies hiring at a breakneck pace. But the good news now could become a problem for President Biden later. Mr. Biden and his aides pointed to the hiring spree […]
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With Surge in July, U.S. Recovers the Jobs Lost in the Pandemic
U.S. job growth accelerated in July across nearly all industries, restoring nationwide employment to its prepandemic level, despite widespread expectations of a slowdown as the Federal Reserve raises interest rates to fight inflation. Employers added 528,000 jobs on a seasonally adjusted basis, the Labor Department said on Friday, more than doubling what forecasters had projected. […]
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Pay growth and prices picked up, keeping the Fed on track for rate increases.
Wages, prices and consumer spending all continued to climb, the latest government data showed Friday — fresh evidence that the economy remains resilient amid fear of a recession, but also that inflation is likely to remain a vexing problem for the Federal Reserve. Consumer prices climbed 6.8 percent over the year through June, according to […]
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U.S. Economy Shows Another Decline, Fanning Recession Fears
A key measure of economic output fell for the second straight quarter, raising fears that the United States could be entering a recession — or perhaps that one had already begun. Gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, fell 0.2 percent in the second quarter, the Commerce Department said Thursday. That drop followed a decline of […]
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How Will Interest Rate Increases Impact Inflation?
The Federal Reserve announced its fourth interest rate increase of 2022 on Wednesday as it races to tamp down rapid inflation. The moves have a lot of people wondering why rate increases — which raise the cost of borrowing money — are America’s main tool for cooling down prices. Senator Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat, […]
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Fed Prepares Another Rate Increase as Wall Street Wonders What’s Next
Federal Reserve officials are set to make a second abnormally large interest rate increase this week as they race to cool down an overheating economy. The question for many economists and investors is just how far the central bank will go in its quest to tame inflation. Central banks around the world have spent recent […]
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What Is the Yield Curve? Wall Street’s Recession Alarm Is Ringing.
Wall Street’s most talked about recession indicator is sounding its loudest alarm in two decades, intensifying concerns among investors that the U.S. economy is heading toward a slowdown. That indicator is called the yield curve, and it’s a way of showing how interest rates on various U.S. government bonds compare, notably three-month bills, and two-year […]
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