Persistently low inflation and steady if sluggish economic growth have led many Fed officials to rethink their view of the so-called “neutral rate.” This is the point at which the Fed’s key rate is believed to neither accelerate economic growth nor restrain it.
In Friday’s hiring data, besides reporting the healthy November gain, the government revised up its estimate of job growth for September and October by a combined 41,000.
In-store sales slipped, but sales by people who bought things online and then headed to the store to pick them up surged 43.2% on Black Friday, according to Adobe Analytics.
The July-September growth rate in the gross domestic product, the economy’s total output of goods and services, exceeded the Commerce Department’s initial estimate of a 1.9% annual rate.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Monday sketched an optimistic view of the economy but signaled that continued low inflation means higher interest rates won’t likely be necessary anytime soon. Powell said that even with unemployment near a 50-year low of 3.6%, there’s still “plenty of room” for wages to rise and for more Americans […]
Jeff Korzenik, chief investment officer for Fifth Third Bank, told the audience at IBJ’s 2020 Economic Forecast that employers need to investigate nontraditional sources of workers to offset the weak labor market.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell expressed optimism about the prospects for the U.S. economy and said he expects it will grow at a solid pace, though it still faces risks from slower growth overseas and trade tensions.
The longest streak of sentiment gains in two years is the latest sign that low unemployment, record stock prices and Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts are brightening the outlook for consumers.
U.S. employers added a solid 128,000 jobs in October, a figure that was held down by a now-settled strike against General Motors that caused several thousand workers to be temporarily counted as unemployed.
Economists had been forecasting a much bigger slowdown with fears that gross domestic product could slump to 1.4% or less given a number of headwinds.
Negotiators working through the night in Brussels came to an agreement Thursday morning after Prime Minister Boris Johnson signed on despite lingering questions about warring Brexit factions in London. The agreement would still need approval by European leaders and the British Parliament.
Consumer borrowing increased at a solid pace in August, helped by the biggest jump in auto and student loans in three years.
The nation’s business economists think President Donald Trump’s trade war with China will contribute to a sharp slowdown in economic growth this year and next, raising concerns about a possible recession starting late next year.
All told, the September jobs report is likely to keep the Federal Reserve on track to cut interest rates later this month for the third time this year to try to help sustain the expansion.
With signs of a weakening economy spreading and financial markets gyrating, Friday’s monthly jobs report will be watched for any evidence that the turmoil might be threatening the critically important U.S. job market.
September marked the worst month for U.S. manufacturing in more than a decade—since June 2009—according to the closely watched Institute for Supply Management’s Manufacturing Index.
In the midst of the longest economic expansion the United States has ever seen, the separation between rich and poor from 2017 and 2018 reached its highest level since the Census Bureau started tracking it in 1967.
The April-June increase in the gross domestic product, the economy’s total output of goods and services, slipped from a brisk 3.1% gain in the first quarter.
The trade war with China and a global slowdown have contributed to uncertainties that are clouding the outlook for the U.S. economy, now in its 11th year of expansion.
Should the recovery take weeks or months, the impact could be far-reaching. Higher fuel prices can not only motivate consumers to cut spending elsewhere but also ultimately reach into virtually every corner of the economy.
