Tag Archives: United States Economy

The 119th Congress began, as it so often has in recent years, with calls from Republican politicians for wrestling down the national debt, which is near a record level relative to the size of the economy. But this time, the G.O.P. had company: Progressive economists and budget wonks, who have often dismissed finger-wagging about debt levels as a pretext for …

Growth slowed but remained resilient at the end of 2024, leaving the U.S. economy on solid footing heading into a new year — and a new presidential administration — that is full of uncertainty. U.S. gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, grew at a 2.3 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter of last year, the Commerce Department reported on …

High interest rates kept U.S. home sales in a deep freeze for much of last year. It could be a while before the market experiences much of a thaw. Americans bought just over four million previously owned homes last year, the National Association of Realtors said on Friday. That was the fewest since 1995 and far below the annual pace …

President Trump has promised to generate a “massive” amount of revenue with tariffs on foreign products, an amount so big that the president said he would create a new agency — the External Revenue Service — to handle collecting the money. “Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our …

For Klem’s, a general store in rural Massachusetts, each year has seemed more challenging than the last. First, there was the pandemic, then a global supply chain breakdown that left the store short of lawn mowers and shoes. Next, a spate of inflation raided American pocketbooks. All along, Amazon continued to pull customers away from brick and mortar stores like …

Seven years ago, when Republicans passed the most significant overhaul of the tax code in a generation, they were sure the law would supercharge investment, raise wages and shift the American economy into a higher gear. So did it? The answer, at least for now, is largely lost to history. A pandemic and a surge in inflation convulsed the global …

Consumer prices rose more quickly in December, the latest sign that the Federal Reserve’s fight against inflation may have stalled. The Consumer Price Index rose 0.4 percent from November, and was up 2.9 percent from a year earlier, the Labor Department said on Wednesday. It was the fastest one-month increase in overall prices since February, driven in part by another …

Employers stuck the landing in 2024, finishing the year with a bounce of hiring after a quarter filled with disruption. The economy added 256,000 jobs in December, seasonally adjusted, the Labor Department reported on Friday. It was a better-than-expected number amid a labor market that has been slowly cooling for two years. The unemployment rate edged down to 4.1 percent. …

Every year, retailers race to hire workers to staff their stores and distribution centers to meet the demand that comes with millions of Americans shopping for Christmas and other winter holidays. This seasonal hiring is often seen as a measure of the health of the retail industry and the U.S. economy more broadly. On Wednesday, November data released by the …

Partway through a panel discussion at a recent economics conference in San Francisco, Jason Furman, a former adviser to President Barack Obama, turned to Kimberly Clausing, a former member of the Biden administration and the author of a book extolling the virtues of free trade. “Everyone in this room agrees with your book,” Mr. Furman said. “No one outside of …