President Donald Trump unveiled his trade policy objectives this week and emphasized his plan to strengthen “the American economy, the American worker, and our national security” in his second term.
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The upcoming week is filled with crucial economic data releases that will provide insight into the state of the U.S. economy as it transitions into 2025. A mix of labor market reports and key Fed communications will shift expectations about growth and Fed policy, resulting in large swings in the interest rates that govern consumer borrowing costs for credit cards, auto loans and mortgages.
The main event is the December jobs report, where employment gains are expected to have slowed.
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The Labor Department reported Friday the number of new jobs in the U.S. economy increased in November, compared to the previous month, while the unemployment rate increased slightly to the annualize rate of 4.2%
The economy in November added 227,000 new, non-farm jobs, compared to 36,000 in October, according to the department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. The November number exceeded Wall Street expectations of 214,000 new jobs.
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The U.S. economy grew at a rate of 2.8 percent in the second quarter of 2024, according to gross domestic product (GDP) statistics released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) on Thursday.
Higher growth in the second quarter follows poor growth in the first quarter of 2024, which measured 1.4 percent after being revised down from an initial estimate of 1.6 percent, according to the BEA. Economists expected that GDP would increase by around 2.1 percent in the second quarter of 2024, in line with typical U.S economic growth rates.
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The U.S. economy grew less than previously thought in the first quarter of 2024 amid a slowdown in consumer spending, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) announced Thursday.
Gross domestic product (GDP) was revised down in the first quarter from 1.6 percent to 1.3 percent year-over-year in a sign that the economy is not as strong as initial estimates indicated, according to a release from the BEA. Economists originally expected growth in the first quarter to be around 2.2 percent, more in line with the above trend growth seen in the third and fourth quarters of 2023, which were 4.9 percent and 3.4 percent, respectively.
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The Biden administration’s energy policies are increasingly costly for Americans, a newly released report says.
U.S. House Oversight Committee Chair Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., released the report, which argues Biden’s energy policies have increased costs for Americans and hurt the economy.
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Americans’ real weekly earnings dropped sharply in April and still remain well below their level when President Joe Biden first took office, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
Real average weekly earnings fell to $1,191.93 in April, declining by 0.4% in the month and 4.8% compared to the start of Biden’s term in January 2021, according to data calculated by the Daily Caller News Foundation from the BLS. Prices have risen over 19% since Biden first took office and 3.4% in the last year, degrading the value of Americans’ wages.
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Newly released polling data spells bad news for President Joe Biden this election year.
Gallup released new polling data that showed independent voters trust former President Donald Trump more than Biden when it comes to the economy. About 34 percent of independents say they trust Biden to do the right thing for the economy, compared to 45 percent who trust Trump.
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In the movie The Perfect Storm, George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg are among the crew of a boat off the Northeast coast that is caught in the convergence of multiple powerful storms. The combination of tempests ultimately takes down the craft and its crew. We should all hope one of our nation’s most vital industries doesn’t succumb in similar fashion as it is caught in a perfect storm of ideological rigidity, bureaucratic arrogance, and regulatory overreach.
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The U.S. set another new record for the total number of government jobs in February, even as overall unemployment ticks up, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
The government added 52,000 positions in February, around the average gain per month seen in the last year, totaling 23,180,000, according to the BLS. The U.S. economy added 275,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in February, far higher than expectations of 200,000, but unemployment shot up from 3.7% to 3.9%.
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