John Carney - Page 2

Pump prices have been falling for four straight weeks.

The Federal Reserve held its benchmark interest rate at 3.5 to 3.75 percent on Wednesday and, in Kevin Warsh’s first meeting as chairman, released a policy statement less than half the length of its predecessor, scrapping the forward-guidance language that

The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s monthly survey of where businesses see inflation going showed the median expectation is for unit costs to rise 2.3 percent over the coming year, down from 2.4 percent a month earlier.

American consumers continued to expand their spending at a broad array of retail outlets in May, largely undeterred by rising gasoline prices. Retail sales jumped 0.9 percent in May, the Department of Commerce said Wednesday. Consumers increased their spending despite

U.S. import prices rose sharply in May for the third consecutive month, driven by another surge in fuel costs and rising prices for capital goods and technology products tied to the artificial-intelligence investment boom. Import prices increased 1.9 percent in

Oil prices tumbled on Tuesday, falling to their lowest levels since early March.

If you were told that the Yale Budget Lab had studied the economic consequences of Donald Trump’s immigration policies, you would probably be able to guess that it would find the reduction in immigration those policies brought about was harmful.

Oil prices fell sharply on Sunday after President Trump announced that the U.S. and Iran had agreed to a peace deal.

We’re writing this from a decidedly terrestrial compound while the world finally gets its chance to buy shares of a company whose goal is to lead humanity into its interplanetary future.

The University of Michigan’s preliminary June index of consumer sentiment rose 9.2 percent to 48.9 from 44.8, the first improvement in four months.

Consumers may feel the tides of inflation washing over our ankles again. The government sector, however, is neck deep in it.

The prices paid to U.S. businesses for goods and services rose at the fastest annual pace in more than three years in May, driven by higher energy costs. The Department of Labor said its producer price index (PPI) for final

The good news is that inflation cooled in May, and inflationary pressures are not spreading from the energy sector to the rest of the economy.

Prescription drug prices declined 0.9 percent in May, bringing the three-month cumulative decline to 2.39 percent since February.

The consumer price index rose 0.5 percent in May compared with April, the Department of Labor said Wednesday. Compared with a year ago, prices are up 4.2 percent. Those increases were in line with expectations.

The best kept secret in American politics and economics right now is that Trump’s tariffs are working to reduce the trade deficit.

The U.S. trade deficit narrowed slightly in April as a record surge in petroleum exports offset a massive increase in imports of artificial intelligence infrastructure equipment, leaving the underlying trade position little changed.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York released the results of its monthly consumer expectations survey, and the results provided ammunition to both optimists and pessimists.

The perceived chance of voluntarily leaving a job in the next 12 months jumped 2.6 percentage points to 20.8 percent, the highest reading since February 2023.

This week the jobs numbers smashed expectations for the third consecutive month, lots of foreigners went home and lots of federal workers had to get a real job, factory output is growing rapidly, and manufacturing wages are in hot pursuit.

American factory workers haven’t seen this kind of wage growth for decades.

The U.S. economy added 172,000 jobs in May and the unemployment rate held steady at 4.3 percent.

The case that tariffs necessarily make American manufacturing less productive died this week.

Seasonal adjustments pushed up jobless claims numbers for last week. But even with the rise, claims have rarely been so low.

AI may well deliver the productivity boom its champions expect. The risk is that the economy has already begun borrowing against that future before the returns have been earned.

New factory orders data released Wednesday confirm an extraordinary surge in American defense manufacturing, with orders for defense capital goods running 53 percent above last year’s pace through the first four months of 2026 as the military works to replenish

American consumers are still spending on big-ticket goods, according to April factory orders data released Wednesday by the Census Bureau, with orders for consumer durable goods running 8.5 percent above last year’s pace and motor vehicle demand surging. Consumer durable

New factory orders data released Wednesday by the Census Bureau show the enormous scale of America’s AI infrastructure buildout, with manufacturing orders for computers, networking equipment, power generation, and cooling systems all surging at double-digit rates compared to a year ago.

Private sector payrolls expanded by more than expected in May.

The forecast that artificial intelligence will lead to mass unemployment took another hit this week as demand for workers rose sharply in April data.

The number of open jobs in the U.S. economy jumped to 7.6 million in April while layoffs declined, evidence of how demand for workers has intensified.

If you are looking at the headline data in the government’s economic report, it is easy to miss the artificial intelligence investment boom.

The Commerce Department’s ‌Census Bureau reported on Monday that construction spending rose 0.4 percent in March, twice as much as expected.

New orders and output measures rose sharply in May.

This week the economy failed to get indigestion from the high price of gas, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told us about getting fed at the Fed, Trump put something new in the app stores, and everyone started dreaming about putting a couple of Donalds in their wallet.

Speaking at the Reagan Presidential Foundation, Bessent delivers what may be the most comprehensive public statement of the Trump economic vision yet.