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      Could the Union Victory at VW Set Off a Wave?

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      Some experts say the outcome at a plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., may be organized labor’s most significant advance in decades. But the road could get rockier.By voting to join the United Automobile Workers, Volkswagen workers in Tennessee have given the union something it has never had: a factory-wide foothold at a major foreign automaker in the South.The result, in an election that ended on Friday, will enable the union to bargain for better wages and benefits. Now the question is what difference it will make beyond the Volkswagen plant.Labor experts said success at VW might position the union to replicate its showing at other auto manufacturers throughout the South, the least unionized region of the country. Some argued that the win could help set off a rise in union membership at other companies that exceeds the uptick of the past few years, when unions won elections at Starbucks and Amazon locations.“It’s a big vote, symbolically and substantively,” said Jake Rosenfeld, a sociologist who studies labor at Washington University in St. Louis.The next test for the U.A.W. will come in a vote in mid-May at a Mercedes-Benz plant in Alabama.In addition, at least 30 percent of workers have signed cards authorizing the U.A.W. to represent them at a Hyundai plant in Alabama and a Toyota plant in Missouri, according to the union. That is the minimum needed to force an election, though the union has yet to petition for one in either location.“People only take action when they believe there is an alternative to the status quo that has a plausible chance of winning,” said Barry Eidlin, a sociologist at McGill University in Montreal.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      I.M.F. Sees Steady Growth but Warns of Rising Protectionism

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      The International Monetary Fund offered an upbeat economic outlook but said that new trade barriers and escalating wars could worsen inflation.The global economy is approaching a soft landing after several years of geopolitical and economic turmoil, the International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday. But it warned that risks remain, including stubborn inflation, the threat of escalating global conflicts and rising protectionism.In its latest World Economic Outlook report, the I.M.F. projected global output to hold steady at 3.2 percent in 2024, unchanged from 2023. Although the pace of the expansion is tepid by historical standards, the I.M.F. said that global economic activity has been surprisingly resilient given that central banks aggressively raised interest rates to tame inflation and wars in Ukraine and the Middle East further disrupt supply chains.The forecasts came as policymakers from around the world began arriving in Washington for the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The outlook is brighter from just a year ago, when the I.M.F. was warning of underlying “turbulence” and a multitude of risks.Although the world economy has proved to be durable over the last year, defying predictions of a recession, there are lingering concerns that price pressures have not been sufficiently contained and that new trade barriers will be erected amid anxiety over a recent surge of cheap Chinese exports.“Somewhat worryingly, progress toward inflation targets has somewhat stalled since the beginning of the year,” Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, the I.M.F.’s chief economist, wrote in an essay that accompanied the report. “Oil prices have been rising recently in part due to geopolitical tensions and services inflation remains stubbornly high.”He added: “Further trade restrictions on Chinese exports could also push up goods inflation.”The gathering is taking place at a time of growing tension between the United States and China over a surge of Chinese green energy products, such as electric vehicles, lithium batteries and solar panels, that are flooding global markets. Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen returned last week from a trip to China, where she told her counterparts that Beijing’s industrial policy was harming American workers. She warned that the United States could pursue trade restrictions to protect investments in America’s solar and electric vehicle industries.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Markets Slide After Unexpectedly Strong Inflation Report

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      Wall Street was rattled by signs of stubborn inflation on Wednesday, with stock prices sliding and government bond yields, which underpin interest rates throughout the economy, jolting higher.The S&P 500 fell over 1 percent for the second time this month and only the fifth time this year. Other major indexes, including the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite and the Russell 2000 index of smaller companies, also fell.The sharp moves followed a consumer inflation report that came in hotter than expected, with prices rising 3.5 percent in March from a year earlier, marking another month of stubbornly high inflation. That made it harder for investors to dismiss earlier signs that the progress in cooling inflation was patchy.“The stalled disinflationary narrative can no longer be called a blip,” said Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management.That means the Federal Reserve could keep interest rates — the central bank’s primary tool for fighting inflation — elevated for longer.Bets on a rate cut in June have dwindled since the data was released, pushing the first expected cut back later in the year. In January, investors had thought the Fed could cut rates as early as March.So far this year, the fading prospects for rate cuts, which would be seen as supportive for the stock market, have yet to derail a tremendous rally that has taken hold in recent months. But some analysts question how long that can continue, with higher rates eventually squeezing consumers and crimping corporate earnings in a more significant way.The two-year Treasury yield, which is sensitive to changes in interest rate expectations, lurched toward 5 percent on Wednesday, a threshold it hasn’t breached since November.“The Fed is not done fighting inflation and rates will stay higher for longer,” said Torsten Slok, chief economist at the investment giant Apollo, adding that he does not expect any cuts to interest rates this year.Even as many investors noted that the economy remained resilient, the fresh inflation numbers appeared to dim the outlook just as Fed officials had started gaining confidence in their ability to wrangle inflation nearer to their 2 percent target.Lindsay Rosner, head of multi-sector investing at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, said the data did not “eclipse” the Fed’s confidence.“It did, however, cast a shadow on it,” she said. More

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      March’s Hot Inflation Report is a Political Blow to Biden

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      The unexpected re-acceleration in price growth across the economy is at least a temporary setback for President Biden, who has been banking on cooling inflation to lift his re-election prospects.Mr. Biden and his aides have publicly cheered the retreat of annual inflation rates over the last year, after watching the fastest price growth in 40 years dent the president’s approval ratings earlier in his tenure.They have been anxious for inflation to fall even further, in order give relief to consumers and to potentially spur the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates — a move that would help to drive down borrowing costs for mortgages, car loans and other consumer credit. Mr. Biden has been particularly focused on home buyers, including young voters who are key to his electoral coalition, and who are struggling to afford high housing prices as mortgage rates remain around 7 percent.Wall Street analysts saw Wednesday’s surprise pickup in the inflation rate as a sign that the Fed could leave rates on hold for months longer than expected. That could mean no cuts before the November election, a campaign where Mr. Biden’s Republican opponent, former President Donald J. Trump, has slammed Mr. Biden for both rapid price increases and high borrowing costs.The news comes as polls have begun to show Americans’ views of the economy slowly improving over recent months. Democratic pollsters have also pointed to recent surveys as a road map for how Mr. Biden should talk about inflation in the months to come: They suggest American voters blame corporate greed, more than government spending, for price increases. Mr. Biden has leaned into that message, including calling out companies in his State of the Union address for keeping prices high.He struck a similar tone on Wednesday in a statement that emphasized consumer frustration with inflation.“Prices are still too high for housing and groceries, even as prices for key household items, like milk and eggs, are lower than a year ago,” Mr. Biden said. “I have a plan to lower costs for housing — by building and renovating more than two million homes — and I’m calling on corporations, including grocery retailers, to use record profits to reduce prices.” More

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      Good Economy, Negative Vibes: The Story Continues

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      When it comes to economic news, we’ve had so much winning that we’ve gotten tired of winning, or at any rate blasé about it. Last week, we got another terrific employment report — job growth for 39 straight months — and it feels as if hardly anyone noticed. In particular, it’s not clear whether the good news will dent the still widespread but false narrative that President Biden is presiding over a bad economy.Start with the facts: Job creation under Biden has been truly amazing, especially when you recall all those confident but wrong predictions of recession. Four years ago, the economy was body-slammed by the Covid-19 pandemic, but we have more than recovered. Four years after the start of 2007-9 recession, total employment was still down by more than five million; now it’s up by almost six million. The unemployment rate has been below 4 percent for 26 months, the longest streak since the 1960s.Inflation did surge in 2021-22, although this surge has mostly subsided. But most workers’ earnings are up in real terms. Over the past four years, wages of nonsupervisory workers, who account for more than 80 percent of private employment, are up by about 24 percent, while consumer prices are up less, around 20 percent.Why, then, are so many Americans still telling pollsters that the economy is in bad shape?More often than not, anyone who argues that we’re in a “vibecession,” in which public perceptions are at odds with economic reality, gets tagged as an elitist, out of touch with people’s real-life experience. And there’s a whole genre of commentary to the effect that if you squint at the data hard enough, it shows that the economy really is bad, after all.But such commentary is an attempt to explain something that isn’t happening. Without question, there are Americans who are hurting financially — sadly, this is always true to some extent, especially given the weakness of America’s social safety net. But in general, Americans are relatively optimistic about their own finances.I wrote recently about a couple of Quinnipiac swing-state polls that asked registered voters about both the economy and their personal finances. In both Michigan and Pennsylvania — states crucial to the outcome of this year’s presidential election — more than 60 percent of respondents rated the economy as not so good or bad; a similar percentage said that their own situation is excellent or good.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Why a Second Trump Term Could Be Bad for Corporate America

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      There was anxiety in the thin mountain air when the planet’s economic leaders gathered in January at Davos for the 54th meeting of the World Economic Forum. Donald Trump had just trounced Nikki Haley in the Iowa caucuses, all but securing the Republican nomination for president. Haley was reliable, a known quantity. A resurgent Trump, on the other hand, was more worrying.Listen to this article, read by Edoardo BalleriniOpen this article in the New York Times Audio app on iOS.The Davos attendees needed reassurance, and Jamie Dimon, the chairman and chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, had some to offer. In an interview with CNBC that made headlines around the world, Dimon praised Trump’s economic policies as president. “Be honest,” Dimon said, sitting against a backdrop of snow-dusted evergreens, dressed casually in a dark blazer and polo shirt. “He was kind of right about NATO, kind of right on immigration. He grew the economy quite well. Trade. Tax reform worked. He was right about some of China.” Asked which of the likely presidential candidates would be better for business, he opted not to pick a side.“I will be prepared for both,” he said. “We will deal with both.”Dimon presides over the largest and most profitable bank in the United States and has done so for nearly 20 years. Maybe more than any single individual, he stands in for the Wall Street establishment and, by extension, corporate America. With his comments at Davos, he seemed to be sending a message of good will to Trump on their behalf. But he also appeared to be trying to put his fellow globalists at ease, reassuring them that America, long a haven for investors fleeing risk in less-stable democracies, would remain a safe destination for their money in a second Trump administration.Jamie Dimon, the chairman and chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, here testifying before Congress in 2023, has attempted to reassure global business leaders the economy would remain stable during a second Trump administration.Evelyn Hockstein/ReutersBut would it? As Dimon noted, for all Trump’s extreme rhetoric in the 2016 campaign — his threats to rip up America’s international trade agreements and his attacks on “globalization” and the “financial elite” — his presidency, like most presidencies, proved to be business-friendly. Corporate America wound up with plenty of allies in the administration, from Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs executive; to Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, a Harvard Business School-educated bankruptcy guru; to Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, an aspiring Wall Street player. And the Trump administration’s economic agenda of reduced taxes and deregulation largely suited corporate America’s interests; JPMorgan saved billions of dollars a year thanks to Trump’s corporate tax cuts.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The economic paradox of the Biden presidency

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      Employers have been adding jobs since Joe Biden took office, but will the good news translate into votes?Labor painsOne of the more puzzling aspects of the U.S. economy is that employers have been on an almost uninterrupted hiring spree since President Biden took office — and analysts see no signs that the trend will reverse any time soon.The paradox is that there is no guarantee that the jobs boom will keep Biden in the White House beyond November, completely scrambling the adage “It’s the economy, stupid” that wins elections.For 39 straight months, employers have added jobs despite many predictions that the United States was destined for a recession. They have also faced a long list of challenges, that have hobbled many of America’s peers, including high inflation and interest rates; wars in Ukraine and Gaza that have sent energy prices soaring; and shipping turmoil in the Panama Canal, Red Sea and now the Port of Baltimore.March was another blockbuster for jobs. The latest data released Friday overshot analysts’ expectations by a huge margin, with employers adding 303,000 jobs. That takes the tally over the past 12 months to more than 2.8 million hires — and economists expect the upward course to continue. “We do think there’s still room for growth” into next year, Jeremy Schwartz, a senior U.S. economist at Nomura, told DealBook.It’s less certain if Biden will be able to capitalize on that in his race with Donald Trump. The White House heralded the latest numbers as “a milestone in America’s comeback,” and held it up as proof that the Inflation Reduction Act and CHIPS Act, two signature pieces of Biden’s agenda, were growing the economy.But the red-hot labor market could just as easily exacerbate two of Biden’s big vulnerabilities: inflation, with strong wages fueling a surge in spending that pushes up prices on everything from gasoline to concert tickets; and higher-for-longer interest rates to counteract those price rises. A growing chorus of Wall Street analysts were forecasting that the Fed would be in no rush to reduce borrowing costs after yesterday’s report.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      New Questions on How a Key Agency Shared Inflation Data

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      A government economist had regular contact with “super users” in finance, records show, at a time when such information keenly interests investors.The Bureau of Labor Statistics shared more information about inflation with Wall Street “super users” than previously disclosed, emails from the agency show. The revelation is likely to prompt further scrutiny of the way the government shares economic data at a time when such information keenly interests investors.An economist at the agency set off a firestorm in February when he sent an email to a group of data users explaining how a methodological tweak could have contributed to an unexpected jump in housing costs in the Consumer Price Index the previous month. The email, addressed to “Super Users,” circulated rapidly around Wall Street, where every detail of inflation data can affect the bond market.At the time, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said the email had been an isolated “mistake” and denied that it maintained a list of users who received special access to information.But emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request show that the agency — or at least the economist who sent the original email, a longtime but relatively low-ranking employee — was in regular communication with data users in the finance industry, apparently including analysts at major hedge funds. And they suggest that there was a list of super users, contrary to the agency’s denials.“Would it be possible to be on the super user email list?” one user asked in mid-February.“Yes I can add you to the list,” the employee replied minutes later.A reporter’s efforts to reach the employee, whose identity the bureau confirmed, were unsuccessful.Emily Liddel, an associate commissioner at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, said that the agency did not maintain an official list of super users and that the employee appeared to have created the list on his own.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More