Economy

Federal Reserve officials at their meeting earlier this month expressed concern about inflation and said they would be willing to raise interest rates if prices keep rising. The committee that sets interest rates for the Fed on Wednesday released the minutes from the November session where it first signaled that it could be dialing back

Gasoline prices are displayed at a gas station on November 16, 2021 in San Mateo County, California. Liu Guanguan | China News Service | Getty Images Inflation rose strongly in October, accelerating at its fastest pace since the early 1990s, according to a Commerce Department gauge released Wednesday that is closely followed by Federal Reserve

Lael Brainard, governor of the U.S. Federal Reserve, listens during an event sponsored by the Economic Club of New York in New York, U.S., on Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2017. Mark Kauzlarich | Bloomberg | Getty Images Lael Brainard is often the outlier. In her role as one of seven Federal Reserve governors, she’s made a

Jerome Powell, who guided the Federal Reserve and the nation’s economy through the staggering and sudden Covid-19 recession by implementing unprecedented monetary stimulus, has been nominated for a second term as chairman of the U.S. central bank. President Joe Biden made the announcement Monday morning following weeks of speculation that a push from progressives might

Real estate broker Rebecca Van Camp places a “Sold” placard on her sign in front of a home in Meridian, Idaho, on Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2020. Darin Oswald | Tribune News Service | Getty Images Sales of previously owned homes in October rose 0.8% to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 6.34 million units, according

Long-term market bull Jeremy Siegel expects a serious pullback that it isn’t tied to the Covid-19 surge risks. His tipping point: a drastic change in Federal Reserve policy in order to deal with hot inflation. “If the Fed suddenly gets tougher, I’m not sure that the market is going to be ready for a U-turn

Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic adviser of Allianz SE, listens during a Bloomberg Television interview on the sidelines of the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore, on Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018. Wei Leng Tay | Bloomberg | Getty Images The Federal Reserve is losing credibility over its long-standing view that inflation is transitory, according to Allianz

Kent Weakley | Getty Images Rents for single-family homes increased 10.2% nationally in September year over year, up from a 2.6% rise in September of last year, according to a new report from CoreLogic. Improved job growth and sky-high prices in the for-sale housing market added to already strong demand for single-family rentals fueled by

First-time claims for unemployment insurance were little changed over the past week, indicating that the heightened pace of layoffs during the pandemic may have hit a plateau, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Initial filings for the week ended Nov. 13, totaled 268,000, a decline of 1,000 from a week ago and slightly higher than the

A breakdown of the latest U.S. data indicates that inflation is confined to certain sectors and will not pose a threat to the recovery, according to Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics. U.S. CPI inflation came in at an annual 6.2% in October, its steepest climb for more than 30 years. Energy, shelter

Real estate agents leave a home for sale during a broker open house in San Francisco, California. Justin Sullivan | Getty Images Rising mortgage interest rates continue to take their toll on demand, especially in the refinance market. Total mortgage application volume fell 2.8% last week compared with the previous week, according to the Mortgage

U.S. shoppers accelerated their level of spending in October even as the prices of goods jumped at their fastest pace since the 1990s, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday. Retail sales, a measure of how much consumers spent on goods ranging across categories from autos to sporting goods and food and gas, increased 1.7% for October,

Carpenters work on building new townhomes that are still under construction while building material supplies are in high demand in Tampa, Florida, May 5, 2021. Octavio Jones | Reuters Higher prices and longer wait times do not appear to be turning buyers away from the nation’s homebuilders. With demand still surging, homebuilder confidence in the

The Marriner S. Eccles Federal Reserve building stands in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2020. Erin Scott | Bloomberg via Getty Images Interest rates could remain at their record lows “forever,” according to one asset manager, despite a recent rush to normalize policy by many of the world’s central banks. GAM Investments’ Julian

A person shops in the meat section of a grocery store on November 11, 2021 in Los Angeles, California. Mario Tama | Getty Images Republicans on the Joint Economic Committee on Monday warned that inflation is having an outsized effect on Americans in the lowest income brackets given acceleration in the price of housing, gasoline

During the Covid pandemic, home prices have shot up nearly nationwide while household income fell. As a result, homeownership became out of reach for many would-be buyers. However, affordability was a growing problem well before 2020 and the start of the pandemic. In the last decade, the median home price rose roughly 30% and incomes

A truck picks up a shipping container at the Port of Savannah in Georgia. The supply chain crisis has created a backlog of nearly 80,000 shipping containers at this port, the third-largest container port in the United States, with around 20 ships anchored off the Atlantic coast, waiting to offload their cargo. Paul Hennessy |

Inflation across a broad swath of products that consumers buy every day was even worse than expected in October, hitting its highest point in more than 30 years, the Labor Department reported Wednesday. The consumer price index, which is a basket of products ranging from gasoline and health care to groceries and rents, rose 6.2%