Economy

A worker uses a hoist to assemble a car seat at the Lear Corp. manufacturing facility in Hammond, Indiana. Jim Young | Bloomberg | Getty Images U.S. economic growth will recover “rapidly” and the labor market will return to full strength quicker than expected thanks to the vaccine rollout and a barrage of legislation enacted

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell testifies before the Senate Banking Committee hearing on “The Quarterly CARES Act Report to Congress” on Capitol Hill in Washington, December 1, 2020. Susan Walsh | Pool | Reuters Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has a few nerves to quell among market participants wondering when the central banks will start

Billionaire restaurateur and casino operator Tilman Fertitta told CNBC on Tuesday he expects strong consumer spending to fuel the U.S. economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. “The consumer is coming back. I’m telling you, where we can do business, we are doing business,” the Landry’s chairman and chief executive said on “Power Lunch.” “This is

This is a comparison of Wednesday’s Federal Open Market Committee statement with the one issued after the Fed’s previous policy-making meeting on Dec. 16. Text removed from the December statement is in red with a horizontal line through the middle. Text appearing for the first time in the new statement is in red and underlined. Black text appears in

A woman walks past a closed retail store for lease in the midtown area of Manhattan on January 25, 2021 in New York City. Angela Weiss | AFP | Getty Images The number of Americans who filed for unemployment benefits for the first time rose less than expected last week as the Biden administration took

After a year in which a pandemic and politics posed challenges unlike the U.S. has seen in generations, the economy closed in fairly good shape. Gross domestic product, or the sum of all goods and services, increased at a 4.0% pace in the fourth quarter, slightly below the 4.3% expectation from economists surveyed by Dow

A house’s real estate for sale sign shows the home as being “Under Contract” in Washington, DC, November 19, 2020. Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images Homebuyers signed fewer contracts to buy existing homes in December, as record high prices and record low supply stood in the way of strong demand. The pending home

A Federal Reserve police officer walks past the Marriner S. Eccles Federal Reserve building in Washington, D.C., U.S. Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images The Federal Reserve kept its foot to the floor Wednesday in terms of the help it is providing for an economy that central bank officials say has slowed down. Consistent

Some market pros see the frenzied short squeezes in Gamestop and other stocks as signs of a bubble brewing, but the Federal Reserve doesn’t seem to and for that reason investors expect asset prices could continue to rise. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, at his post meeting briefing Wednesday, was asked about the potential of Fed

Federal Reserve Jerome Powell testifies during a Senate Banking Committee hearing on “The Quarterly CARES Act Report to Congress” on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., December 1, 2020. Susan Walsh | Reuters Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell will try to avoid sounding hawkish in any way when he talks Wednesday afternoon about the Fed’s commitment

A real estate for sale sign shows the home as being “Under Contract” in Washington, DC, November 19, 2020. Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images Sharp gains in home prices and a slight rise in interest rates combined to weaken demand for mortgages last week. Total mortgage application volume fell 4.1% from the previous

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 The strong surge in home prices is not slowing down, thanks to high buyer demand and a record low supply

An ‘Open House’ sign is displayed as potential home buyers arrive at a property for sale in Columbus, Ohio. Ty Wright | Bloomberg | Getty Images Record-low mortgage rates may now be a headline of the past. Now, several weeks of rising rates are dousing what was incredibly high demand for refinancing. That pulled total

A contractor moves roofing material on a home under construction at the Toll Brothers Cantera at Gale Ranch housing development in San Ramon, Calif. David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images Just two months ago, homebuilders had never been happier. Buyer demand, driven by the pandemic-induced desire for larger newer homes in the suburbs,

Americans continued to hit the unemployment line in large numbers as the ongoing surge of Covid cases added to America’s unemployment problem last week. Jobless claims totaled 900,000 for the week ended Jan. 16, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That was slightly less than the Dow Jones estimate of 925,000 and below the previous week’s

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell affirmed his commitment to keeping interest rates low for the foreseeable future even as he expressed hope for a strong economic recovery. “When the time comes to raise interest rates, we’ll certainly do that, and that time, by the way, is no time soon,” the central bank chief said Thursday

First-time claims for unemployment insurance jumped to 965,000 last week amid signs of a slowdown in hiring due to pandemic restrictions, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The total was worse than Wall Street estimates of 800,000 and above the previous week’s total of 784,000. Markets reacted little to the number, as the decline in economic

Federal Reserve Board Governor Lael Brainard speaks at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S., March 1, 2017. Brian Snyder | Reuters Unemployment for the lowest-paid workers in the U.S. is above 20%, a figure that Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard said underscores the importance of policy help