Heather Long

44% of Americans now believe they will be WORSE OFF financially in a year (due mainly to Trump's tariffs)

We've never seen anything like this before. Not even in the Great Recession or stagflation era (31% thought they would be worse off in 1 yr in early 1980)

via Uof Michigan Survey of Consumers

Fed Chair Powell key takeaways:

1) Recession risk "has moved up, but it’s not high."
2) Don't expect May rate cut. "We’re not going to be in any hurry to move"
3) "Uncertainty is remarkably high" he says over and over
4) Fed is watching big drop in sentiment, but "the hard data are pretty solid"

Big congrats to @kedseconomist.com on the launch of her great new podcast "Optimist Economy."

Kathryn doesn't just talk about problems; She puts forward ideas to solve them.

Her work is inspiring and I always leave w/new takeaways

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/o...

Must read from reporting today from @crampell.bsky.social & @ashendruk.com

How Trump is reshaping reality by hiding data

"The Trump administration is deleting taxpayer-funded data — information that Americans use to make sense of the world."

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/int...

NEWS: I'm excited to announce that I'll be interviewing Fed Chair Jerome Powell on Friday, April 4 at 11:25am alongside
James Nelson at the #SABEW25 conference.

There's much to discuss!

Join us at this great event for business and economic journalists, journalism students and PR professionals.

Musk claims DOGE ‘restored’ Ebola prevention effort. Officials disagree. USAID’s initiatives to fight Ebola and other diseases have been gutted, current and former agency officials said.

Elon Musk said DOGE made a mistake by cutting USAID’s Ebola prevention but it had been “restored.”

That’s not true, current and former officials told me and @johnphudson.bsky.social.

“There have been no efforts to ‘turn on’” Ebola prevention, said Nidhi Bouri, who oversaw team until January.

Most on this site know that federal workers are good people who work hard.

But it's striking to see the data.

Federal workers put in more hours a week than anyone except military and self-employed.

Federal workers take fewer days off than almost any others
www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

Important post from one of former Gov. Cuomo’s victims.

Opinion | A Nobel Prize winner decodes why people aren’t having kids Economist Claudia Goldin finds it largely comes down to societal expectations of how much men should do at home.

Lmao a Nobel Prize winner finds the solution to the global fertility collapse is for men to do the dishes and laundry more often -- more or less the precise opposite of the trad prescription

Fabulous @byheatherlong.bsky.social essay

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

Take a look at this chart.
We've been experiencing what I call "whack-a-mole" inflation. There have been many eye-popping spikes (i.e. eggs). This has a deep psychological impact. They fear what will spike next.

This backdrop makes Trump's tariffs even worse
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

Former BLS commissioner Erica Groshen on how the policy change to Schedule F that Trump & #Project2025 advocate would destroy the credibility of the federal statistical system.

Her comment on LinkedIn
www.linkedin.com/posts/erica-...
...

You can really see the high monthly inflation gain in January (0.5%) on the bar chart. [Forecasts were for just a 0.3% gain]

Why?
-Gas prices up
-Energy/utility prices up
-Food prices (esp. groceries) up
-Transportation costs up
-Rent still rising (albeit much more slowly now)

JUST IN: Inflation ticked back up to 3% (y/y) in January --> the highest since June. The monthly gain was 0.5% (above expectations).

Rent made up 30% of the increase. Gas and food also contributed.

"Core CPI," which excludes food and gas, rose 3.3%. Core CPI has basically stalled since June.

It’s so short sighted, especially if the goal to get more parents to work.

Opinion | Elon Musk has your Social Security number. It’s as scary as it sounds. There is no legitimate reason for the ‘DOGE’ to have access to the federal payment system.

Former Treasury official Natasha Sarin writes "there is no legitimate reason for [Elon Musk/DOGE] to have this access" to the federal payment system.

Sarin outlines just how scary this is

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

New and important: we built a federal expenditure tracker. All expenditure line items that are available on the Daily Treasury Statement.

USAID was zeroed out on 1/28 and has been at zero ever since.

www.hamiltonproject.org/data/trackin...

#EconSky

I'm keeping a running list of disappearing federal data in the 🧵 below. If there are others I missed let me know. crampell[at]washpost[dot]com or Signal username crampell.13

President Trump's trade war is here.

Trump said Friday there is nothing Canada, Mexico and China can do to stop it.

1) Tariffs will be enacted on Feb. 1
2) Tariffs on oil and gas by Feb. 18
3) Oil tariff could be 10%
4) He said there "absolutely" will be tariffs on Europe, too.

Senior U.S. official to exit after rift with Musk allies over payment system A top Treasury career staffer, David A. Lebryk, announced his retirement. Surrogates of Musk’s DOGE effort had sought access to sensitive payment systems.

Full story from WaPo scoop king @jeffstein.bsky.social and colleagues
www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

This is alarming: The highest career official at Treasury is leaving after a clash w/Elon Musk allies over access to sensitive payment systems.

Those payment systems distribute ~$6 trillion in US gov't payments.

Only a few people are supposed to have access to that payment system.

Just In: Progress on inflation is stalling.
PCE inflation was up 2.6% in 2024. PCE excluding food and energy was up 2.8%. Both metrics have risen slightly since the summer.

Now President Trump is about to add tariffs on Mexico and Canada that will almost certainly raise prices.

Again, universal 25% tariffs on Canada & Mexico would hit ~$900B of US imports, ~30% of all goods brought into the country, including pretty devastating impacts on US energy, vehicle, & food supply chains

Prices for gas & groceries like tomatoes/beer/cabbages would jump

Live updates: Day before D.C. plane crash, another jet had to abort first landing at Reagan National The American Airlines plane operating as American Eagle Flight 5342 collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan National Airport.

WAPO: “.. Just 24 hours before the collision of American Eagle Flight 5342 and an Army Black Hawk .. another jet trying to land there had to make a second approach after a helicopter appeared near its flight path, according to an audio recording ..”

www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/202...

Wow. Look at the big surge in Americans buying "durable goods" in Q4 2024.

Was that people trying to get ahead of tariffs??

We heard many anecdotes about that happening, but it's striking to see a 12.1% surge in durable goods in Q4.

Here's the deeper dive on Q4 GDP growth:
US consumer spending is driving almost all the growth. Gov't is a very small contributor now.

Note: Biz investment was a drag on Q4 GDP (due to a big decline in equipment purchases). We want to see this pick up in 2025.

Just in: The US economy grew 2.8% in 2024, another year of strong growth.

President Trump inherited a very good economy.
Q4 growth was 2.3%, driven mainly by strong consumer spending.

GDP growth under Biden (adj. for inflation)
6.1% in 2021
2.5% in 2022
2.9% in 2023
2.8% in 2024

NEWS: Fed Chair Powell says he has "had no contact" with President Trump.

[Remember in Davos last week Trump demanded that interest rates should decline in the US -- and around the world ]

Opinion | Americans are watching an inflation bait-and-switch A week into office, Trump has offered zero plans to lower prices.

Full column here from Catherine: www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

Must read by @crampell.bsky.social today:
"Americans are watching an inflation bait-and-switch"

Trump promised to bring down prices on Day 1

"A week into office, he has offered zero plans to do so," Rampell says. "Worse, he has undertaken a litany of measures that would raise the cost of living."

What a chart...
The US share of single moms (19%) is actually pretty similar to many other advanced economy nations.

What is different? = US child poverty (20%) is way higher than other nations.

From @andrewvandam.bsky.social
www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...