AvatarThe New YorkerAvatarAvatarWhat Is the Fall in the Stock Market Telling Us?verified_publisherThe New Yorker - John CassidyInvestors are fearful of a recession, but the White House says the economy is resilient. After staging a rally on Monday, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose two per cent, the stock market stalled on Tuesday. At the close of trading, the Dow had eked out a small gain, but the broader S. & P. …
AvatarThe New YorkerAvatarAvatarWhat Happened When a Single Mom Started Filing Income Taxes Againverified_publisherThe New Yorker - Oliver WhangGabriela Gallegos was back on her feet, and hoping to receive new benefits for parents. But things didn’t work as straightforwardly as she’d hoped. A year ago, Gabriela Gallegos was ready to file her income taxes for the first time in nearly a decade. She was thirty-five, the single mother of a …
AvatarThe New YorkerAvatarAvatarIs Larry Summers Really Right About Inflation and Biden?verified_publisherThe New Yorker - John CassidyThe Harvard economist is getting plaudits for the warnings he issued early last year, but some Administration officials and economists are questioning the basis of his arguments. With retail prices surging, wages failing to keep up, and the Federal Reserve moving to raise interest rates, Larry …
AvatarThe New YorkerAvatarAvatarWhat Returning to Work Means in the Nail Salons of Orange Countyverified_publisherThe New Yorker - Oliver WhangTens of thousands of people work in nail salons in Southern California. After two, often devastating, years, many of their customers still haven’t returned. In the late nineteen-seventies and early eighties, after the fall of Saigon, thousands of people fled Vietnam and came to California. One of …
AvatarThe New YorkerAvatarAvatarNote to the Federal Reserve: Don’t Panic About Inflationverified_publisherThe New Yorker - John CassidyJerome Powell and his colleagues have the capacity, if they overreact, to crash the housing market, the stock market, and the economy. This week’s bad economic news is that inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, hit a forty-year high of 7.5 per cent in January. The even worse news is …
AvatarThe New YorkerAvatarAvatarThe Afterlife of a Las Vegas Spectacularverified_publisherThe New Yorker - Meg BernhardNearly two years after “Le Rêve” went dark, cast members are still grappling with what it means to be a performer without a show. Raman Stsepaniuk and Ludivine Perrin-Stsepaniuk started dating sixteen years ago, after they had both moved to Las Vegas. Raman, then twenty-seven, was an acrobat, born …
AvatarThe New YorkerAvatarAvatarHow the U.S. Economy Defied Omicron to Add Nearly Half a Million Jobsverified_publisherThe New Yorker - John CassidyMore people worked from home, but employers kept hiring, giving the Biden Administration an unexpected political lift. Far exceeding expectations, the U.S. economy created nearly half a million jobs last month despite the Omicron wave, the Labor Department reported on Friday, while wages continued …
AvatarThe New YorkerAvatarAvatarThe Challenge of Keeping a Bronx Day Care Open During the Pandemicverified_publisherThe New Yorker - Lauren HilgersMore than two hundred and fifty providers in the borough have shut down since March, 2020, some owing to illness, and others because of lost income. Maria Capellan’s day care, which is situated inside her apartment on the fourth floor of a nondescript high-rise in the Bronx, is marked by paper …
AvatarThe New YorkerAvatarAvatarThree Economic Scenarios for an Election Yearverified_publisherThe New Yorker - John CassidyWith ten months to the midterms, growth is strong but inflation is hurting the chances of Joe Biden and the Democrats. After last week’s news about gross domestic product, inflation, and the Federal Reserve Board’s intentions, economists and Wall Street analysts are busy recalibrating their …
AvatarThe New YorkerAvatarAvatarWall Street’s Pandemic Bonanzaverified_publisherThe New Yorker - John CassidyMost Americans have missed out on the asset-price boom created by the policy response to the pandemic. Not so the big banks. Two years to the week after the first COVID-19 cases in this country were confirmed, it’s increasingly clear who the biggest economic winners have been. The tech giants that …
AvatarThe New YorkerAvatarAvatarJoe Biden Starts to Make His Economic Caseverified_publisherThe New Yorker - John CassidyInflation is a big challenge, but job growth reached record levels in 2021 and wages rose for many low-paid workers. After suffering a horrible second half of 2021, President Joe Biden came out fighting last week. On Thursday, he marked the anniversary of last January’s Capitol Hill riot by placing …
AvatarThe New YorkerAvatarAvatarThe 2022 Economy Looks Strong, but Beware the Known Unknownsverified_publisherThe New Yorker - John CassidyCOVID and policy changes could radically affect growth, inflation, and the midterm elections. Despite the rapid spread of the Omicron variant, the U.S. economy ended 2021 in strong shape. Holiday spending rose by 8.5 per cent compared with last year, according to a recent survey. In the four-week …