Heather Long

Return-work-mandates are an invisible pay cut Great column from @crampell.bsky.social www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/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.

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

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.

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.

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...

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.