Inflation rose last month to its highest level since February as President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs push up the cost of everything from groceries and clothes to furniture and appliances.
A key inflation gauge moved higher in May in the latest sign that prices remain stubbornly elevated while Americans also cut back on their spending last month.
Lagging job growth in the state is seen as the big reason the state’s economy appears likely to slow down through the third quarter.
The Federal Reserve will likely keep its key short-term interest rate unchanged on Wednesday, despite weeks of harsh criticism and demands from President Donald Trump that the Fed reduce borrowing costs.
When Federal Reserve officials last met, hiring was solid. The economy had just grown at a solid pace in last year’s final quarter. And inflation had fallen sharply. What a difference seven weeks makes.
For the Massachusetts real estate and housing industries, tariffs could potentially hit in two ways: higher materials costs and higher mortgage rates, driven by rising bond yields and inflation fears.
Austan Goolsbee, president of the Fed’s Chicago branch, said if tariffs don’t worsen inflation, rate cuts could resume.
The average long-term U.S. mortgage rate ticked up again this week, starting the first full week of 2025 off at its highest level since July.
The president-elect campaigned on a promise to make homeownership more affordable by lowering mortgage rates, but his policies could do the opposite, some analysts say.
Wall Street is already making big bets on what take two for a White House led by Donald Trump will mean for the economy.
Between mixed economic signals and president-elect Donald Trump’s statements that he wants greater control over interest rate policy, it’s up in the air what happens next.
The president-elect outlined a wide-ranging agenda on the campaign trail that blends traditional conservative approaches to taxes, regulation and cultural issues with a more populist bent on trade.
With rent and mortgage payments encompassing almost half of one’s earnings in Massachusetts, it is becoming increasingly harder – and in some cases impossible – for residents to have financial stability.
With inflation nearly defeated and the job market cooling, the Federal Reserve is prepared to start cutting its key interest rate from its current 23-year high, Chair Jerome Powell said Friday.
The minutes of the Fed’s July 30-31 meeting, released Wednesday, said the “vast majority” of policymakers “observed that, if the data continued to come in about as expected, it would likely be appropriate to ease policy at the next meeting.”
A top Federal Reserve official warned Wednesday that the Fed needs to cut its key interest rate before the job market weakened further or it would risk moving too late and potentially imperil the economy.
Consumer prices in the Boston area rose about 3.5 percent over the last year, compared to a 2.9 percent increase nationally, according to federal data released Wednesday.
Some of America’s largest companies, from Amazon to Disney to Yum Brands, say their customers are increasingly seeking cheaper alternative products and services, searching for bargains or just avoiding items they deem too expensive.
The Federal Reserve’s favored inflation measure remained low last month, bolstering evidence that price pressures are steadily cooling and setting the stage for the Fed to begin cutting interest rates this fall.
Inflation in the United States is slowing again after higher readings earlier this year, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Tuesday, while adding that more such evidence would be needed before the Fed would cut interest rates.
