The Federal Reserve’s latest Beige Book strikes a cautiously upbeat tone, pointing to modest economic gains across much of the country even as businesses and consumers navigate higher costs, tighter credit conditions and shifting labor dynamics. Covering economic conditions across the 12 Federal Reserve districts,...
The volatility wrought by tariffs is no longer a background risk but a daily operational reality, forcing companies to make strategic decisions with incomplete data and shifting economic signals. As tariffs collided with delayed government statistics and cooling consumer demand, firms have had to confront...
The latest inflation data released Tuesday (Jan. 13) suggests a steady pace of inflation overall, but groceries and other essentials continue to rise faster than the headline number and influence how consumers plan and pay for everyday life. In December, the Consumer Price Index rose...
Liquidity stress in the U.S. economy is no longer a background condition. Instead, it is the mechanism reshaping how different segments experience work, confidence and financial progress. That was the core insight of “Wage to Wallet™ Index: Liquidity Stress Splits Higher Earners and the Labor...
Americans are less confident about finding a job than they’ve been in the 12 years the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has been producing the Survey of Consumer Expectations. Respondents’ mean perceived probability of finding a new job if they lost their current one...
A growing share of Americans are losing confidence in their financial footing, as paycheck-to-paycheck stress becomes a defining feature of the economy rather than a temporary condition. The latest PYMNTS Intelligence installment of “New Reality Check: The Paycheck-to-Paycheck Report” finds that nearly 7 in 10...
New Federal Reserve research examines the relationship between high tariffs and reduced inflation. The research note from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, published Monday (Jan. 5), pointed out that past instances of steep tariff rates led to lower inflation, while examining possible causes...
British consumers reportedly pulled back on their debit and credit card spending this year. It marks the first decline in card spending since the COVID pandemic, Bloomberg News reported Tuesday (Dec. 30), citing data from Barclays which showed consumers were still willing to shell out for small luxuries and...
White-collar layoffs at firms like McKinsey and Amazon grab headlines for their implications about artificial intelligence and tariff pressures replacing plum jobs. But there’s another canary in the economic coal mine. What PYMNTS Intelligence calls the Labor Economy® — the roughly 60 million warehouse packers,...