Growth, inflation, wages and employment covered in terms of what they do to family finances. Coverage pairs national figures with regional breakdowns and the categories where price changes bite hardest. Written for consumer analysts, brand and pricing teams, and readers managing a budget against a moving cost base.
Quantitative tightening lets maturing bonds roll off unreplaced — up to $95 billion a month at peak — and its design goal is being boring, which the 2019 repo spike showed is not guaranteed.
Monica Cummings · June 30, 2026
Two consecutive negative GDP quarters is a rule of thumb, not the definition — the official call belongs to a private committee that waits for the full picture.
Lena Fischer · June 7, 2026
A tariff is paid at the border by the importer; what the shopper pays depends on margins, substitution, and time — the 2018 washing-machine case shows the whole mechanism.
Lena Fischer · May 16, 2026
Nonfarm productivity — output per hour — is the single number that decides whether wage growth is inflationary, and its companion unit labor costs tells you which side is winning.
Lena Fischer · April 23, 2026
The Fed's 2 percent inflation target is defined on PCE, not CPI — a broader index with different weights that usually reads a few tenths lower.
Lena Fischer · March 31, 2026