“Unemployment in the U.S. remains historically low at 4.2%. Yet Black workers are living in a different reality: Unemployment for Black Americans has surged to 7.2%, the highest level since October 2021, when the job market was still recovering from the pandemic,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The drop in employment is a warning sign for the labor market and threatens to unravel employment gains made by Black workers during and after the pandemic.”
“For the American middle class, it has been a summer of cooling confidence,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Consumer sentiment dropped nearly 6% in August, after trending up in June and July, according to a closely watched index from the University of Michigan. Pessimism about the job market increased, with more people surveyed saying they expect their income to decline, according to polling done by think tank the Conference Board.”
“The middle class—generally considered to include households making roughly $53,000 to $161,000 a year—is playing an outsize role in that waning optimism. After months of tracking high-income earners’ increasing confidence about the economy, households making between $50,000 and $100,000 made an abrupt about-face in June. They now more closely resemble low-income earners’ gloomier views, according to surveys done by Morning Consult, a data-intelligence firm.”
“U.S. companies have an unwelcome message for inflation-weary consumers: Prices are going up,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Companies including Hormel Foods, J.M. Smucker and Ace Hardware said this week they would raise prices for reasons ranging from higher meat costs to tariffs. Large retailers like Walmart, Target and Best Buy said some tariff-related price increases are already in place. More are on the way.”
The Economist: “America has rarely been out of the headlines this year. The world has watched as the Trump administration has slashed government departments, shaken alliances, increased deportations and sent the National Guard onto city streets.”
“For the tourism industry, not all publicity is good publicity: our analysis of available data suggests that the number of international visitors in 2025 is sharply lower than in the same period in 2024.”
“To President Trump’s many roles, formal and self-designated, add a new one to the list: chairman of all boards,” Axios reports.
“The president has assumed a quasi-authority to orchestrate how the private sector operates, both broadly and down to the management and ownership of individual companies.”
“No one’s stopping him, so he continues to confidently plow ahead.”
Axios: “Bedrock concepts that economists hold dear — of central bank independence, reliable data collection, and technocratic decision-making — are under threat in ways that have left the global central banking community discombobulated.”
“In formal proceedings at the Kansas City Fed’s annual economic symposium this weekend, there were only the subtlest of references to the Trump administration’s actions that throw Federal Reserve independence and government economic data into doubt.”
“But in whispered private conversations against the stunning backdrop of the Grand Tetons, there was melancholy — a fear that the war for empiricism and independence may already be lost.”
Wall Street Journal: “A virtual halt to unauthorized border crossings, plus stepped-up deportations and a souring climate for foreigners means net immigration this year could be negative for the first time in decades, some experts predict.”
“That has a short-run benefit, as Powell alluded to. It means slumping labor demand won’t necessarily push up the unemployment rate, which at 4.2% is historically low. But in the long run it could limit the economy’s potential growth and generate larger budget deficits.”
Wall Street Journal: “But the truce came with a cost: In return for Trump’s support, the administration proposed taking an equity stake in the company. It decided to convert nearly $9 billion in grants—promised to Intel as part of the 2022 Chips Act—into a 10% equity stake in the company, an unusual arrangement that makes the government Intel’s biggest shareholder.”
“The meeting was the pivot point in a frenzied period for Intel, once one of America’s most venerated technology companies, now stuck in a yearslong downward spiral. The company’s scramble to control the fallout from the president’s demand that Tan step down—triggered by a Fox Business Network segment—underscores the unpredictable environment major corporations face under Trump.”
CNBC: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel, as Trump expands control over private sector.
“The labor market has moved front and center for the Federal Reserve, highlighting its fragility and risk to the economy,” the Wall Street Journal reports
“The good news is that unemployment remains low, and employers haven’t been all that interested in laying people off. The bad news is that companies haven’t been all that interested in hiring, either.”
“This precarious situation means even a relatively small increase in layoffs could lead the economy to start shedding jobs—a process that can be difficult to reverse once it starts.”
Wall Street Journal: “It is a tough spot for these Republican lawmakers to be in. Criticism of the president’s policies could earn a public rebuke from the White House. But embracing the new duties could be politically risky: Voters disapprove of the president’s handling of the economy, inflation, and tariffs.”
“Corporate America has built up defenses against the likes of Carl Icahn, Nelson Peltz and other corporate raiders who have rattled the cages of chief executives, pushing for higher stock prices. Now companies have a new investor to worry about: the president of the United States,” the New York Times reports.
“President Trump has inserted the government into U.S. companies in extraordinary ways, including taking a stake in U.S. Steel and pushing for a cut of Nvidia’s and Advanced Micro Devices’ revenue from China. Last month, the Pentagon said it was taking a 15 percent stake in MP Materials, a large American miner of rare earths.”
“And on Friday, Intel agreed to allow the U.S. government to take a 10 percent stake in its business, worth $8.9 billion.”
“There’s at least one senator supportive of President Donald Trump’s negotiations to take a government stake in chip maker Intel: Bernie Sanders (I-VT),” Punchbowl News reports.
“The Trump administration revealed this week that it is working to turn CHIPS Act grants Intel received into equity in the company. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CNBC such a move will ensure the federal government gets ‘a good return for the American taxpayer instead of just giving grants away.'”
“Here’s the thing, though: this idea was first proposed by Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).”
“Car buyers are likely to pay more this fall as tariffs begin to drive up sticker prices — and not just on imported vehicles,” Axios reports.
“Automakers can’t eat the cost of tariffs forever, and September is a convenient time to adjust prices, as the 2026 models begin arriving in showrooms.”
“It might not be obvious: Lower-priced trim levels could be eliminated, for example, or desirable features might be rolled into expensive option packages. Be on the lookout, too, for higher destination fees — add-on dealer delivery charges that aren’t part of the manufacturer’s suggested retail price.”
Ken Rogoff: “With long-term interest rates up sharply, public debt nearing its post–World War II peak, foreign investors becoming more skittish, and politicians showing little appetite for reining in fresh borrowing, the possibility of a once-in-a-century U.S. debt crisis no longer seems far-fetched. Debt and financial crisis tend to occur precisely when a country’s fiscal situation is already precarious, its interest rates are high, its political situation is paralyzed, and a shock catches policymakers on the back foot.”
“The United States already checks the first three boxes; all that is missing is the shock.”
“The corporate pricing dam is cracking — companies are raising prices, or signaling that increases are coming, to absorb some of the costs of the Trump administration’s tariffs,” Axios reports.
“Americans are already under strain from rapidly rising prices during the Biden administration. Another bout of hot inflation — at a time when the labor market is slowing down — will hurt.”
“You can’t run a country, or any organization, without reliable data, and firing the head of a statistics agency because you don’t like the numbers it produces starts a path the United States does not want to go down. At the other end lies a ruined economy and a damaged democracy.”
– Andreas Georgiou, former head of the Greek national statistical office, quoted by the New York Times.
“Job growth slowed down substantially this summer. What we don’t know for sure is why,” Axios reports.
“If the jobs slowdown is due to less labor supply, thanks in part to restrictionist immigration policy, then it’s nothing to worry about. If it is because employers are more reluctant to hire, then it’s an early warning that the economy needs monetary stimulus.”
“In other words, we could be in the early stages of a labor market downturn, which could justify the kinds of aggressive interest rate cutting the Trump administration seeks.”
“Or we could just be seeing the inverse of the situation faced in 2023 and the first half of 2024, when high immigration rates unduly flattered the payrolls numbers, masking a deterioration in the health of the labor market. That would imply no rate cutting is needed.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
