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1 week ago | 
cepr.net | Data Bytes |Pedro Herrera |Greg Grandin |Mark Weisbrot
President Noboa Wins the Runoff ElectionOn April 13, incumbent President Daniel Noboa, with 55 percent of the vote, defeated progressive candidate Luisa González (with 44 percent of the vote) in the presidential runoff election. The results surprised both camps, as neither had anticipated Noboa’s decisive 11-point victory over González.
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1 week ago | 
cepr.net | Data Bytes |Dean Baker |Sylvia A. Allegretto
The unemployment rate stayed at 4.2 percent in April, keeping it in the narrow 4.0-4.2 percent range it has been in since May of last year. The job growth in the establishment survey was also solid at 177,000, although the previous two months’ numbers were revised down by 52,000. As in prior months, health care was by far the leading job gainer, adding 50,600 jobs. State and local governments continued to be big job gainers, together adding 19,000 jobs.
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1 week ago | 
cepr.net | Data Bytes |Dean Baker
Donald Trump claims to be concerned about the trade deficit, which according to him is a story of other countries ripping us off. As many of us have explained, the trade deficit is simply a story of other countries selling us more than they buy from us, sort of like the relationship most of us have with our neighborhood supermarket. But logic never meant much to Donald Trump. Arithmetic also doesn’t seem to mean much to him.
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2 weeks ago | 
cepr.net | Data Bytes |Dean Baker |Sylvia A. Allegretto
The 228,000 job growth reported for March was considerably higher than most analysts had expected. It was accompanied by downward revisions of 48,000 to the prior two months’ data, so the net job growth was not quite as large as it first appeared. But there is no doubt that the labor market was still looking strong last month. The headwinds that we were looking at before the March report are still there and almost certainly stronger now.
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2 weeks ago | 
cepr.net | Data Bytes |Dean Baker
Since Donald Trump took office and embarked on his strategy of slashing government and hugely increasing import taxes (tariffs), measures of both consumer confidence and business expectations have fallen through the floor. We have seen the same pattern virtually everywhere, with many measures falling below levels seen in the pandemic and the Great Recession.
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2 weeks ago | 
cepr.net | Data Bytes |Dean Baker |Sylvia A. Allegretto
This will be the first quarterly GDP report of the Trump administration. While he came into office 20 days into the quarter, his policies already have had a visible impact on the economy. In particular, his tariff plans, which have been widely anticipated, were already affecting durable good consumption in the last two months of 2024. There has been little clear price effect of the tariffs to date, but that will likely change in the next quarter’s data after more of them have taken effect.
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2 weeks ago | 
cepr.net | Data Bytes |Dean Baker |Francisco Rodriguez |Francisco Rodríguez |David Rosnick
The Trump administration’s deportation of people without anything resembling due process has disgusted much of the population. The latest target was a two-year-old girl who apparently is a U.S. citizen. As with many of the other people slated for deportation, she doesn’t seem to fit the description of the dangerous criminals who Trump claimed are terrorizing the country.
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2 weeks ago | 
cepr.net | Data Bytes |Dean Baker
There has been a lot of attention to the turmoil in financial markets due to Donald Trump’s on again/off again tariffs and his threats to fire Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell. While this turmoil does have real costs, the issues to date have been somewhat exaggerated. Trump’s actions probably raised the interest rate on 10-year Treasury bonds 0.2-0.3 percentage points. That is not trivial, but movements of this magnitude are not uncommon.
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3 weeks ago | 
cepr.net | Data Bytes |Dean Baker |Mark Weisbrot
Donald Trump and Elon Musk are making corruption and graft the main business of the U.S. government. They have fired all the cops who might try to rein them in and attacked any of the judges, politicians, or reporters who object to them stealing everything in sight. In this vein, it was entertaining to see reports that Elon Musk has plans to bid on, and presumably get, the contract for building Donald Trump’s “Iron Dome” system for the United States.
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1 month ago | 
cepr.net | Data Bytes |Dean Baker |Eileen Appelbaum |Brandon Novick
Elon Musk and his “super-high IQ” DOGE team have apparently put the IRS’s Direct File program in their gunsights. Direct File is a free and simplified program that would allow the vast majority of taxpayers to quickly do their taxes without paying fees to a tax preparation service. The program saves taxpayers time and money, as well as much anxiety.
