Justin Fox

2 weeks ago | advisorperspectives.com | Justin Fox

The US industries that have to buy steel and aluminum to make their products together account for many more jobs than the steel and aluminum producers do. About 12 million Americans work in industries that use steel, economists Katheryn Russ of the University of California at Davis and Lydia Cox, now of the University of Wisconsin, estimated in 2020. Two million of them work in industries where steel makes up more than 5% of inputs.

3 weeks ago | bloomberg.com | Justin Fox

The US industries that have to buy steel and aluminum account for many more jobs than the metal producers do. (Bloomberg Opinion) -- Iron and steel mills employ about 85,700 people in the US. That’s less than half as many as in 1990 but slightly more than in 2016 and 2017. Have the increased tariffs on steel imposed by Donald Trump starting in March 2018, partly continued by his successor Joe Biden and just this week ratcheted by Trump to 50%, played a role in this improvement? Yes, probably.

3 weeks ago | fa-mag.com | Justin Fox

The U.S. economy did not quite manage 3% annual economic growth during Joe Biden’s four years as president. Real (that is, inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product grew an annualized 2.8% from his first to last quarter in office, according to data released last week by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the average of real GDP and real gross domestic income—which some economists believe does a better job of capturing the timing of economic fluctuations—grew 2.7%.

3 weeks ago | bloomberg.com | Justin Fox

Growth industry. (Bloomberg Opinion) -- In March 2024, nonfarm payroll employment in New York state finally surpassed its pre-pandemic level. New York City had passed that bar two months earlier. But New York’s jobs recovery hasn’t exactly been broad-based. Here are the state numbers (the city’s are similar, but not available in seasonably adjusted form that allows for easy comparison with February 2020).

3 weeks ago | livemint.com | Justin Fox

Amid the layoffs, cancelled programmes and other cutbacks in Washington since Donald Trump moved back into the White House in January, one thing hasn’t changed: Federal spending has just kept going up. Spending since 21 January is up 8.7% over the equivalent period in 2024, 7.2% over 2023.