Latest news with #SurveyofConsumerExpectations
The Hill
25-07-2025
- Business
- The Hill
Trump should not fire Jay Powell — at least, not yet
President Trump should not fire Jay Powell. The Fed chairman is likely to hold rates steady again at next week's meeting, which is almost certainly a mistake. But if unemployment begins to creep higher and the economy softens, Trump can then blame Powell. His own appointed Fed leader can become a useful fall guy. Speculation about Trump firing Powell is ongoing, despite repeated denials from the White House. He stoked those concerns again yesterday by visiting the Fed's headquarters, the first time in 20 years a president has made that trek. Trump went purportedly to inspect what has become known as the 'Taj Mahal on the Mall,' aka the $700 million-over-budget $2.5 billion remodeling project of the Fed's building. Russell Vought accompanied Trump; the head of the Office of Management and Budget has calculated that the cost of the Fed's elaborate construction is about the same as the price originally paid (adjusted for inflation) for France's Palace of Versailles. Meanwhile, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) referred Powell to the Department of Justice for criminal charges, accusing him of two specific instances of lying under oath before a Senate committee about the particulars of that headquarters modernization. To be clear, notoriously spendthrift D.C. legislators have not suddenly found religion about cost overruns on federal projects. Scrutiny of the Fed building, and accusations that Powell committed perjury, are meant to allow Trump to dump the Fed chair, who can only be fired for cause. The real story is, of course, the economy. And there are three reasons Powell should cut rates. First, Powell has said he is holding off on rate cuts because Trump's tariffs regime is expected to cause some increase in inflation. But in a recent speech, Fed Governor Chris Waller argued that tariffs are 'one-off increases in the price level and do not cause inflation beyond a temporary surge.' That is, the application of a 10 percent tariff, for instance, will possibly cause a one-time bounce in prices but (barring any other influences) not create ongoing inflation. Waller also says, 'Standard central banking practice is to 'look through' such price-level effects as long as inflation expectations are anchored, which they are.' That is true. Early in the tariff excitement, consumers became worried about the possible impact of tariffs on prices, even as inflation was moderating. The media cranked out alarming projections of the damage tariffs could do, feeding the concerns. The central bank's monthly Survey of Consumer Expectations showed respondents in March and April expecting inflation to bounce up to 3.6 percent in the next year; most recently that dropped to 3 percent, in line with readings from January. Consumers have been calmed by consistently better than expected inflation reports. Lower energy costs, in particular, drove the consumer price index down from 3 percent in January to 2.3 percent in April, calming nerves. More recently that gauge of inflation has increased to 2.7 percent, but that is still lower than last year, when it was 3 percent. Waller said he has been watching reports on high-frequency price changes — that is, real-time price changes from big retailers' online stores. He concludes that prices on imports are slightly higher while domestic goods have not seen upward adjustments. Not surprisingly, prices on imported Chinese goods have been jacked up the most. But, overall, the impact of tariffs has been minimal so far. Second, there are cracks in the jobs picture, which is meant to be the other focus of the Fed. Small businesses show some modest increased interest in hiring, which is good news, but Americans are becoming less optimistic about their job prospects. According to The Kobeissi Letter, 'The index tracking Americans' expectations for unemployment over the next 12 months fell to 58 points in July, the third-lowest since 2008. This level of pessimism also aligns with readings seen during the 2001 and 1990 recessions.' Job postings on Indeed, an online recruitment site, have been dropping, and there has been a modest increase in continuing unemployment claims, indicating people are having a harder time finding work. A report just out from The Bridge Chronicle reveals the tech industry has laid off more than 100,000 workers this year, with Intel and Microsoft leading the pack. Some of the firings stem from financial concerns, but AI is also powering a slimming down of white-collar jobs. Tech is not alone — across industries, CEOs are spending tens of millions of dollars to implement AI, with hopes of recouping those expenditures via reduced payrolls. Is Jay Powell on top of these trends? There has been precious little in his periodic reports to indicate the Fed chair is taking AI-impacted job losses into account. If Powell is basing monetary policy on what he imagines the inflationary impact of tariffs will be, should he not also be looking forward and folding AI effects into his job projections? Third, cutting rates would help the housing market, and young families trying to buy a home. Existing home sales recently dropped to a nine-month low, but prices continued to rise in spite of high mortgage rates. Trump accuses Powell of playing politics. When he orchestrated a jumbo 50-basis-point rate cut last September, it seemed likely to boost the economy — just in time for Kamala Harris's campaign. Today, with inflation numbers at similar levels and the jobs market showing signs of weakening, Powell is using the specter of tariff-caused inflation to justify inaction. That will likely prove to be a mistake. But for Powell, the upcoming rate decision is a lose-lose proposition. If he persuades the board to lower rates, he will be accused of pandering to a domineering president, relinquishing the Fed's independence. If he sticks with rates that are likely considerably above the neutral rate, and the economy starts to slide, he will be blamed. Whatever path he and the board choose, Trump will use his decision as proof that 'Too-Late' Powell, as he calls him, has messed up again.
Canada News.Net
24-07-2025
- Business
- Canada News.Net
NY Fed: Easier mortgage, auto loan approvals in June
NEW YORK CITY, New York: U.S. consumers found it easier to secure auto loans and refinance mortgages in June, according to new data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, signaling an improvement in credit access amid persistently high interest rates. The bank reported this week that the rejection rate for mortgage refinancing dropped significantly to 15 percent in June—down from a peak of 42 percent in February. That February figure marked the worst on record since the data series began in late 2013. Access to auto loans also improved. Rejection rates fell to seven percent in June, from 14 percent in February. Overall, the New York Fed said credit applications and rejections have remained relatively stable over the past year, even as borrowing costs stayed elevated due to the Federal Reserve's restrictive monetary policy. The data comes from the bank's Survey of Consumer Expectations, best known for tracking monthly inflation expectations and consumer sentiment. One closely watched subset of the data — discouraged borrowers — also showed improvement. The share of people who held back from applying for credit because they feared rejection fell to 7.2 percent in June, from 8.5 percent in February. However, this figure remains higher than the 5.5 percent reported in June 2024. Respondents also reported a higher perceived likelihood of facing a sudden US$2,000 expense — though expectations about their ability to cover such costs also increased. While other New York Fed reports have shown signs of mounting stress in consumer debt levels, overall credit conditions remain relatively healthy. Still, both the auto and housing sectors continue to feel the weight of high interest rates as the central bank maintains its fight against inflation.
Newsweek
10-07-2025
- Newsweek
AI is Creating a New Gender Divide
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The AI revolution isn't ahead of us; it's here. But, for a technology that's been heralded as the future, it risks bringing with it problems from the past. Women are adopting generative AI technology at a slower rate than men—data from the Survey of Consumer Expectations found that 50 percent of men are using generative AI tools, compared to 37 percent of women. Further research from Harvard Business School Associate Professor Rembrand Koning found that women are adopting AI tools at a 25 percent lower rate. So, what's behind women's hesitation to adopt AI? Whether it's deepfake pornography, discrimination from AI hiring technology, or forms of digital violence online, research and data suggest that women have a fundamentally different relationship to AI than men do. The result? An AI gender gap, where women are being left behind in the technological revolution. Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Getty/Canva Newsweek spoke to the experts to find out more about how AI's misogyny maintenance is creating a new gender divide. What Is The AI Gender Gap? A 2025 survey from the National Organization for Women (NOW) and Icogni found that 25 percent of women had experienced harassment enabled by technology, including AI-generated deepfake pornography. A study from the Berkeley Haas Center for Equity, Gender, and Leadership, meanwhile, analyzed 133 AI systems from different industries. It found that 44 percent showed gender bias. Beyond the studies and the data, what is the actual impact of this gender disparity on women? Enter: the AI gender gap. Professor Ganna Pogrebna, Lead for Behavioral Data Science at the Alan Turing Institute and Executive Director at the AI and Cyber Futures Institute, told Newsweek over email, "There is mounting evidence that early negative experiences with AI systems—particularly those involving misogyny, sexualization, or coercion—can have profound psychological, behavioral, and societal consequences for women and girls." "These harms are not abstract; they are embodied in concrete experiences, amplified through algorithmic systems," Pogrebna said. And AI-inflicted harms begin at a young age. A 2024 report from the Center for Democracy & Technology found that generative AI technologies are worsening the sharing of non-consensual intimate imagery in schools and that female students are most often depicted in this deepfake imagery. So, what might be the long-term impacts on women and girls if they are having negative or traumatic experiences with AI? Laura Bates, activist and author of The New Age of Sexism: How AI and Emerging Technologies Are Reinventing Misogyny, told Newsweek, "I think we will see a widening gap in terms of women's access to and uptake of new technologies." Bates said that this will include AI and that this will have "a devastating impact on everything from women's job prospects and careers to their involvement in further developments in the sector, which will, in turn, continue to intensify the problem because it will mean that new tools are tailored towards men as the majority of users." Asked if there is a risk that these negative experiences could lead to disengagement with future technologies, putting women on the back foot, Bates said, "Absolutely." "We already see how differently men and women use and experience existing forms of technology," Bates said. Both men and women experience forms of online harassment, according to the Pew Research Centre, which found in 2021 that 41 percent of Americans had experienced some kind of harassment online; harassment takes different forms. The Pew Research Centre found that 33 percent of women under 35 report experiencing sexual harassment online, compared to 11 percent of men, a figure which doubled from 2017 to 2021. "Women's use of tech is mediated by an entirely different online experience than men's, marked by abuse, harassment, doxing, threats, stalking and other forms of tech facilitated gender-based violence," Bates said, adding, "It is inevitable that the barrage of abuse women and girls face online, combined with the gender bias inherently baked into many emerging tools, are going to have a chilling effect in terms of women's uptake and participation in new forms of tech." Pogrebna echoed this: "These traumatic experiences can embed deep mistrust in AI systems and digital institutions." Woman photographs a Humanoid Robot from AI Life with Bio-Inspired communicative AI, on display at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada on January 10, 2024. Woman photographs a Humanoid Robot from AI Life with Bio-Inspired communicative AI, on display at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada on January 10, 2024. FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images Newsweek also spoke with Dr. Sarah Myers West, co-executive director at the AI Now Institute. In a phone call with Newsweek, she said, "There are disproportionate patterns of reinforcing inequality in ways that lead to harm for women and girls and people of other minorities." West pointed to "the way AI is intermediating access to our resources or our life chances," and noted, "the AI that gets used, say, in a hiring process and reinforces is historical employment-based discrimination." West said that this is affecting people in ways that are "profoundly consequential." In 2018, Reuters reported that Amazon had scrapped an AI recruiting tool that was showing bias against women. In 2024, UNESCO's research highlighted that gender bias in AI hiring tools may penalize women through the reproduction of regressive stereotypes. Asked if negative experiences with AI in hiring scenarios could lead to a sense of mistrust and disengagement, West said, "I think rightly so, if it's being used in that way." A Problem from the Past, Reinvented for the Future AI might be increasingly prevalent, but the discourse over it is increasingly polarized. A 2025 survey from YouGov found that one-third of Americans are concerned about the possibility that AI will cause the end of the human race. Additionally, the survey found that Americans are more likely to say that AI will have a negative effect on society than on their own life and that most Americans don't trust AI to make ethical decisions. But as these apocalyptic alarms sound, concerns over how AI is further encoding misogyny into the fabric of society fall through the cracks. Back in 2024, a report from the UN said that AI is mirroring gendered bias in society, and gender disparity is already pronounced in the tech industry, with the World Economic Forum reporting in 2023 that women account for only 29 percent of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) workers. "There is a growing body of evidence showing that AI systems reflect and amplify biases present in the datasets on which they are trained. This includes gender biases, sexualization of women, and reinforcement of harmful stereotypes," Pogrebna said. She added that large language models trained on "internet corpora" are risking "encoding toxic gender stereotypes and normalizing misogynistic narratives." A 2024 report from UNESCO found that "AI-based systems often perpetuate (and even scale and amplify) human, structural and social biases," producing gender bias, as well as homophobia and racial stereotyping. Newsweek spoke with Sandra Wachter, a professor of technology and regulation at the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, about this. "If AI is somewhat a mirror of society," Wachter said, "It kind of indirectly shows you where your place in the world is." Wachter then pointed to examples of gender bias in AI, including bias in image generators and text prediction, where AI is more likely to assume a male gender for professions like doctors, and a female gender for professions like nurses. A 2024 study in the JAMA Open Network found that when generating images of physicians, AI text-to-image generators are more likely to depict people who are white and male. "It's a tacit kind of reminder that certain spots are reserved for you and others are not," Wachter said. "We have to think about what it does to young women and girls." "How can we praise the technology to be so perfect when it is so problematic for a large portion of our society, right? And just ask the question, who is this technology actually good for? And who does it actually benefit?" Wachter said. She added, "It gives people a very early idea of what your role is supposed to look like in society." Pointing to the issues with AI, Wachter said, "We would never do this with a car, right? We would never just say, you go and drive. I know it's failing all the time." "What does it say about the value of being a woman?" she said. "If it's okay that this injury will happen, we know it will happen, but we're going to bring it on the market anyway, and we're going to fix it later." Newsweek also spoke with Dr. Kanta Dihal, a lecturer in science communication at Imperial College London, who shared some of the concerns that Wachter does. "There is so much that regularly goes wrong around the topics of women and technology in the broader sense," Dihal said. In terms of the relationship women have with AI, Dihal said there is a feeling of "Is this for me, or is this meant to keep me in my place? Or make things worse for me? Am I the kind of person that the creators of this technology had in mind when they designed it?" "So many different career paths and our schools as well are indeed introducing AI related technologies that if you don't want to use them, you're already sometimes on the back foot," Dihal said, adding, "It's going to be both a matter of being disadvantaged in school and career progression." A woman walks past the neon art installation "imAGIne AGI" during the press preview of the XXIV Triennale di Milano at Triennale Design Museum on May 12, 2025, in Milan, Italy. A woman walks past the neon art installation "imAGIne AGI" during the press preview of the XXIV Triennale di Milano at Triennale Design Museum on May 12, 2025, in Milan, Ahead So, what would inclusion in AI look like? Bates told Newsweek that we need to see government regulation of AI technology "at the point they are rolled out to public or corporate use" in order to ensure that safety and ethics standards are met before implementation, "not after women and marginalized communities have already faced significant discrimination." She added, "With AI technologies poised to become inextricably intertwined with almost every aspect of our personal and professional lives, that must change in order to ensure that women, girls, and marginalized groups are able to reap the same benefits from these technologies as everybody else, without suffering negative consequences." Meanwhile, Pogrebna told Newsweek, "The marginalisation of women in AI is not an inevitable by-product of technological advancement—it is the result of design choices, governance gaps, and historical inequities embedded in data and institutions. A multi-pronged approach that includes technical, procedural, legal, and cultural reforms is not only possible but has already demonstrated early success in multiple domains." She added that technical fixes are necessary but insufficient without regulatory frameworks to enforce accountability. As AI technology continues to develop and become more prevalent, it's clear that the fabric of society continues to change at a rapid pace, and the dream of a tech revolution that leads to a fairer society is still there. What's unclear is if AI is doomed to code a world that's bugged with the same prejudice as the one that came before it.
Yahoo
09-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Inflation expectations slip in June: NY Fed survey
American consumers are expecting inflation to be at about 3% a year from now, down from 3.2% in May, according to the latest New York Fed Survey of Consumer Expectations. Yahoo Finance Senior Reporter Allie Canal shares other highlights from the survey in the video above. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Market Catalysts here. You mentioned that New York Fed survey, and that's giving us a good indication of where consumers heads are right now when you talk about different indicators like inflation and the labor market. Let's start with inflation because short-term inflation expectations according to this survey for the month of June, that ticked down to 3%. It's actually the lowest since early 2024. And then we had medium and long-term views remaining stable. On top of that inflation uncertainty and the range of responses both narrowed. This suggests that households are growing more confident that price pressures are easing. And then if we flip over to the labor market side, there's good news there too. The probability of losing one's job in the next year, that fell to just 14%. That's the lowest reading in over six months. And while wage growth expectations pulled back slightly, households seem to be feeling more secure in their roles. And one sign of that is the share of people saying that they're likely to leave their job voluntarily. That rose during the month of June. So overall, cooler inflation expectations, improving job security, and a slightly more optimistic consumer. And this is on par with what we've seen over the past few weeks, the past months, when we talk about this improving sentiment data. That's becoming more aligned with what we've seen on the hard data side that includes your inflation reports, your labor market reports, retail sales. That's all come in roughly in line with expectations, in some cases actually exceeding expectations. Now, that doesn't mean we're out of the woods yet, there are certainly a lot of risks heading into the summer. One being the tariff picture, we don't quite know how that's going to work its way through the economy at this point, but it shows how consumers are reacting to a lot of the macro headlines out there, and we're in an environment where stocks are trading near record highs. We had Goldman Sachs and Bank of America recently boosting their respective S&P 500 targets. We're heading into earnings season where there's a pretty low bar at this point. So all things considered, the setup looks stronger heading into the back of the year, half of the year, I should say, certainly stronger than it did a few months ago, but of course, Julie, we'll have to wait and see how this all plays out. Right. Allie, thank you.
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Business Standard
09-07-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Gold rate outlook: Yellow metal slips as investors assess tariff scenario
Performance: On July 8, spot gold traded between $3,287 and $3,346 per ounce. The yellow metal fell in the US session as Japan and the US will reportedly start tariff negotiations vigorously. At the time of writing this report, both spot gold and the MCX August gold contract were down by 1 per cent on the day. The spot gold was hovering around $3,295, while the MCX August gold contract was at ₹96,300. Tariff developments: US President Donald Trump announced his much-awaited tariff plans to impose higher rates of 25 per cent-40 per cent on key trading partners. As per the new proposition, tariffs on Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Kazakhstan, and Tunisia, would be 25 per cent, while Laos and Myanmar would face a 40 per cent rate. South Africa and Bosnia to face 30 per cent, Indonesia 32 per cent, Bangladesh and Serbia 35 per cent, Thailand and Cambodia 36 per cent tariffs. Tariff deadline has been extended from July 9 to August 1. Additional tariff letters will be sent shortly. India and the US may reach a mini-trade deal shortly. US President Trump said on Tuesday that the August 1 tariff deadline will not be extended, though earlier he had said that the deadline may not be 100 per cent firm depending on the trade deal developments. Trump to announce semiconductor tariffs. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen accused China of distorting trade and limiting access for European firms. She, addressing the EU Parliament stressed at the need of a genuine rebalancing. Trump plans 50 per cent tariff on copper imports: On Tuesday, President Trump announced that he will be implementing a new 50 per cent tariff on copper imports. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that copper tariffs could go into effect in July-end/August 1. ALSO READ: Gold price climbs ₹10 to ₹98,850; silver falls ₹100, trades at ₹1,09,900 New York Fed Survey: The New York Fed's Survey of Consumer Expectations shows that respondents in June saw inflation at 3 per cent 12 months from now, which is at the same level as it was in January. Inflation expectations eased 0.2 per cent from May. Tariff-induced Inflation is yet to show up in most of the inflation data. Expectations at the three- and five-year horizons were unchanged at 3 per cent and 2.6 per cent respectively. Upcoming data: FOMC minutes of the Fed's June 18 FOMC meeting will be released on July 9. China's PPI and CPI data (June) will be released on July 9. Fitch Ratings on trade war: Fitch Ratings, in its latest 'Fitch-20 Economic Monitor', highlighted that the trade war has resulted in volatility in global trade flows and foreign-exchange rates in recent months. Gold ETF and COMEX inventory: As of July 7, total known global gold ETF holdings stood at 90.491MOz, up around 9.22 per cent holdings posted the first weekly decline after five straight weeks of build-up. Nonetheless, holdings continue to hover around two-year high. COMEX gold inventories continue to decline as investors take hold of physical metal. As of July 7, inventories stood at 36.71MOz, down over 18 per cent since they reached a record-high level of 45.07MOz on April 4. Perth Mint Gold Sales: Perth Mint gold coins and minted bars rose to 32,901 MOz in June from 28,244 Oz in May. Outlook: Spot gold is well supported by strong ETF inflows, tariff tensions and investors scrambling to take possession of physical gold. A firmer Dollar is weighing on the metal though. In the very short-term, gold's direction is likely to depend on tariff news flow. As Trump has extended the tariff deadline to August 1, safe haven flows are somewhat subdued, which is why gold is under pressure. It won't be surprising to see the deadline getting extended further. At the same time, markets may become concerned over trade wars as even the August 1 deadline is not far off. Weighing in all the positive and negative factors, gold is expected to range trade between $3,272 ( ₹95,600) and $3,350 ( ₹98,000). The next major support is at $3,247 (₹94,800). Interim resistance is at ₹97,100. Traders entertaining the possibility of Trump imposing tariffs on precious metals imports carries an upside risk. In the very short-term, selling into rallies with a tight stop-loss is the preferred trade.
