As part of the agreement, negotiations will continue with the goal of making recommendations on additional provisions to be considered at next year’s ministerial conference.

World Trade Organization members also agreed to loosen intellectual property rules to allow developing countries to manufacture patented Covid-19 vaccines under certain circumstances. Katherine Tai, the U.S. trade representative, said in a statement that the trade organization’s members “were able to bridge differences and achieve a concrete and meaningful outcome to get more safe and effective vaccines to those who need it most.”

The issue of relaxing intellectual property rights for vaccines had become highly controversial. It pitted the pharmaceutical industry and developed countries that are home to their operations, particularly in Europe, against civil society organizations and delegations from India and South Africa.

Stephen J. Ubl, the president and chief executive of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said the agreement had “failed the global population.” Global vaccine supplies are currently plentiful, he said, and the agreement did little to address “real issues affecting public health,” such as supply chain bottlenecks or border tariffs on medicines.

Lori Wallach, the director of the Rethink Trade program at the American Economic Liberties Project, called the outcome “a dangerous public health fail” and “a vulgar display of multilateralism’s demise” in which a few rich countries and pharmaceutical companies blocked the will of more than 100 countries to improve access to medicines. The agreement did not loosen intellectual property rights for treatments or therapeutics, as civil society groups had wanted.

Divisions between rich and poor countries and between big business and civil society groups were apparent in other negotiations, which were also overlaid with the geopolitical challenges of a global pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/17/business/economy/wto-covid-patents-fisheries.html

“The hunger of children is not a necessary cost to pay to bring down inflation,” Ms. Ananat, of Barnard, said.

Republicans, meanwhile, have blamed the Biden administration — and in particular, the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan that Democrats passed early last year — for making inflation worse. Many economists, among them Democrats, agree that the spending did drive at least some of the inflation, making the politics of economic aid even more fraught.

The economy remains strong for now, but early signs of a pullback are surfacing. Job growth, while fast, is slowing. Jobless claims, still low, have picked up. Evictions are mounting in some cities where bans have expired, and retail sales fell in May.

“I think we are starting to see indications that the good times are coming to an end for some people,” said Karen Dynan, a former Treasury Department chief economist who is now at Harvard University. “There will be some generalized pain.”

For many families, that pain has already arrived, and it feels very specific.

Brandy Sandersfeld gave birth to a boy in March 2020 — the same week that her older son’s school shut down because of the pandemic, and the month that her husband’s pizza business had to close for good.

After a few months of trying to ride out the pandemic, Ms. Sandersfeld and her husband, Kurtis, moved to a more rural part of their home state of Arkansas, where they owned some land. Unemployment benefits helped pay for the move, and last year the expanded child tax credit provided a much-needed financial cushion. Those payments ended in January — just before Ms. Sandersfeld, 37, hit a deer in her S.U.V. Replacing it wiped out their savings.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/17/business/economy/inflation-economy-recession.html

“What Powell and the rest of the F.O.M.C. are saying is that restoring price stability is the primary focus — if they risk a mild recession, or a bumpy soft landing, that would still be successful,” said Kathy Bostjancic, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics. “The focus is greatly on inflation right now.”

Until late last week, investors and many economists expected the central bank to raise interest rates just half a percentage point at this week’s meeting. The Fed had lifted rates by a quarter point in March and half a point in May, and had signaled that it expected to continue that pace in June and July.

But central bankers have received a spate of bad news on inflation in recent days. The Consumer Price Index jumped 8.6 percent in May from a year earlier, the fastest increase since late 1981. The pace was brisk even after the stripping out of food and fuel prices.

While the Fed’s preferred price gauge — the Personal Consumption Expenditures measure — is climbing slightly more slowly, it remains too hot for comfort as well. And consumers are beginning to expect faster inflation in the months and years ahead, based on surveys, which is a worrying development. Economists think that expectations can be self-fulfilling, causing people to ask for wage increases and accept price jumps in ways that perpetuate high inflation.

“What we’re looking for is compelling evidence that inflationary pressures are abating, and that inflation is moving back down,” Mr. Powell said at his news conference Wednesday, noting that instead the inflation situation has worsened. “We thought that strong action was warranted.”

One Fed official, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Esther George, voted against the rate increase. Though Ms. George has historically worried about high inflation and favored higher interest rates, she would have preferred a half-point move in this instance.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/business/economy/fed-interest-rates.html

Domestic trade groups, labor leaders and populist Democrats like Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio, who is locked in a competitive Senate race, have pushed Mr. Biden to keep the tariffs. Mr. Ryan held a news conference on Tuesday urging Mr. Biden not to yield any economic ground to Beijing.

Economists disagree on how much inflation relief the administration could get by removing the tariffs.

In part that’s because the inflation calculations cited by Mr. Summers and others include a far broader relaxation of policies than what Mr. Biden is actually considering, including popular “Buy America” programs that require the federal government and certain contractors to buy American-made goods, even if they are more expensive.

The Peterson Institute study is “something between fiction or an interesting academic exercise” that does not capture the real pain Americans are feeling, the United States trade representative, Katherine Tai, said in an interview last month.

Kim Glas, the president of the National Council of Textile Organizations, which has lobbied the administration to keep the tariffs, said that in her industry the tariffs amounted to “pennies on the dollar” for Chinese goods that were already priced far below alternatives from other countries.

Tariff prices are applied to the price of the good coming in at the border, not to the final retail price charged at a store. For a pair of jeans from China, that import price was $4.28 in the first two months of 2022, meaning the 7.5 percent tariff added just 32 cents to the consumer’s cost, Ms. Glas said. It was the markup at retail — which can bring jeans to $30, $40 or $100 — that represents the bulk of sticker shock, she added.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/14/business/economy/biden-china-tariffs-inflation.html

It’s not just Wall Street that is increasingly glum. Consumer confidence fell to its lowest level on record in preliminary data from the University of Michigan survey, and expectations of higher unemployment in a New York Fed survey have been picking up.

Even if the Fed is also becoming more uncertain about its chances of setting the economy down gently, Mr. Powell may not say that. Coming from a top central bank official, a prediction that the economy is headed for tough times might become a self-fulfilling prophesy, shattering already fragile confidence.

“They went from soft to soft-ish — I don’t think there’s another term they can use to say ‘not a complete disaster,’” Ms. Misra said. “I think the markets are calling their bluff, that they won’t be able to achieve it.”

A recession would spell trouble for the White House. President Biden has been sure to emphasize that the Fed is independent and that he will respect its ability to do what it deems necessary to bring inflation under control, even as his approval ratings crack and as the economy heads toward a potentially tough transition period.

“The Federal Reserve has a primary responsibility to control inflation,” Mr. Biden wrote in a recent opinion column. He added that “past presidents have sought to influence its decisions inappropriately during periods of elevated inflation. I won’t do this.”

Even so, some have argued that the central bank should not be the only game in town when it comes to controlling inflation, given the pain its policies inflict. Skanda Amarnath, executive director of the employment advocacy group Employ America, argued that the White House should be taking more aggressive actions to improve gas supply, for instance, to try to offset inflationary pressures.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/14/business/economy/federal-reserve-rates-economy.html

It’s not just Wall Street that is increasingly glum. Consumer confidence fell to its lowest level on record in preliminary data from the University of Michigan survey, and expectations of higher unemployment in a New York Fed survey have been picking up.

Even if the Fed is also becoming more uncertain about its chances of setting the economy down gently, Mr. Powell may not say that. Coming from a top central bank official, a prediction that the economy is headed for tough times might become a self-fulfilling prophesy, shattering already fragile confidence.

“They went from soft to soft-ish — I don’t think there’s another term they can use to say ‘not a complete disaster,’” Ms. Misra said. “I think the markets are calling their bluff, that they won’t be able to achieve it.”

A recession would spell trouble for the White House. President Biden has been sure to emphasize that the Fed is independent and that he will respect its ability to do what it deems necessary to bring inflation under control, even as his approval ratings crack and as the economy heads toward a potentially tough transition period.

“The Federal Reserve has a primary responsibility to control inflation,” Mr. Biden wrote in a recent opinion column. He added that “past presidents have sought to influence its decisions inappropriately during periods of elevated inflation. I won’t do this.”

Even so, some have argued that the central bank should not be the only game in town when it comes to controlling inflation, given the pain its policies inflict. Skanda Amarnath, executive director of the employment advocacy group Employ America, argued that the White House should be taking more aggressive actions to improve gas supply, for instance, to try to offset inflationary pressures.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/14/business/economy/federal-reserve-rates-economy.html

In early March, the union signed a letter asking federal regulators to scrutinize the acquisition. “The potential takeover by Microsoft threatens to further undermine workers’ rights and suppress wages,” the letter said.

Microsoft has since tried to strike a conciliatory tone. It said it would not stop Activision from voluntarily recognizing the union before a formal election, which Activision did not do. After the Raven Q.A. workers voted in late May to form the first union at a major North American game publisher, Phil Spencer, the head of gaming at Microsoft, told employees that he would recognize the Raven union once the deal between the two companies closed, the gaming news site Kotaku reported, citing a video of an employee town hall.

Activision said on Friday that it was starting contract negotiations with the newly unionized Raven workers. “We decided to take this important step forward with our 27 represented employees and C.W.A. to explore their ideas and insights for how we might better serve our employees, players and other stakeholders,” Bobby Kotick, the company’s chief executive, said in a statement.

In a blog post this month that appeared to foreshadow the deal, Mr. Smith announced a set of principles to guide Microsoft’s response to labor organizing, an indication that it was taking a more open approach across the company’s businesses.

He wrote that he had observed Microsoft’s successful “collaborative experiences with works councils and unions” while working in Europe and said that in the United States the company would pursue “collaborative approaches that will make it simpler, rather than more difficult, for our employees to make informed decisions and to exercise their legal right to choose whether to form or join a union.”

In the interview, Mr. Smith called the neutrality agreement “our first opportunity to put those principles into practice.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/13/business/economy/microsoft-activision-union.html

Policymakers are also particularly attuned to the so-called core inflation measure, which strips out food and fuel prices. While groceries and gas make up a big part of household budgets, they also jump around in price in response to changes in global supply. As a result, they don’t give as clear a read on the underlying inflationary pressures in the economy — the ones the Fed believes it can do something about.

“I’m going to be looking to see a consistent string of decelerating monthly prints on core inflation before I’m going to feel more confident that we’re getting to the kind of inflation trajectory that’s going to get us back to our 2 percent goal,” Lael Brainard, the vice chair of the Fed and one of its key public messengers, said during a CNBC interview last week.

What Can Slow the Rapid Price Gains?

How long prices will continue to climb rapidly is anyone’s guess: Inflation has confounded experts repeatedly since the pandemic took hold in 2020. But based on the drivers behind today’s hot prices, a few outcomes appear likely.

For one, quick inflation seems unlikely to go away entirely on its own. Wages are climbing much more rapidly than normal. That means unless companies suddenly get more efficient, they will probably try to continue to increase prices to cover their labor costs.

As a result, the Fed is raising interest rates to slow demand and tamp down wage and price growth. The central bank’s policy response means that the economy is almost surely headed for a slowdown. Already, higher borrowing costs have begun to cool off the housing market.

The question — and big uncertainty — is just how much Fed action will be needed to bring inflation under control. If America gets lucky and supply chain shortages ease, the Fed might be able to let the economy down gently, slowing the job market enough to temper wage growth without causing a recession.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/11/business/economy/inflation-us-prices.html

“The rental market feels very tight: Vacancies are very low, and because of that rents are raising at a strong clip,” said Igor Popov, the chief economist at Apartment List.

A few details in the new data could offer glimmers of hope for the Fed and the White House. Some goods prices that had been picking up last year amid shortages are now dropping: Audio and visual products like televisions, for instance, are getting cheaper again. And core inflation, the gauge without food and energy costs, moderated to 6 percent on an annual basis, from 6.2 percent the prior month.

But that deceleration came partly because the figures are now being measured against high readings last year: Inflation had popped in May 2021. That so-called base effect makes annual gains look lower even if prices are climbing steadily month to month.

Overall, the report was a discouraging one for policymakers, and it highlighted that they have their work cut out for them as consumer and business demand remains strong. While the White House has been instituting policies that might help families with inflation around the edges by improving supply or offsetting costs — like trying to clear up port backlogs, or releasing strategic petroleum reserves to mute gas price increases — the task of cooling down consumption falls almost entirely to the central bank.

So far, spending shows little sign of cracking. Even as vacation costs jump off the charts, for instance, travelers continue to book trips.

“The resilience of travel is really remarkable,” Anthony G. Capuano, the chief executive of Marriott International, said during a Tuesday event with analysts, later adding that the hotel company is seeing “extraordinary pricing power.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/10/business/economy/may-2022-cpi-inflation.html

Republicans blamed the president, as they have for more than a year, for the increases, saying his 2021 economic rescue bill effectively overheated the economy. “The truth is that inflation did not just sneak up on the Biden White House,” Representative Jason Smith of Missouri, the top Republican on the Budget Committee, said on Friday. “The warning signs were there all along.”

Mr. Biden and his team have been trying to make a delicate pivot on the inflation issue, calling it his top economic priority and increasingly expressing sympathy for the households struggling to cope with rising prices. They have sought to reassure markets by leaning into a message of trust in the Fed to manage inflation with interest rate increases, while attempting to project a sense of urgency with actions that officials concede will have a small effect, at best, on broad prices — like an announcement this week that the administration was pausing tariffs on some imported solar panels.

Officials also continue to search for additional ways Mr. Biden might bring down the price of gasoline, which is largely dictated by global market forces and very difficult for presidents to influence in the short term to any large degree.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/10/business/economy/inflation-report-price-gains-biden.html