Economics

Retail sales increased 0.2% in February, less than expected; ex-autos up 0.3%, meeting estimate

Published

10 hours ago

March 17, 2025

Consumers spent at a slower than expected pace in February, though underlying readings indicated that sales still grew at a solid pace despite worries over an economic slowdown and rising inflation.

Retail sales increased 0.2% on the month, better than the downwardly revised decline of 1.2% the prior month but below the Dow Jones estimate for a 0.6% increase, according to the advanced reading Monday from the Commerce Department. Excluding autos, the increase was 0.3%, in line with expectations.

The so-called control group, which strips out non-core sectors and feeds directly into gross domestic product calculations, rose a better than expected 1%.

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The pandemic hit pupils hardest in America’s Democrat-leaning states

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OECD cuts U.S. and global economic outlooks as Trump’s trade tariffs weigh on growth

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Economics

The pandemic hit pupils hardest in America’s Democrat-leaning states

Published

1 hour ago

March 17, 2025

Business Finance News

ON AN UNSEASONABLY balmy March afternoon in Westbrook, Maine—a suburb of Portland, the state’s largest city—parents gather outside of Congin elementary school to collect their children. Before the pandemic five years ago, when schools here and across America shut down, Congin was middling, ranked by test scores in the 50th percentile of all primary schools in the state. Since then it has sunk to the 30th percentile.

Economics

OECD cuts U.S. and global economic outlooks as Trump’s trade tariffs weigh on growth

Published

12 hours ago

March 17, 2025

Business Finance News

Undiscouraged by the rain, shoppers and visitors out on Oxford Street braving the bad weather from the latest storm using umbrellas on 28th January 2025 in London, United Kingdom. Oxford Street is a major retail centre in the West End of the capital and is Europes busiest shopping street with around half a million daily visitors to its approximately 300 shops, the majority of which are fashion and high street clothing stores. (photo by Mike Kemp/In Pictures via Getty Images)

Mike Kemp | In Pictures | Getty Images

Both U.S. and global economic growth is set to be lower than previously projected, according to the latest estimates from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

“Global GDP growth is projected to moderate from 3.2% in 2024, to 3.1% in 2025 and 3.0% in 2026, with higher trade barriers in several G20 economies and increased geopolitical and policy uncertainty weighing on investment and household spending,” the OECD said Monday in its interim Economic Outlook report.

“Annual GDP growth in the United States is projected to slow from its strong recent pace, to be 2.2% in 2025 and 1.6% in 2026.”

In its previous projections, published in December, the OECD had estimated 3.3% global economic growth this year and next. The U.S. economy had been expected to grow 2.4% in 2025 and 2.1% in 2026.

The OECD said its latest projections were “based on an assumption that bilateral tariffs between Canada and the United States and between Mexico and the United States are raised by an additional 25 percentage points on almost all merchandise imports from April.”

If the tariff increases were lower, or applied to fewer goods, economic activity would be stronger and inflation would be lower than projected, “but global growth would still be weaker than previously expected,” the report noted.

This is a developing story, please check back for updates.

Economics

America is facing a beef deficit

Published

1 day ago

March 16, 2025

Business Finance News

THE WEST LOOP in Chicago was once the city’s meatpacking district. That is long gone, but the neighbourhood is still a place where people come from miles around to buy beef. At Au Cheval, a fancy burger joint where tourists queue up for hours, the signature dish is a double cheeseburger served with a fried egg. It is reputed, at least among Chicagoans, to be the best burger in the world. Yet the price of such a delight is rising. It is not only that eggs now sell for $6 a dozen, thanks to bird flu. More quietly, beef has been rising in price for years now too. And thanks to Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs, it may be about to get much worse.