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U.S. consumers were much less confident in the economy in November in the aftermath of the government shutdown, weak hiring, and stubborn inflation. The Conference Board said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index dropped to 88.7 in November, from an upwardly revised October reading of 95.5, the lowest reading since April, when President Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs that caused the stock market to plunge. The figures suggest that Americans are increasingly wary of high costs and sluggish job gains, with perceptions of the labor market worsening, the survey found. Declining confidence could pose political problems for Trump and Republicans in Congress, as the dimmer views of the economy were seen among all political affiliations and were particularly sharp among independents, the Conference Board said. Earlier Tuesday, a government report showed that retail sales slowed in September after healthy readings over the summer. While economists forecast healthy growth for the July-September quarter, many expect a much weaker showing in the final three months of the year, largely because of the shutdown. Less-confident consumers may spend less, though the connection isn’t always clear. In recent years, consumer spending has held up even when the available data suggests they’ve grown more anxious. We do not think that consumer spending is about to hit a cliff, as spending has decoupled from confidence, but risks to the downside are increasing, Thomas Simons, chief U.S. economist at Jefferies, an investment bank, said. The proportion of consumers who said jobs are plentiful dropped to 27.6% in November, down from 28.6% in the previous month. It is down sharply from 37% in December. At the same time, 17.9% said jobs are hard to get,” slightly below the 18.3% who said so in October. That figure is up from 15.2% in September. The figures on job availability are seen by economists as reliable predictors of hiring and the unemployment rate. Americans continue to worry about elevated costs, fueling the affordability concerns that were a key issue in elections earlier this month. Consumers write-in responses pertaining to factors affecting the economy continued to be led by references to prices and inflation, tariffs and trade, and politics, with increased mentions of the federal government shutdown,” said Dana Peterson, chief economist at the Conference Board. The shutdown ended November 12. The economy likely grew at a solid annual rate of about 3% in the July-September quarter, economists estimate. But growth is likely to slow in the final three months of the year, largely because of the shutdown, which cut off pay for federal workers, disrupted contracts, and interrupted air travel. The Conference Board survey ran through November 18, about five days after the shutdown ended. By Christopher Rugaber, AP economics writer
Category:
E-Commerce
The Trump administration is hunting for ways to block the ability of states to regulate artificial intelligence. In response, dozens of state attorneys general have now sent a letter pressing Congressional leadership not to approve language that would preempt their governments freedom to propose their own legislation on the technology. Broad preemption of state protections is particularly ill-advised because constantly evolving emerging technologies, like AI, require agile regulatory responses that can protect our citizens, they write in a Tuesday memo. This regulatory innovation is best left to the 50 states so we can all learn from what works and what does not. New applications for AI are regularly being found for healthcare, hiring, housing markets, customer service, law enforcement and public safety, transportation, banking, education, and social media. The endeavor, which represents 36 states total, comes as Congress weighs language, packed in a new defense funding authorization bill, that would prevent states from enforcing their own rules about the technology. A previous measure, which failed, would have established a 10-year moratorium on states writing their own rules. A draft executive order leaked last week would, similarly, push the federal government to punish states for enacting or enforcing these rules. If there were real cases to be brought up, they would have brought [them] already, Alex Bores, the lawmaker who authored New Yorks passed, but not-yet-signed AI legislation, the RAISE Act, told Fast Company last week. The only reason you need an executive order to tell people to look for cases is when you just want to harass states into submission. Every state should be able to enact and enforce its own AI regulations to protect its residents, New York Attorney General Letitia James, the lead author of the letter, said in a statement. Certain AI chatbots have been shown to harm our childrens mental health and AI-generated deepfakes are making it easier for people to fall victim to scams. State governments are the best equipped to address the dangers associated with AI. The letter comes after state lawmakers wrote to their federal peers not to strip states of their ability to regulate artificial intelligence. Thus far, the federal government has not passed major legislation on ensuring model transparency use, AI cybersecurity and safety, or energy use. For state officials, the concern is that states will be banned from taking their own action on these fronts. Arati Prabhakar, a top tech adviser under the Biden administration, recently called this effort ludicrous, since Congress has yet to establish any regulatory regime for AI. The attorneys general emphasized the importance of defending children from inappropriate relationships with chatbots, including discussions of self-harm, and defending against deepfake-enabled scams. A moratorium would put us behind by tying states hands and failing to keep up with the technology, they write, arguing that pre-emption prevents states from remaining agile in responding to an emerging technology.
Category:
E-Commerce
In a packed room at a library in downtown Boston, Rep. Ayanna Pressley posed a blunt question: Why are Black women, who have some of the highest labor force participation rates in the country, now seeing their unemployment rise faster than most other groups? The replies Monday from policymakers, academics, business owners, and community organizers laid out how economic headwinds facing Black women may indicate a troubling shift for the economy at large. The unemployment rate for Black women increased from 6.7% to 7.5% between August and September this year, the most recent month for available data because of the federal government shutdown. That compares with a 3.2% to 3.4% increase for white women over the same period. And it extended a yearlong trend of the Black women’s unemployment rate increasing at a time of broad economic uncertainty. Many roundtable attendees view those numbers as both an affront and a warning about the uneven pressures on Black women. Everyone is missing out when were pushed out of the workforce, said Pressley, a progressive Democrat from Massachusetts. That is something that I worry about now, that you have all these women with specific expertise and specializations that were being deprived of. And when Black women do have work, she said they tend to be woefully underemployed. Black women had the highest labor force participation rate of any female demographic in 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, yet their unemployment rate remains higher than other demographics of women. Historically, their unemployment rate has trended slightly above the national average, widening during periods of slowed economic growth or recession. Black Americans are overrepresented in industries like retail, health and social services, and government administration, according to a 2024 Bureau of Labor Statistics Survey. Black women are at the center of the Venn diagram that is our society, said Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman, a PhD candidate in public policy and economics at the Harvard Kennedy School. She pointed to April as the month when Black womens unemployment began to diverge more sharply from other groups. A policy agenda that ignores the causes, she said, could harm the broader economy. Roundtable participants cited many long-standing structural inequities but attributed most of the latest divergence to recent federal actions. They blamed the Trump administration’s downsizing of the Minority Business Development Agency and the cancellation of some federal contracts with nonprofits and small businesses, saying those actions disproportionately impacted Black women. Others said tariff policies and mass federal layoffs also contributed to the strain. The administration’s opposition to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives was repeatedly mentioned by participants as a cause for a more hostile environment for Black women to find employment, customers, or government contracting. There is no concrete data on how many Black federal workers were laid off, fired, or otherwise dismissed as part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping cuts through the federal government. The attendees discussed a wide range of potential solutions to the unemployment rate for Black women, including using state budgets to bolster business development for Black women, expanding microloans to different communities, increasing government resources for contracting, requiring greater transparency on corporate hiring practices, and encouraging state and federal officials to enforce anti-discrimination policies. I feel like I was just at church, said Ruthzee Louijeune, the Boston City Council president, as the meeting wrapped up. She encouraged attendees to keep up their efforts, and she defended DEI policies as essential to a healthy workforce and political system. Without broad-based efforts, the Democrat said, the countrys business and political leadership would be abnormal and weakened. Any space that does not look like our country and like our cities is not normal, she said, and not the city or country we are trying to build.” By Matt Brown, Associated Press
Category:
E-Commerce
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