Economy
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Economy coverage, page 2
50% U.S. Tariffs on About $20 Billion of Canadian Goods Took Effect Aug. 22; Ottawa Says Matching Duties Begin Sept. 8
Three days of talks in Washington collapsed late Friday, and duties of 50% on roughly $20 billion of Canadian products — about 5% of Canada's exports — took effect at 12:01 a.m. ET Saturday, Aug. 22. Prime Minister Mark Carney says Canada will match them dollar for dollar starting Sept. 8, a date still ahead. Two-way goods trade ran to $376 billion in the first half of 2026, and the first inflation reading whose reference month overlaps the new duties will not arrive until late September.
Initial claims fell 6,000 to 206,000. The four-week average rose anyway. The rolling window, not the labor market, explains the contradiction.
The Labor Department's August 20 release showed seasonally adjusted initial claims down 6,000 to 206,000 while the four-week moving average rose 4,250 to 204,000. The week that dropped out of the window carried 189,000 claims, a figure the department's own table prints — 17,000 below the week that replaced it, and 17,000 divided by four is exactly the 4,250 move.
The Philadelphia Fed's six-month outlook index is the highest since August 1983. Its current price gauges fell — but not one firm reported paying less.
August's Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey put current general activity at 47.4, a five-year high, and future general activity at 73.6, which the bank calls its highest reading since August 1983. Prices paid fell 13 points to 40.9, yet zero percent of respondents reported a decrease, and the forward prices-paid index sits 22 points above the current one.
July FOMC Minutes: Nine-Three Vote, 'Many Participants' Saw Tightening Ahead if Inflation Stalls, and a Proposal to Cut to Six Meetings a Year
The Federal Reserve released the July 28-29 minutes at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Wednesday. Three reserve bank presidents dissented in favor of a quarter-point increase while the Committee held the target range at 3-1/2 to 3-3/4 percent, and the Chairman floated moving from the eight scheduled meetings a year on the Board's published calendar to six.
Import Prices Fell 0.4% in July. Strip Out Fuel and the 12-Month Rate Is the Fastest Since 2022.
Tuesday's BLS release has two properties most readers will skip: it excludes duties, and none of it is seasonally adjusted.
U.S. Housing Starts Sank 12.4% in July as Building Permits Climbed
New home construction fell to a 1.24 million annual pace in July even as building permits rose, the Census Bureau reported, underscoring a construction sector still squeezed by affordability.
July Housing Starts Due Tuesday After Builder Sentiment Ticks Up to 35 in August
The Census Bureau publishes July new residential construction at 8:30 a.m. ET Tuesday, a day after the NAHB/Wells Fargo index rose one point to 35. June's 19.0 percent jump in total starts was almost entirely multifamily, and neither report settles whether single-family building has stopped drifting lower.
Business Applications Rose 8.1% in July. On Our Arithmetic, Retail Trade Accounts for Almost All of the Gain.
The Census Bureau's July Business Formation Statistics show one industry row up 44.5 percent in a single month. The series that requires an applicant to name a first wages-paid date went the other way.
The Philadelphia Fed's Forecaster Panel Lowered Its Recession Odds in Every Quarter Both Surveys Covered. It Also Cut This Quarter's Job-Gain Pace.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia published its Third Quarter 2026 Survey of Professional Forecasters on Friday. The 32-forecaster panel marked down the probability of a negative GDP quarter in all four quarters the two surveys share, raised its near-term growth path, and trimmed its estimate of monthly payroll gains this quarter to 45,600.
Banks Told the Fed Their Business Loan Standards Now Sit Easier Than Their Post-2005 Midpoint. Subprime Card Standards Went the Other Way.
Once a year the Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey asks banks not what they changed but where the level of their standards sits inside a two-decade range, and the July 2026 answers split business credit from consumer credit.
The New York Fed Calls It a Four-Year High. In the Same Table, the Orders and Shipments Indexes Both Fell.
The New York Fed's August factory survey landed Monday morning with a five-point jump in its main index. The indexes for the two components most people assume drive that number moved the other way — and the New York Fed's own overview page says the headline is not built from them.
Real Hourly Pay Fell 0.2% Over the Year. Real Weekly Pay Rose 0.1%. Both Numbers Are in BLS Table A-1.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics' Real Earnings release for July puts the over-the-year change in real average hourly earnings at negative and the over-the-year change in real average weekly earnings at positive. The entire gap is one-tenth of an hour on the workweek line — and the CPI figure the table uses is not the CPI figure in that morning's headline.
The Fed Added $333 Billion of Bills in a Year. Reserve Balances Fell $376 Billion.
The August 13 H.4.1 release shows the Federal Reserve's Treasury bill holdings at 2.7 times their year-earlier level, and its mortgage book down $190 billion, as the Desk swaps the portfolio's composition. Reserve balances fell anyway, because the Treasury General Account grew $460 billion over the same twelve months. And the New York Fed's newest purchase schedule, which took effect Friday, plans no reserve management purchases at all.
Net Interest Reached $963 Billion in the First Ten Months of Fiscal 2026
CBO's August 10 Monthly Budget Review puts net interest on the public debt at $963 billion for October through July, $117 billion more than a year earlier and ahead of both Medicare and the military. On the report's own timing-adjusted column, that one line accounts for more than half of the $209 billion rise in federal outlays.
The August Flash PMI Is Friday. The Numbers That Matter Are Buried Three Rows Down
S&P Global's preliminary US composite reading lands August 21. July left an unresolved argument inside it — the strongest private-sector growth since October 2025 alongside the fastest composite input-cost inflation since November 2022 — and the flash and final versions of that same month did not agree on how extreme the price story was. Here is what Friday can and cannot settle.
Jackson Hole Is on the Calendar for Aug. 27-29. The Agenda Isn't.
The Kansas City Fed has published the dates and the theme for the 2026 Economic Policy Symposium, Kevin Warsh's first as Fed chairman. It has not published a programme, a speaker list or a confirmed address by the chair. Last year's release offers a timing precedent; it does not offer a promise.
The Business Lending Boom Went Negative in July. The Mortgage Flatline Never Moved.
The Fed's H.8 release for the week ended Aug 5 shows commercial and industrial loans growing 12.2 percent in the first quarter and 14.2 percent in the second, both at seasonally adjusted annual rates. It also shows that run collapsing inside the quarter: 15.8 percent in April, 10.8 in May, 4.0 in June, and minus 1.1 percent in July. Residential mortgage credit, meanwhile, has barely moved all year, at 0.7 percent in the second quarter and 0.2 percent in July.
The Fed's Board Has Nobody Scheduled to Speak Next Week. A Three-Week-Old Document Will Have to Do.
The Federal Reserve Board's own August calendar lists no speeches or public appearances by Board officials between Monday the 17th and Friday the 21st. The only scheduled communication is Wednesday's 2:00 p.m. ET release of the July 28-29 minutes, a record of a 9-3 hold in which three officials dissented in favour of a rate hike. Since that meeting, markets have cut September hike odds hard — from 72.3% on CME's tool the day of the decision to 25% on Polymarket by August 15 — without hearing from a single Board official.