When Congress voted to normalize trade relations with China at the beginning of this century, U.S. manufacturers braced for a stream of cheap goods to begin flowing into U.S. ports. Instead, they got a flood. Imports from China nearly tripled from 1999 to 2005, and American factories, with their higher …
Ben Whelan is not the kind of carpenter to wax poetic about the joys of framing a wall or redoing a roof. Like a lot of men he knows, he started working in residential construction as a teenager because it was a reliable way to earn money. But he has …
There was little rest on Wall Street this weekend. There was plenty of anger, anxiety, frustration, and fear. Anger at President Trump for a brash and chaotic rollout of tariffs that erased trillions of dollars in value from the stock market in two days. Anxiety about the state of the …
On a recent morning, I knocked on the front door of a handsome two-story home in Redwood City, Calif. Within seconds, the door was opened by a faceless robot dressed in a beige bodysuit that clung tight to its trim waist and long legs. This svelte humanoid greeted me with …
President Trump’s imposition of tariffs on a scale unseen in nearly a century is more than a shot across the bow at U.S. trading partners. If kept in place, the import taxes will also launch an economic project of defiant nostalgia: an attempt to reclaim America’s place as a dominant …
For three years, the U.S. economy has been buffeted by rapid inflation, high interest rates and political instability at home and abroad. Yet it has proved surprisingly resilient, supported by the sturdy pillars of robust consumer spending, a rising stock market, and healthy balance sheets for households and businesses alike. …
For some federal employees, returning to the office has meant an expansion of their duties to include cleaning toilets and taking out the trash. For others, it has been commuting to a federal building only to continue doing their work through videoconferencing. Some showed up at the office just to …
Follow the latest news on the Trump administration. President Trump’s sweeping tariffs are expected to raise the cost of cars, electronics, metals, lumber, pharmaceuticals and other products that American consumers and businesses buy from overseas. But Mr. Trump and his advisers are betting that it can sell an inflation-weary public …
When Starbucks announced last month that it was laying off more than 1,000 corporate employees, it highlighted a disturbing trend for white-collar workers: Over the past few years, they have seen a steeper rise in unemployment than other groups, and slower wage growth. It also added fuel to a debate …
Feith Shimila Murunga says her boss groped, beat and raped her. Mary Wanjiru Nyambura says she was thrown from a balcony. Winfridah Kwamboka never even made it back home. East African leaders and Saudi royals are among those profiting off a lucrative, deadly trade in domestic workers. By Abdi Latif …