In the News
On any given day, Groundwork's analyses, op-eds, reports, and commentary are featured in leading publications and on the most influential news programs and podcasts.
On any given day, Groundwork's analyses, op-eds, reports, and commentary are featured in leading publications and on the most influential news programs and podcasts.
The Fed spent a lot of its political capital in raising interest rates to get inflation under control and could have to raise rates again if tariffs boosted inflation. But Lindsay Owens, executive director of the liberal Groundwork Collaborative think tank, said Trump could interfere there, too. “The most likely thing you will see from Trump I think — we’ll see it on the campaign, but also you’d see in a Trump presidency — is just a very aggressive advocacy campaign against the Fed,” Owens said.
Rakeen Mabud, chief economist and managing director of policy and research at the Groundwork Collaborative, an economic think tank, said she is worried that the Fed could wait too long to cut rates and damage the economy. “All the Fed can do at this point is break this really strong recovery that we’ve had … I’m worried now because rate hikes are a really imprecise tool that acts with lags. I don’t know exactly when the full impact of these rate hikes are going to play out and neither does Jerome Powell,” she said.
The liberal economic advocacy group Groundwork Collaborative, for instance, compiled a list of times when corporate executives extolled their profits or price increases, and talked of issuing stock buybacks, increasing dividends or benefiting from high prices or high interest rates.
Today, the Federal Trade Commission released a new study that found large grocery retailers took advantage of supply chain disruptions to raise prices on consumers and squash smaller competitors.
“The ECB's approach to monetary policy, which acknowledges that inflation can come down without inflicting harm on millions of workers when it's being driven by the pricing power of big corporations, stands in stark contrast to Chair Powell's tactic of keeping interest rates at a 23-year high. The European Central Bank is exactly right to consider excessive profit-taking by big corporations when making monetary policy decisions."
Some suggest corporate greed is also to blame. “Outsized corporate profits” are driving more than half of inflation, according to a report from the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive think tank. “Even as supply chain snarls have receded and the U.S. economy has stabilized, our research finds that businesses continue to pad their bottom lines at the expense of American families,” said Lindsay Owens, the Groundwork Collaborative’s executive director.
“While inflation has fallen substantially from its peak, the Fed’s higher interest rates are putting pressure on family budgets by pushing up housing costs and making credit cards and student loans more expensive. Rate cuts are overdue – it's time for Chair Powell to act."
According to one recent study by the Groundwork Collaborative, corporate profiteering drove more than half of inflation between April and September 2023. Last month, following a strong jobs report, Groundwork's Bilal Baydoun called for rate cuts, arguing that "the data is very clear that we never had to sacrifice jobs for lower prices."
Groundwork Collaborative Chief Economist Dr. Rakeen Mabud joins Squawk Box to break down the February Producer Price Index.
Today, Groundwork Collaborative Chief Economist Rakeen Mabud joined CNBC’s Squawk Box to react to today’s February Producer Price Index (PPI) from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.