Jay Powell, this economy, and where things might go from here, from American public media.

This is Marketplace.

In Los Angeles, I'm Kai Rizda. It is Wednesday today, the 19th of March. Good as always to have you along, everybody.

We're going to start with the news, obviously, on this second Fed day of 2025. No change in interest rates from the central bank.

Not that anybody thought there was going to be.

More interesting and more important is how Chair Powell and the gang are thinking about things. As we said on this program a couple of days ago, how they are making sense of the vibes versus

the verifiable data.

We do see pretty solid, hard data still.

That is the main takeaway from Powell's press Conference today that the economy is so far holding.

So growth looks like it's maybe moderating a bit.

GDP, we talked about that slowing just a bit in the fourth quarter.

Consumer spending moderating a bit, but still at a solid pace.

Consumers repeat after me because you have heard it oh so many times, 70% of this whole economy.

Unemployment's 4.1% near historic lows.

Inflation has started to move up now. We think partly in response to tariffs, and there may be a delay in further

progress over the course of this year.

Delay in further progress is Fed speak for inflation's a bit stickier than we want it to be.

So that's the hard data.

Overall, it's a solid picture.

The soft data, on the other hand, the survey data, both household and

businesses, show significant rise in uncertainty and significant concerns about downside risks.

Survey data, literally just asking people and businesses how they're feeling. So how do we think

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