July, 13 2022, 10:52am EDT
Groundwork's Dr. Rakeen Mabud Responds to Latest Inflation Report
Today's Consumer Price Index (CPI) shows year-over-year inflation at 9.1%, driven by rising energy costs. Groundwork's Chief Economist Dr. Rakeen Mabud reacted with the following statement:
"This morning's report highlights the fact that aggressive interest rate hikes by the Fed have done little to combat the inflation that continues to take a toll on workers, families, and small businesses across the country. Additional rate hikes would push millions out of work and further raise the risk of a recession that would only worsen economic pain.
WASHINGTON
Today's Consumer Price Index (CPI) shows year-over-year inflation at 9.1%, driven by rising energy costs. Groundwork's Chief Economist Dr. Rakeen Mabud reacted with the following statement:
"This morning's report highlights the fact that aggressive interest rate hikes by the Fed have done little to combat the inflation that continues to take a toll on workers, families, and small businesses across the country. Additional rate hikes would push millions out of work and further raise the risk of a recession that would only worsen economic pain.
"Policymakers must tackle inflation at its source: by addressing the rampant corporate profiteering and snarled supply chains that are causing significant financial hardship across the country."
Email press@groundworkcollaborative.org to speak with Dr. Mabud about today's CPI report and visit endcorporateprofiteering.org to see our latest research.
The latest inflation news and research:
- Smerconish: Throwing Millions of Americans Out of Work Won't Fix Inflation. "In order to do what's necessary to stop inflation," (Summers) said. "The Fed is going to raise interest rates enough that the economy will slip into recession." When a so-called solution to inflation involves making countless workers and their families worse off, it is not a solution. It's just cruel. It reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of why prices are rising in the first place.
- ProPublica: What's Really Driving Inflation? The prices of gas, meat, and housing in particular have dramatically increased. But while consumer spending power has weakened, some corporations are seeing increased profit margins, especially those in highly concentrated industries. At this event, ProPublica brought an accountability lens to the inflation conversation, provided broader context on current economic conditions and illuminated potential solutions with a panel of experts, including Dr. Rakeen Mabud, chief economist and managing director of policy and research at the Groundwork Collaborative.
- HuffPost: The Federal Reserve Can't Fix Supply Problems, But It Can Make People Poorer. "By slowing demand too aggressively, they could very well cause an economic downturn and get a lot of people fired and make people poor, make families poor, even though they're already struggling from rising prices," Jin Woo Chung, senior economist at the progressive think tank Groundwork Collaborative, said in an interview.
- Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco: How Much Do Supply and Demand Drive Inflation? Supply factors explain about half of the difference between current 12-month PCE inflation and pre-pandemic inflation levels, and the effects appear to be rising more recently. Demand factors are responsible for about a third of the difference, and those effects appear to be diminishing more recently.
- Roosevelt Institute: Prices, Profits, and Power: An Analysis of 2021 Firm-Level Markups. Markups and profits skyrocketed in 2021 to their highest recorded level since the 1950s. Further, firms in the US increased their markups and profits in 2021 at the fastest annual pace since 1955. There are broad markup increases across many types and sizes of firms, suggesting the influence of demand, and a historically unique movement of markups between industries, suggesting a supply story.
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The Groundwork Collaborative is dedicated to advancing a coherent and persuasive progressive economic worldview and narrative capable of delivering meaningful opportunity and prosperity for everyone. Our work is driven by a core guiding principle: We are the economy. Groundwork Collaborative envisions an economic system that produces strong, broadly shared prosperity and power for all people, not just a wealthy few.
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Rights advocates were energized by the "gold standard" poll results, but called on progressives to continue working to turn out voters.
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Political observers expressed shock Saturday evening as the Des Moines Register released its final poll before Election Day showing Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris leading Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump by three points.
Harris was supported by 47% of respondents compared to 44% who backed Trump.
The newspaper's poll, conducted by pollster J. Ann Selzer, is widely regarded as the "gold standard" survey of voters in the state and has been recognized as "predicting" numerous election results in Iowa and giving a potential preview of how candidates could fare in other Midwestern states with similar demographics.
Progressive advocates cautioned against placing too much faith in a single poll—even a widely respected one—and urged Harris supporters to continue canvassing, phone-banking, and taking action to defeat Trump and the far-right MAGA movement.
But the unexpected result in a state that hasn't been considered a swing state in this election, and was widely assumed to be a Trump-supporting state, led political observers to look closely at the poll, which showed significant shifts toward Harris among women.
Women aged 65 and older supported Harris over Trump, 63% to 28%, in the poll. Women who identify as political independents also backed her, 57% to 29%.
Overall, women in the state are backing Harris in the poll by a margin of 20 points, according to the survey.
Lyz Lenz, a journalist based in Iowa, said she believed the poll could be linked to one major change in Iowa since the last presidential election: the six-week abortion ban that took effect in July, banning abortion care after fetal cardiac activity can be detected. Similar abortion bans have been blamed for at least four deaths of pregnant women in Texas and Georgia.
"It's the abortion ban," said Lenz. "Women are furious."
Daniel Nichanian, editor-in-chief and founder of the digital magazine Bolts, said the result could preview losses for state Supreme Court justices who have upheld abortion bans in a number of states, including Iowa.
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Selzer herself told the BBC that many respondents talked about abortion rights.
"The people who say they're supporting Kamala Harris, the issue they say they're thinking about most is democracy, about half of them saying that's the most important thing," she said. "But then half of that, about 25% roughly, say abortion. And Iowa has one of the strictest abortion laws in place... and that may well have played a part in this."
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Dan Pfeiffer, a former adviser to President Barack Obama and co-host of "Pod Save America," said one possible interpretation among several is that "Harris isn't really winning Iowa but the poll is capturing late-stage momentum that bodes well for Wisconsin, Michigan, [and] Pennsylvania."
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"Dr. Davis, what do I do?" asks a man frantically, kneeling near his partner as she writhes in pain on the floor.
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Watch:
The ad went viral on social media late Saturday, the day after ProPublica reported on Nevaeh Crain, an 18-year-old in Texas who died last year at six months pregnant, when she was diagnosed with sepsis—a fast-moving and potentially deadly condition that can result from an infection.
Because of Texas' six-week abortion ban, which threatens doctors with prison time if they terminate a pregnancy before a fetal heartbeat has stopped, Crain made three emergency room visits and was required to have multiple ultrasounds as she became increasingly ill. By the time doctors confirmed "fetal demise," Crain's organs had begun failing. She died hours later.
The investigative outlet has also reported on the deaths of another woman in Texas—Josseli Barnica—and two women in Georgia, Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller—from state abortion bans since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022.
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Officials at the international biodiversity conference that began in October were forced on Saturday to suspend talks without reaching an agreement on a key issue of the summit—a detailed finance plan for a dedicated biodiversity fund—after the meeting went into overtime and delegates began leaving.
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Lambrechts acknowledged that "big pharma and big agribusiness failed to block a game-changing deal on corporate responsibility to pay up for nature protections."
COP16 delegates devised a plan to create a fund that would share the profits generated from digitally sequenced genetic data taken from plants and animals with the communities—mostly in the Global South—that the species come from.
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A work plan was approved by the convention to expand the role of Indigenous people, local communities, and Afro-descendant people in the protection of biodiversity.
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Nele Marien, forests and biodiversity co-coordinator for FOE, said Saturday that "corporations were here pushing very hard for all kinds of false solutions, for example on biodiversity offsetting, which had a lot of traction."
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A spokesperson for the CBD, David Ainsworth, told reporters that the conference would resume at a later date.
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