美国经济笔记：未来一周你需要知道的事

US Economic Notes What you need to know for the week ahead Brett RyanSenior US Economist+1-212-250-6294 Commentary forMonday:In addition topotential developments in the MiddleEast,market participants will focus closely on Wednesday’s March FOMCmeeting.Regarding the Iran war, as wewrote recently(see “US EconomicPerspectives: How big of an oil shock can the Big Beautiful Bill handle?“)mapping the impact of potential energy price shocks to consumers, we find thatat a sustained $100/bbl oil price(near current levels), the projected tax benefitsto consumers from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) would still exceed thedrag from theimplied “energy tax”increase. However, at $150/bbl,theincreasein energy costswould present a more serious threat to the outlook for consumerspending.At present, wehavenot made any changes to our2026 real GDPgrowth forecast of 2.4% (Q4/Q4). Justin WeidnerEconomist+1-212-469-1679 Matthew Luzzetti, Ph.D.Chief US Economist+1-212-250-6161 Amy YangEconomist+1-212-250-9959 That said,the rise in energy priceshas nudged up our headline inflationestimatesfor this year (see “US Economic Perspectives: US outlook Cliffs notes (March2026)“)and we expect Fed officials will do the same when theyfinalizetheir latestSummary ofEconomic Projections (SEP).With respect to Wednesday’s FOMCmeeting (see “Fed Notes: March FOMC preview: A longer wait to see through thefog“),we expect the Fed will keep rates steady, as their communicationsemphasize elevated uncertainty from the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.With policy "well positioned", Chair Powell is likely to avoid any strong signalsabout near-term policy, most likely setting the Fed up for a third consecutive holdat the April meeting–his last leading the Fed. We expect a couple of changes to the meeting statement. First,it is likely that theCommittee will average the January and February reports and therefore statethat “On average, job gains have remained low, and the unemployment rate hasbeen stable.”Second, we expect the Committee to acknowledge the latestgeopoliticaldevelopments with similar language used at the onset of theUkraine/Russiacrisis stating“The implications of recent geopoliticaldevelopments for the US economy are highly uncertain. In the near term, theseevents are likely to create additional upward pressure on inflation and weigh oneconomic activity.” The (SEP) should be little changed, except for upward revisions to headline andcore PCE inflation for this year. Although it will not take much to move the mediandot for 2026, we expect it will most likely stay at one rate cut. In contrast, the long-rundot could edge higher. Regarding Chair Powell’s press conference,hewill most likely emphasize thatsignificant uncertainty remains abouthow recent events could impact theeconomy and monetary policy. We suspect Powell will note that they are watchingevents closely and that the primary transmission channel is through financialmarkets / conditions and especially oil prices. In terms of the implications for interest rates, Powell will note that policy remains“wellpositioned”to respond to the consequences of these shocks.Fundamentally, the latest oil price spike represents another adverse supply shockthat would, at the margin, create further tensions between the Fed’s dualmandates, all else equal. While markets have interpreted these developments asleaning hawkish for the Fed–an interpretation we agree with directionally–Powell is unlikely to give a strong signal about how near-term policy has beenaffected, if at all (see“Impact of oil price shocks a ‘frack’-tion of what they oncewere”). As we argued recently, the Fed’s response to geopolitically-driven oilprice shocks has been context-dependent historically (see “What does history tellus about the Fed’s response to oil price shocks?”). On the labor market,extreme volatility in the two jobs reports since the Januarymeeting leave questions about risks to the labor market(see“February jobsreport: The CES giveth and the CES taketh away“).We think the truth issomewhere in the middle–smoothing through the last two jobs reports privateand headline payrolls have averaged in the 30-50k range and ADP private sectoremployment has picked up to 60k, all near breakeven estimates. These figuresare consistent with labor market slack broadly steady in recent months and couldbe viewed as consistent with some evidence of stability. Powelland his colleagues are likely to feel less sanguine about inflationdevelopments since the last meeting, even as they maintain an expectation fordisinflationary pressures to re-emerge. Core PCE inflation has printed back-to-back 0.4% monthly prints, lifting the year-over-year rate to 3.1%--its highestsince early 2024–and we are tracking a third consecutive 0.4% print for core PCEin February(see “US Economic Notes: February CPI recap: Not as good as itseemed“).Note that officials will see the latestPPI data on Wednesday morning,the details of which could on the margi