Jason Furman

📈📈📈As criticism of the US economy rises, @jasonfurman provides an in-depth comparison between the 2024 and 2025 economies. According to the numbers, not much has changed. Read more here ⤵️ nytimes.com/2026/03/18/opi…

@phl43 The exchange rate adjustment is a good way to think about the global impact but for US would still do dollars. Plus our economy less oil intensive and less net importer than in 2011. Macro forecasters who quantify the fertilizer etc find it is about 1% the effect of oil.

The dollar has appreciated a lot in the past 15 years relative to other currencies though, so I think it's better to adjust the time series for that, because the purchasing power of a dollar was significantly less in 2011. I asked ChatGPT to do it by using the Fed's Real Broad Dollar Index and this is what it looks like. It shows that, once the barrel gets over ~$125 (which I expect to happen soon unless Trump pulls the plug on this stupidity), we'll be about where we were in 2011 by that measure. The difference though is that, compared to 2011, it's not just oil that is affected but also natural gas, fertilizer, helium, etc. Another interesting difference is that oil markets are fragmenting, with large crude and crack spreads, in a way that I don't think was the case back then.

@jasonfurman Should adjust by the trade weighted dollar index as well. Since a stronger dollar means the same nominal price is higher for the world economy.

One thing I enjoy at the NYT is responding to some of the reader comments (sadly only a tiny fraction), you can read it here. A number of other authors do the same so look out for them when you see the author photo in the comment box. #commentsContainer" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">nytimes.com/2026/03/18/opi…

Remember when oil topped $150/barrel in the wake of the 2011 Libya strikes? And stayed above that price for most of the next 2 yrs? OK, you may not remember because you probably weren't thinking about oil in 2026 prices back then. But if you were that's what you would have seen.

The FOMC's forecast revisions were tiny compared to the images we're seeing from the Middle East.

This is exactly right. And the correct answer post-Ukraine invasion is the correct answer now: just focus on core inflation. There is very little passthrough from oil prices to core. (And looking through 95% may be better than looking through 100%.)

Some lessons here about economic forecasting (Presidents & events matter less than we think), politics (Trump hasn't come close to solving the problems he thinks he has), and maybe even what can sometimes be our own biases.

For more on the data bearing on K-shaped see @ernietedeschi . stripeeconomics.substack.com/p/k-shaped-eco…

New piece in @nytopinion arguing that the economy since Trump took office looks an awful lot like the economy in the year before he took office. nytimes.com/2026/03/18/opi…

.@jasonfurman: the economy of 2024 and the economy of 2025 looked pretty similar

New piece in @nytopinion arguing that the economy since Trump took office looks an awful lot like the economy in the year before he took office.

"There is now unambiguous, solid economic evidence, not just abstract economic theory, that rent control would make the affordability problems facing [Massachusetts] worse, not better." - Jon Gruber, Chairman of the Economics Department at MIT

Yes. I think Trump's economic decision-making has been putrid. But the fact that the 30,000 foot view of the economy remains so difficult to change is its own important data point. x.com/amyewalter/sta…