Jobs report shows US unexpectedly lost jobs in February
Jerome Powell, chairman of the US Federal Reserve, speaks during a news conference following a Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (Photographer: Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The U.S. economy lost jobs in February, marking a major reversal of fortunes for the labor market and nearly erasing all of the job gains delivered a month earlier, government data on Friday showed. The reading came in well below economists’ expectations.
The U.S. lost 92,000 jobs in February, according to the report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which marked a significant dropoff from 130,000 jobs added in the previous month.
The unemployment rate ticked up from 4.3% in January to 4.4% in February, the BLS said. Unemployment remains low by historical standards.
The new jobs report arrived as markets roil and gasoline prices surge in response to the war with Iran. The Middle East conflict cast fresh uncertainty over the economic outlook.
A hiring cooldown last year prompted interest rate cuts at the Federal Reserve and concern among some observers about the nation’s economic prospects. The U.S. added an average of about 15,000 jobs per month in 2025, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed.
Sluggish hiring has coincided with elevated inflation, threatening a period of “stagflation.”
Those economic headwinds helped set the conditions before the outbreak of war with Iran, which spiked oil prices and risked price increases for a host of diesel-fuel transported goods.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 785 points on Thursday as U.S. crude prices rose to their highest level since June.
Still, the overall economic picture remains mixed.
A government report in February on gross domestic product (GDP) showed the economy grew at a tepid annualized pace of 1.4% over the final three months of 2025. That reading indicated a dramatic cooldown from the strong annualized growth of 4.4% recorded in the previous quarter, U.S. Commerce Department data showed.
Price increases, meanwhile, have softened. In January, inflation fell to 2.4%, its lowest level in nine months. It remains slightly higher than the Federal Reserve’s target rate of 2%.
The Iran war threatens to slow U.S. economic growth since oil-driven price increases could weigh on consumers and businesses, analysts previously told ABC News.
The potential combination of higher inflation and slower growth could also pose a challenge for the Fed, putting pressure on both sides of its dual mandate to manage prices and maintain maximum employment.
If the Fed opts to lower borrowing costs, it could spur growth but risk higher inflation. On the other hand, the choice to raise interest rates may slow price increases but risks a cooldown of economic performance.
The central bank held interest rates steady at its most recent meeting in January, ending a string of three consecutive quarter-point rate cuts. Policymakers will make their next interest-rate decision on March 18.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell speaks during a press conference following the Federal Open Markets Committee meeting at the Federal Reserve on December 10, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — An inflation report to be released on Thursday will offer a look at price increases for the first time in nearly two months, after the 43-day government shutdown impaired data collection.
The fresh data is set to arrive amid an uptick of inflation over recent months that has coincided with a flurry of tariffs issued by President Donald Trump. Economists expect that acceleration of price increases to have continued last month, forecasting a jump in year-over-year inflation from 3% in September to 3.1% in November.
The report will detail the latest price movements for high-profile items like coffee, beef and eggs.
In September — the most recent month for which data is available — the price of coffee soared nearly 19% and the price of beef jumped about 15%, when compared to the same month a year prior.
The year-over-year price of eggs dropped nearly 5% in September, offering a bright spot for consumers.
The federal government will issue partial price data for October, but the release will not include a figure for the overall rise in prices that month, since officials failed to collect sufficient information during the government shutdown, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) previously said in a statement.
The latest snapshot of price increases comes at a wobbly period for the U.S. economy, landing in a period marked by sluggish hiring and elevated inflation.
Two major economic data releases earlier this week flashed warning signs, some analysts previously told ABC News.
The U.S. added 64,000 jobs in November, which marked a significant decline from 119,000 jobs added in September, the most recent month for which complete data is available, the BLS said in a jobs report on Tuesday.
The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.6% in November from 4.4% in September. Unemployment remains low by historical standards but has inched up to its highest level since 2021.
A retail sales report on Tuesday also sounded a cautionary note about consumer spending, which accounts for about two-thirds of U.S. economic activity. Retail sales were left unchanged in October from September, meaning performance remained flat despite the ramp-up of the holiday season, U.S. Census Bureau data showed.
Last week, the Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate a quarter of a percentage point in an effort to boost the sluggish labor market. The move amounted to the third rate cut this year, bringing the Fed’s benchmark rate to a level between 3.5% and 3.75%.
Interest rates have dropped significantly from a recent peak attained in 2023, but borrowing costs remain well above a 0% rate established at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Fed is stuck in a bind, since the central bank must balance a dual mandate to keep inflation under control and maximize employment. To address pressure on both of its goals, the Fed primarily holds a single tool: interest rates.
The pressure on both sides of the Fed’s dual mandate present a “challenging situation” for the central bank, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said at a press conference in Washington, D.C., last week.
“There’s no risk-free path for policy as we navigate this tension between our employment and inflation goals,” Powell added.
The Fed will meet again to adjust interest rates next month. The odds of interest rates being left unchanged stand at about 75%, while the chances of a quarter-point rate cut register at 25%, according to CME FedWatch Tool, a measure of market sentiment.
A gas pump is seen in a vehicle on November 26, 2025 in Austin, Texas. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — President Donald Trump has repeatedly touted the opportunity for U.S. companies to extract and sell oil from Venezuela, which holds the largest oil reserves in the world.
“We’re going to be taking out a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground,” Trump said on Saturday, just hours after a U.S. military attack removed Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro.
Venezuelan oil, however, will likely provide little relief for gas prices paid by Americans over the coming months, analysts told ABC News. They cited the relatively small amount of oil at stake in the near term and the glut of crude already flooding global markets.
A more substantial amount of oil could be accessed over the coming years, leading to a potentially noticeable decline in prices at the pump, they added. But that outcome remains uncertain, since oil companies face significant political and logistical hurdles in Venezuela, while wider market conditions could shift in the meantime.
“I would not expect to see a sharp drop because of this event,” Richard Joswick, head of near-term oil analysis at S&P Global Commodity Insights, told ABC News.
Oil executives are set to meet with President Donald Trump at the White House on Friday to discuss investments in Venezuela, a White House official confirmed to ABC News.
Venezuela boasts the biggest proven oil reserve of any country, amounting to roughly 303 billion barrels or about 17% of the world’s reserves, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, or EIA, a federal agency.
For decades, however, the nation has struggled to match those holdings with similarly stratospheric output due to lackluster infrastructure and government mismanagement.
Venezuela exported about 749,000 barrels per day last year, totaling less than 1% of global supply, according to data and analytics company Kpler.
In a social media post on Tuesday, Trump said Venezuela would hand over 30 to 50 million barrels of oil to the U.S., which in turn would sell them at their market price. The resulting funds — as much as $2.8 billion at current prices — will “benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States,” Trump said.
Trump has not provided details about the timing of such sales.
The plan proposed Tuesday would likely have little or no effect on U.S. gasoline prices, analysts told ABC News. The amount of oil stipulated by Trump is relatively small, making up the equivalent of between one-third and half of the oil consumed worldwide in a single day, according to data compiled by the EIA.
“Short term, I don’t think we’ll see much of an impact,” Tucker Balch, a finance professor at Emory University, told ABC News. “It’s not a lot of oil right now.”
Even more, oil prices are hovering near their lowest levels since 2021, meaning it will prove difficult to bring prices down further anytime soon, analysts added. Low oil prices stem from a glut of oil alongside relatively slow global economic growth, which has constricted demand for fossil fuels.
“There’s an oversupply and weak demand. More crude won’t make a big difference in the overall price,” Ramanan Krishnamoorti, a professor of petroleum engineering at the University of Houston, told ABC News.
After the military operation, Trump outlined a long-term role for U.S. oil companies in Venezuela, saying the firms would spend money to improve the nation’s infrastructure and output.
“We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies — the biggest anywhere in the world — go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure,” Trump said during a press conference on Saturday at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida.
A U.S.-led effort to extract and sell the massive Venezuelan oil reserves could inject a substantial amount of oil into global markets and noticeably reduce gasoline prices, some analysts said.
Venezuelan oil production topped out at 3.5 million barrels per day in the 1990s, Kpler said. A return to that output would amount to about 4% of global oil supply, S&P’s Joswick, adding that the influx could push down gasoline prices.
“Prices are set on the margin and small imbalances in volume can lead to large shifts in prices,” Joswick said.
A long-term venture would encounter challenges, however, some analysts said.
The infrastructure necessary to ramp up oil production would require tens of billions of dollars of investment over several years, while oil companies involved in the effort would face political risks, according to analysts.
Chevron is currently the only U.S. oil firm operating in Venezuela, as part of a joint venture with the country’s state-owned oil outfit.
ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips stopped doing business in Venezuela in 2007, after former President Hugo Chavez nationalized the sector. Citing the unlawful seizure of assets belonging to the two oil giants, the World Bank’s International Center for Settlement of Investment ordered Venezuela to pay the firms billions of dollars. Venezuela has only paid a small share of the debt it owes to ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips.
The policy approach in Venezuela is uncertain over the coming years, while the same goes for the U.S. as a presidential election approaches in 2028, Krishnamoorti said.
“It’s unlikely the oil companies are going to take the bait to go after some significantly difficult oil to produce in a very uncertain U.S. policy and global policy situation,” Krishnamoorti added.
Joswick noted, however, that possible success in accessing Venezuelan oil over the next few years could be a “big incentive for the continuation of similar policies.”
While touting potential U.S. oil interests in Venezuela, the Trump administration has described the operation as a law enforcement function rather than a military attack.
Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, are among six defendants named in a four-count superseding indictment that accused them of conspiring with violent, dangerous drug traffickers for the last 25 years. Maduro was indicted on related charges in 2020. He has long denied all the allegations, and he pleaded not guilty on Monday. Flores also pleaded not guilty.
So far, the major oil firms have yet to speak publicly about Trump’s plans.
In a previous statement to ABC News, ConocoPhillips said the firm is keeping tabs on the ongoing situation.
“ConocoPhillips is monitoring developments in Venezuela and their potential implications for global energy supply and stability. It would be premature to speculate on any future business activities or investments,” the company said.
Chevron said it continues to focus on its current operations.
“Chevron remains focused on the safety and wellbeing of our employees, as well as the integrity of our assets. We continue to operate in full compliance with all relevant laws and regulations,” it said in a statement.
ExxonMobil did not respond to a request for comment.
U.S. President Donald Trump listens during a ceremony for the presentation of the Mexican Border Defense Medal in the Oval Office of the White House on December 15, 2025, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump this week issued an attention-grabbing proposal cracking down on Wall Street in an effort to lower home prices and ease affordability woes.
In a social media post, Trump said he would move to ban large institutional investors from “buying more single-family homes” and he urged Congress to codify the policy into law. Trump accused industry behemoths of buying up properties and shutting average Americans out of the housing market.
“People live in homes, not corporations,” Trump said in the post on Wednesday.
Several analysts who spoke to ABC News are skeptical that the proposal would meaningfully reduce home prices nationwide.
Institutional investors own a small fraction of single-family homes and many of those properties are occupied by renters, they said, meaning the ban would do little to address the supply shortage at the root of the affordability crisis.
“In the scheme of things, we’re talking about such a small number of homes,” Marc Norman, associate dean at the New York University School of Professional Studies and Schack Institute of Real Estate, told ABC News.
The median price of an existing home in November stood at $409,200, the National Association of Realtors, or NAR, said last month. Prices have surged 24% over the past five years, according to NAR data.
The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage is 6.16%, hovering near its lowest level in 15 months, Freddie Mac data showed. But mortgage rates remain well above sub-3% levels recorded as recently as 2021.
Trump aims to address sky-high prices by shutting institutional investors out of the market for single-family homes, which in theory could alleviate the supply-demand crunch and put downward pressure on prices.
“I am immediately taking steps to ban large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes, and I will be calling on Congress to codify it,” Trump said in a social media post.
Trump did not detail the steps he planned on taking to move forward with the ban. The White House did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
On Wednesday, Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, said in a post on X he would introduce legislation meant to codify the proposal.
Congress has previously put forward bills aimed at limiting the role of institutional investors in the market for single-family homes. In 2023, Democratic members of the House and Senate introduced a bill that would have imposed an excise tax on hedge funds that own a large number of single-family residences.
Shares of some major industry players fell in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s announcement. Blackstone, Invitation Homes and American Homes for Rent saw their stock prices fall between 4% and 6% on Wednesday.
The National Rental Home Council, or NRHC, a trade group working on behalf of the single-family rental home industry, issued a statement commending “the administration’s focus on ensuring Americans have access to a diverse mix of housing options.”
“We look forward to engaging with the White House and other policymakers in this important discussion,” the NRHC said.
The snag, these analysts said, is that institutional investors do not hold a big slice of the market.
Institutional investors own about 450,000 homes, which amounts to roughly 3% of the single-family market, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, or GAO, found in a study last year that analyzed data from 2022.
“The big question here is: Are large-scale institutional investors crowding out prospective homebuyers?” Jake Krimmel, senior economist at realtor.com, told ABC News Live. “The answer is ‘no.’”
Institutional ownership is concentrated in some regions, particularly in the Sun Belt, according to the GAO.
Institutions own 21% of homes in Jacksonville, Florida, and 18% of homes in Charlotte, North Carolina, the GAO found. In Atlanta, institutions own 1 out of 4 homes.
Analysts who spoke to ABC News disagreed about whether the ban on institutional ownership could lower prices in those highly concentrated markets.
Some said the elimination of a key source of demand could push down prices, while others cautioned the move would likely have little effect in those places, since an injection of new supply has already helped ease price pressures in many of those areas.
“In some select markets, this will have some bite,” Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, a professor of real estate at Columbia University Business School, told ABC News. “Overall, it’s not such a big deal.”
