Lydia DePillis
NYT economics reporter. Just checking things out over here.
- Two months of heavy ICE presence in the Twin Cities are crushing the metro area's retail, food, and entertainment industries -- like Covid, business owners told me, except without the federal aid. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/02/b...
- The great @anaswanson.bsky.social and I took a look back on what a year of Trump policy hath wrought for manufacturing. Short version: No big resurgence, but some interesting stuff going on under the surface. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/29/b...
- Today from me: Bill Pulte has made a lot of headlines for going after Trump's opponents and proposing far-fetched housing affordability ideas. But the agency he runs, FHFA, has taken steps that make it harder for low-income people to buy homes. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/14/b...
- Early last year, a study came out in Nature that forecasted climate change would cause truly shocking economic damages at the end of the century if left unabated. Today, the journal retracted it. I explain why and what it means: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/03/b...
- Did some videosplaining of the jobs situation that we learned about yesterday: www.nytimes.com/video/busine...
- Our final pass on today's jobs report, the first since early September and the last until mid-December. In a twist, job growth is healthy but unemployment is rising: www.nytimes.com/live/2025/bu...
- Since the pandemic, private equity firms have been aggressively rolling up home remodeling and roofing companies. A couple of weeks ago, one of the largest platforms abruptly collapsed. I found out what happened, and explain what it means: www.nytimes.com/2025/11/13/b...
- Today from me: Come for the cat picture, stay for the exploration of how specialty grocery stores serving immigrant diasporas are seeing the most concentrated impact from super-high tariffs on places like Myanmar and Bangladesh. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/11/b...
- For an effective tariff rate that's now at about 9%, pass through to consumer prices has been somewhat muted. But if you listen to earnings calls, that's a mirage: Businesses are saying they'll have to keep raising prices to make up for the new costs. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/24/b...
- Usually government shutdowns just displace economic activity. This one could be different: It's broader than some we've seen in the past, it could be longer, and it's hitting at the worst time of year for many farms and small businesses. From me today: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/21/b...
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- Today from me: The unemployment rate for Black workers has leapt upward in recent months, while staying level for other demographic groups. There are some pretty strong indications of what's going on. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/12/b...
- Today from me: Everybody knew H-1B visas had problems. There were lots of ideas out there for how to fix it, and maximize the program's economic impact. A $100,000 fee wasn't one of them. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/29/b...
- The equation of A.I. usage with "progress" seems like a big embedded assumption here
- Today with @haleaziz.bsky.social : Most of the Korean workers detained during an ICE raid on a Ga. battery plant last week were on short-term businesses visas. In at least one case, ICE acknowledged a worker hadn't violated his visa, and forced him to deport anyway. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/12/b...
- In the annual poverty & income numbers for 2024, the numbers appeared calm on the surface but reveal some interesting divergences and convergences underneath: www.nytimes.com/2025/09/09/b...
- Pitched in on our coverage of the giant ICE raid on an EV battery plant in Georgia, where the Trump administration's immigration enforcement agenda is coming into conflict with its U.S. manufacturing ambitions. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/06/u...
- Here's our final cut on this morning's sputtering jobs report, which shows employment not even growing fast enough to soak up the shrinking number of people entering the labor force: www.nytimes.com/2025/09/05/b...
- Happy jobs day. As a special treat, I also have a story from Miami about the strange equilibrium we're in: As the Trump administration gradually starts reversing the flow of immigration, the unemployment rate has remained steady even as job growth slows. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/05/b...
- From me today: Squinting at GDP numbers, it's become clear that A.I. is propping up the economy -- not through productivity growth, but simply the sheer amount of money going into physical infrastructure needed to support all the computing power it gobbles up. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/b...
- Joining @thebrianlehrershow.bsky.social shortly to talk trade and economy and stuff. Hop on that @wnyc.org channel
- Labor market and inflation data have taken a turn for the worse over the past few weeks. But this economy has taken a bunch of hits in recent years and kept on ticking, so economists aren't doomcasting yet. Here's my effort to put it all together: www.nytimes.com/2025/08/19/b...
- One more from my stint in South Korea: At last count, some 7 million people studied abroad. As Trump pushes away international students, it appears that fewer of them will come to American schools. But Southeast Asia is aggressively taking up the slack. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/14/b...
- With @bencasselman.bsky.social and Alan Rappeport, a bit more on President Trump's pick to lead the BLS, Dr. E.J. Antoni III. The nomination has elicited strong concerns about the integrity of data that policymakers, investors, and journalists all depend on. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/12/b...
- I dug into the transshipment provision of the big reciprocal tariffs now in effect. Trade lawyers suspected that something bigger was in the works: A new plan for charging higher rates on all third-country parts & materials. Turns out they were right -- www.nytimes.com/2025/08/08/b...
- What's the deal with all these energy purchase commitments in Trump's trade deals? Why the U.S. is overselling and our trade partners are overbuying, with the actual expert @rfelliott.bsky.social : www.nytimes.com/2025/07/31/b...
- South Korea tried hard for a tariff rate lower than its chief rivals, Japan and the E.U. It failed, despite hundreds of billions of dollars in commitments for new energy purchases and investments. Details remain hazy on what market access it gave up. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/30/b...
- I detoured from my 🇰🇷 detail to check out a 👀 situation in 🇳🇵: E.V.s are taking over the auto market. It shows what can happen when a country pulls out all the stops to leverage its energy assets and fight pollution. With a little help from 🇨🇳. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/b...
- From me today: Countries threatened by Trump's tariff letters are still trying to talk him down. But over the medium to longer term, they're looking for ways to deal less with the U.S. altogether. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/13/b...
- Many of the 14 nations that received tariff letters from President Trump yesterday had tried for months to find something that would satisfy the White House. Ultimately, none of it worked. And now it begins again. Our story from across Asia: www.nytimes.com/2025/07/08/b...
- Meanwhile! I'm in Seoul for the next month, sitting in for the eminent @daiwaka.bsky.social. Here's a story about the South Korean stock market, which is blowing everybody's socks off right now: www.nytimes.com/2025/07/03/b...
- For the few years I've been covering jobs reports, and one sector typically rises above the rest, quietly hiring by the thousands: Health care. How taking care of humans became the biggest employer in America, and what it means for the rest of us: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
- Delighted to team up again with @christinezhang.bsky.social, with a big assist from @bencasselman.bsky.social.
- Also today, I take a look at the melding of labor unions and immigrant organizing that made Los Angeles the place where protests against Trump's deportation agenda were almost certain to take off first. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/11/b...
- Tickled to team up today with @christinezhang.bsky.social for this exploration of how tariff revenue is shaping up and whether it could really fill the fiscal hole the Big GOP Spending/Tax/Etc. Bill would create: www.nytimes.com/2025/06/11/b... (Spoiler: Probably not. Among other problems.)
- One of DOGE's casualties was most of the small team that cares for the nation's sprawling art collection. Now, a Trump friend wants to loan out the works to museums and governments around the world. Me today with the great Robin Pogrebin and Graham Bowley: www.nytimes.com/2025/06/08/a...
- Reupping for the morning crowd:
