Sabri Ben-Achour

Correspondent & Host

Latest Stories (660)

Housing permits are up for single homes but down for big apartments

Oct 18, 2024
Builders are shying away from multifamily homes because of supply and cost issues. But single-family homes are cheaper and faster to build.
Builders broke ground on about 5.5% more single-family homes in September than a year ago.
Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images

What is capacity utilization, and how is it relevant?

Oct 17, 2024
The extent to which industries make use of their production capacity has a bearing on inflation.
The U.S. economy's average capacity utilization rate was 77.5% for September.
Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty Images

How Harris, Trump plans compare on the national debt, and why you should care

Oct 11, 2024
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says both candidates' tax and spending promises would widen deficits, Trump's by a lot more.
The Harris campaign promises funding support for elder care and first-time homebuyers, as well as hiking the corporate tax rate, and Trump's policy agenda includes expanded tax cuts and increased trade tariffs.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Why economists are struggling to predict jobs growth

Oct 8, 2024
The increasingly dynamic nature of the American economy since the COVID-19 pandemic has wrought deep changes.
Although economists are less inaccurate with their jobs growth predictions than they were earlier in the pandemic, some key indicators are still incongruent with our economic reality.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

Boeing is a cautionary tale about current American manufacturing

Oct 4, 2024
Outsourcing work overseas has led to short-term financial gain in return for longer-term losses, like the ability to both make and innovate.
“In Boeing’s case especially, it [outsourcing] ended up more expensive than if it had kind of just stuck with its original culture of manufacturing first," says Jerry Useem, who has written about the company for more than 20 years. Above, Boeing 777s are assembled in its Everett, Washington, facility in 2011.
Stephen Brashear/Getty Images

A "temperature check" on U.S.-China economic relations

We talked with Jay Shambaugh of the Treasury Department, leader of the most recent U.S.-China Economic Working Group meeting.
cbarnesphotography/Getty Images

Manufacturing may be turning around after nearly 2 years in the dumps

Sep 30, 2024
The economy may finally be emerging from pandemic weirdness.
Construction of industrial buildings is one part of the manufacturing sector that seems to be on the upswing.
Doug Kapustin/For The Washington Post via Getty Images

A dockworkers strike is days away. What would it mean for the economy?

The deadline for negotiations between the union representing dockworkers and the ports is next week.
Wesley Lapointe for The Washington Post via Getty Images

Generic drugs in the U.S. face new economic pressures 40 years on

The generic drug industry in the U.S. has saved people billions and billions of dollars. But it faces new economic pressure today.
"Economists told me that now the prices of some drugs are almost too cheap," explained reporter and producer Leslie Walker.
John Moore/Getty Images

How inflation is impacting the way we eat, when we go to restaurants and how we tip

In its latest report on restaurants, Toast finds a shift toward restaurant spending in the mornings, away from lunch and dinner.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images