ImageImageStubbornly high inflation is beginning to weigh on households, with sentiment souring fast, economists note.Credit...Brandon Bell/Getty ImagesRising prices hit a trade war

President Trump isn’t backing off his tariff threats, despite the potential risk to the U.S. economy and financial markets.

That puts additional focus on the latest Personal Consumption Expenditures report, the Fed’s favored inflation measure. It’s due for release at 8:30 a.m. Eastern.

The question is whether lingering inflation also will have big implications for the Trump agenda, with some economists predicting that tariffs will raise inflation and lower growth, even if the target countries don’t retaliate. Friday’s report is expected to show only slight relief for consumers.

Economists worry about a hot P.C.E. reading, which could push the central bank to keep borrowing costs higher well into the second half of the year, even as consumer confidence and the mood in the C-suites increasingly turn south and the economy shows signs of slowing.

A recession is seen as unlikely, but there are other concerns. Recent data shows a growing affordability crunch with egg prices spiking (more on that below), home sales plummeting and jobless claims climbing. Watch next week’s jobs report for more, including which parts of the country could be hardest hit by Elon Musk-led cuts to the federal government. (Alaska is among them.)

“With 3 million federal employees potentially worrying about their jobs and 6 million federal contractors worrying about their jobs, the risks are rising that households may begin to hold back purchases of cars, computers, washers,66jogo Cassinos Online Brasil dryers, vacation travel plans, etc.,” Torsten Slok, Apollo’s chief economist, wrote in a research note on Thursday. Sentiment, he added, is “bad.”

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.

In October, he is releasing a new book, “Revenge of The Tipping Point.” Mr. Gladwell feels that “The Tipping Point” became wildly popular because it matched the optimism of the late 1990s; it mapped how to create positive change at a moment of positive potential, with the Cold War over and crime declining. (The book promoted the “broken windows” theory of policing, which suggested that the way to prevent major crimes was to strictly police petty ones, a notion that gave rise to policing practices now viewed by many as discriminatory.)

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

canalipg

Want all of The Times? Subscribe.333beijo777