In two previous blog posts, I’ve talked about the backdrop and environment for 2023 UAW negotiations with Ford, GM, and Stellantis, recent contract history, and how that history has impacted hourly labor costs, wages, and other conditions of work. In this post, I cover the typical process for these contract talks, which is largely guided by the UAW’s constitution and e... Read More

The U.S. auto industry is highly cyclical and even when the overall industry is up or down, the fortunes of individual UAW-represented automakers have waxed and waned. What follows is a summary of previous rounds of bargaining between 2003 and 2019. Contracts during this period were for four years, though the parties could—and can in the future—agree to any term. This blog post first discusses re... Read More

The U.S. automotive industry is a large and critical part of the U.S. economy, and nowhere is that more apparent than in the Federal Reserve's Seventh District, home of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.1 About 60% of the UAW members impacted by this year's high-profile UAW labor negotiations with Ford, General Motors (GM), and Stellantis work in the Chicago Fed's District.2 These three compan... Read More

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) promised strong government incentives for the purchase and manufacture of green vehicles. However, specific guidance on these incentives c ame out slowly over the course of months. An electric vehicle 'refuels' from a public charging station. (Photo: onurdongel via Getty Images) The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) prom... Read More

Initial unemployment insurance (UI) claims are a weekly measure from the U.S. Department of Labor of how many new people have filed for unemployment benefits. A well-known leading indicator and one of the few official statistics released at a weekly frequency, initial UI claims are carefully monitored by economists for signs of turning points in economic activity. That said, they are at best... Read More

This is the second of two blog posts summarizing Creating Conversations on the Challenges and Opportunities Facing Rural Economic Development—a conference cohosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and the W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research on September 28–29, 2022, in western Michigan. As explained in greater detail in the first blog post, the conference featured t... Read More

This is the first of two blog posts summarizing Creating Conversations on the Challenges and Opportunities Facing Rural Economic Development—a conference cohosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and the W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research on September 28–29, 2022, in western Michigan. The conference featured two major segments. The first segment was a field trip to... Read More

Change happens when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change. —Tony Robbins, as cited by Georgia Gann Dohrmann, Assistant Director of the San Francisco Bay Area’s Metropolitan Transportation Commission As public transit experts gathered at the Chicago Fed recently to confront post-pandemic challenges, one theme kept appearing: The pain points transit agencies and... Read More

Automation has been replacing or enhancing human labor for centuries now. But between advances in robotics and artificial intelligence and the spur of the Covid-19 pandemic, this seems an especially significant time in machines’ move toward taking over work that humans used to do. While job automation is a seemingly inexorable process, it is not necessarily an equitable one. Recent research fr... Read More

Affordability has been one of the dominant recent issues in the automotive industry. Average new car prices were at $48,763 in February, according to Kelley Blue Book, almost 30% higher than three years earlier, before the Covid-19 pandemic and its disruptions. David Gohlke (l.) of Argonne National Laboratory presents at the Chicago Fed’s 2023 Automotive Insights Symposium while Peter D... Read More