Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte said the administration is “working on” a plan to introduce 50-year mortgage loans.

“Thanks to President [Donald] Trump, we are indeed working on The 50 year Mortgage – a complete game changer,” Pulte wrote in a statement on X over the weekend.

For his part, Trump downplayed the idea in an interview Monday night with Laura Ingraham on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle.”

“It’s not even a big deal,” Trump said. “I mean, you go from 40 to 50 years and what it means is you pay something less. From 30, some people had a 40 and now they have a 50. All it means is you pay less per month. You pay it over a longer period of time. It’s not like a big factor. It might help a little bit.”

Some reports suggested that Pulte blindsided White House officials by going public with the proposal. Pulte later wrote on X that the 50-year mortgage is just one option to making homeownership more affordable.

Much of the policy, or whether it will become reality, remains unclear. Among the biggest hurdles facing it is regulation passed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis that limits most regulated mortgages to a maximum term of 30 years and would need an act of Congress to approve.

There is bipartisan interest in expanding housing affordability in Congress, but approving such a change could meet resistance, where some Republican lawmakers have already come out against 50-year mortgages.

“It will ultimately reward the banks, mortgage lenders and home builders while people pay far more in interest over time and die before they ever pay off their home. In debt forever, in debt for life!” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., wrote on X.

Extending the term of the loan could drop monthly payments and expand the pool of buyers who are able to afford a home by reducing a cost in some budgets. But that relies on the assumption that mortgage rates would be similar on a 50-year loan as a 30-year, which analysts see as highly unlikely.

Fifteen-year loans already offer a lower interest rate than 30-year loans because longer loans are riskier for lenders. As of last Thursday, an average rate on a 30-year mortgage was 6.22%, compared to 5.5% on a 15-year term, according to Freddie Mac. When factoring in a higher interest rate for a longer loan, it would eat into the monthly savings offered on a 50-year mortgage.

Longer loan terms would also slow the rate at which homeowners build equity as they make payments. Borrowers on a 50-year term would have to pay nearly double the amount in interest over the lifetime of a loan, adding to the time it takes for them to build up equity.

“It’s a tradeoff among monthly payment, total interest paid and equity build up. It’s saying, ‘what are your goals in homeownership?’ ” said Keith Munsell, head of the real estate concentration at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business. “I also don’t think it overcomes the biggest impediment to homeownership, which is the down payment.”

Bringing down the cost of homeownership has been a priority for Trump. He has signed an executive order aiming at finding ways the federal government can reduce barriers to homeownership and part of his pressure campaign on the Federal Reserve to bring down its benchmark rates is to make mortgages more affordable.

Even with mortgage rates hovering near lows for the year, the housing market is still one of the most unaffordable in U.S. history. The average cost of an existing home rose to $415,200 in September, according to the National Association of Realtors. Options for building a new home are not much better, with the median sales price at $413,500 as of August, the National Association of Home Builders said.

Both new and existing home prices have continued to move upward despite a housing market slump the last several years, which comes after the ultra-low rates available because of the pandemic turbocharged the market and drastically increased home prices. Expanding the term of loans could help some buyers afford to enter the market, but it does not help address the root causes of the costs.

Industry analysts broadly agree the biggest obstacle to improving the affordability outlook is to increase construction. The rate of home building fell dramatically after the financial crisis and has yet to recover.

“It isn’t going to do a damn thing because the problem is lack of supply,” Munsell said. “If you want to make housing more affordable, let’s cut the price of the materials used. Let’s bring in some innovation into the construction industry. Let’s build modular and truck it out to the job site. Let’s reduce the regulations. I mean, there are a whole host of things you can do.”

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Among those shifts was a swing of Latino voters back to Democrats after shifting to Trump in 2024. If Democrats are able to maintain their support in 2026 and they vote in places like Texas and Florida like they did in Virginia and New Jersey, it could lead to GOP map redraws backfiring.

To make Democratic-leaning districts more obtainable for Republicans, legislators would have to shift left-leaning areas into seats currently held by the GOP, making them more vulnerable in an environment likely to favor Democrats. Those challenges are greater in smaller states with fewer districts and population areas.

Republicans in Texas, North Carolina, Ohio and Missouri have already approved new maps that could net the party nine more seats in the midterms based on voting patterns from the 2024 presidential election. An effort in Kansas has stalled and a mid-decade redistrict in Indiana is facing an uncertain fate as state lawmakers prepare to meet to address it.

The question facing both parties is how the resounding victories for Democrats will reshape their incentives to mess with existing maps.

“You can make the argument that that Republicans might be even more likely to want to do that to try to stave off a blue wave and still be able to control the House. But on the other hand, do some people maybe get a little bit of cold feet?” said Shawn Donahue, a clinical assistant professor of political science at the University at Buffalo who studies redistricting. “It definitely seems like that the Democrats, with the passage of Prop 50, have to be more emboldened to try to take advantage of the fewer opportunities they have.”

There were no immediate signs from Republicans to abandon their efforts, while several Democratic-led states have started ramping up to redistrict in time for 2026. In Virginia, where Democrats flipped 13 state delegate seats along with the election of Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger, a constitutional amendment that could get the party two House seats is moving.

Neighboring and deep blue Maryland is also being pressured by Democrats nationwide to redistrict, but is facing opposition from the state senate’s leader. Colorado is considering a new map in time for 2028 in a state that has tilted further Democratic in recent election cycles.

National Republicans and Democrats had different takeaways from the results of Tuesday’s elections. Some GOP figures have dismissed them as blips that happened in Democratic-leaning states, while Democrats see the sweeping wins as a sign of things to come in 2026.

Midterms historically favor the party out of power in Washington with the president’s party losing seats, particularly in the House. During President Donald Trump’s first term, Republicans suffered crushing losses in the 2018 midterms that handed control of the House back to Democrats, a fate he is trying to avoid with the redistricting push.

It’s unclear whether Democrats can maintain the momentum or whether they will receive the same level of backing in midterms. The party has tended to fare better in off-year elections and does not have the kind of leads that would likely be necessary for a “blue wave” environment to expand the list of competitive seats in current polling.

But Republicans appear likely to be facing an electorate upset over the cost of living and state of the economy and an unpopular president. Trump’s approval ratings are underwater by double-digits in most polling, and his handling of the economy is also souring. Republicans will also have to run without Trump at the top of the ballot to boost turnout for the party.

“What we saw in the Trump era is that Republicans do pretty well when Trump’s on the ballot, but they don’t do so well when he’s not,” Donahue said. “The political environment doesn’t seem like it’s going to necessarily improve that much in the next 12 months.”

Have a news tip? Contact Austin Denean at atdenean@sbgtv.com or at x.com/austindenean. Content from The National Desk is provided by Sinclair, the parent company of FOX45 News.

Scott Adams announced earlier this year he had been diagnosed with a metastasized prostate cancer. In a post on X over the weekend, Adams said his health was declining and that his healthcare provider had approved his application to receive a new FDA-approved drug, Pluvicto.

“They have dropped the ball in scheduling the brief IV to administer it and I can’t seem to fix that,” Adams wrote. “I am declining fast. I will ask President Trump if he can get Kaiser of Northern California to respond and schedule it for Monday. That will give me a fighting chance to stick around on this planet a little bit longer.

“It is not a cure, but it does give good results to many people.”

In another post, Trump responded “on it.” Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy also responded to Adams, saying, “The president wants to help.” White House Deputy Chief of Staff and Head of Personnel Dan Scavino also said that Trump, Kennedy and Medicare and Medicaid Administrator Mehmet Oz were all tracking it.

It’s unclear exactly how the White House will be helping Adams receive the treatment.

In a statement to Reuters, Kaiser Permanente said Adams’ oncology team “is working closely with him on the next steps in his cancer care, which are already underway.”

Trump has previously advocated for policies helping people in need for life-saving medicine to get around typical processes. During his first term, Trump signed the Right to Try Act, which gave terminally ill patients access to drug treatments not yet fully approved by the FDA.

Adams announced in May he had been diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer in a video on his YouTube show “Real Coffee with Scott Adams” and that it had spread to his bones.

“I have the same cancer that Joe Biden has,” Adams said in his announcement. “I also have prostate cancer that has spread to my bones.”

He added he had “respect and compassion and sympathy” for Biden, who revealed his own cancer diagnosis earlier this year. Biden completed a round of radiation therapy earlier this month to treat his aggressive form of prostate cancer.

Pluvicto is manufactured by Swiss drugmaker Novartis, which said the drug reduces the risk of progression or death in patients with prostate cancer by 28%. The drug combines radioactive particles that kill cells with molecules that attach themselves to tumors.

It was approved by the FDA earlier this year for expanded use in patients with prostate cancer that tripled the number of people eligible to receive it.

Roughly one in eight men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime, according to the American Cancer Society. It is the second-most common cause of cancer deaths among American men behind lung cancer.

The “Dilbert” comic strip was first published in 1989 and became one of the most widely distributed in the U.S. in newspapers. It was largely pulled  in 2023 after a video of Adams making racist comments appeared online. Adams was also dropped by a book publisher over his remarks.

Adams later said his comments were meant as hyperbole and media reports about them had ignored the context.

Have a news tip? Contact Austin Denean at atdenean@sbgtv.com or at x.com/austindenean. Content from The National Desk is provided by Sinclair, the parent company of FOX45 News.

Proposition 50, a ballot initiative to allow California to sidestep its independent redistricting commission to redraw maps to add five Democratic seats to counter Texas, appears to be sailing toward passage in Tuesday’s election, according to recent polling. Newsom has spearheaded the effort to rebut Texas through intense campaigning with other prominent Democrats and raking in tens of millions in donations to boost the initiative.

Beyond shoring up Democrats’ chances to retake the House in the midterms, taking up the redistricting fight might serve as an early foundation to a national campaign for the White House.

Leaders of other Democratic-leaning states who are also considered potential presidential hopefuls could enter the mix in Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. Both have said they are open to the idea of mid-decade redistricting to counteract Republican-led pushes in other states.

The fight over gerrymandering is one of the most direct confrontations between Democrats and the Trump administration, which has leaned on GOP-led states to remake their maps after Texas to boost the party’s chances of retaining the House majority in the 2026 midterms.

In Newsom’s case, it has bolstered his national profile and increased his standing in early polling for the 2028 Democratic presidential primary. Newsom has long been considered a likely presidential candidate and recently said he would weigh jumping into the race after the midterms.

“Yeah. I’d be lying otherwise. I’d just be lying,” he said in response to a question about if he would consider running for president on CBS’ “Sunday Morning.”

The California governor has seen his stock rise in polling among Democratic voters since the redistricting push. He is the second-most popular candidate to former vice president and 2024 nominee Kamala Harris, according to political forecasting website Race to the White House. Other high-ranking names include former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Pritzker.

Newsom’s rise and likely success in getting Prop 50 to pass come as Democratic voters have gotten increasingly frustrated with their party’s perceived inability or unwillingness to stand up to Trump and Republicans.

“The path to 2028 is going to be making a national name for yourself that is heterodox,” said Alison Dagnes, a political science professor at Shippensburg University. “If you’re going to be successful, you have to be not only your own person but you have to come up with ideas about how you’re going to govern, and those ideas are not going to be party-driven ideas. They’re going to be your own ideas, because that actually was what was successful for Donald Trump.”

That frustration can also been seen with the success of other outsiders to the party’s brand like Zohran Mamdani in New York and Graham Platner’s Senate campaign in Maine, both of which have been filled with criticisms of the Democratic Party.

Democrats in Congress are locked out of power, giving governors a leg up to show voters they are willing to fight the administration. Redistricting and other partisan standoffs are sure to energize the Democratic base, it’s unclear how far that will go once the time comes to start campaigning in early primary states.

The party is also going through an internal debate over what direction to go with policy and how to repair its damaged image. Analysts have frequently pointed to Harris’ unwillingness to break with former President Joe Biden during the campaign as one of its major weaknesses. Biden was deeply unpopular as his term came to an end and Republicans held advantages on who voters trust to handle most of the country’s major issues.

“The Democratic brand is in the toilet, and because the Republican brand is no longer in order to make a name for themselves, party people are going to have to move away from the party label, and what that means is carving out a lane for yourself,” Dagnes said.

Democrats are still charting what the party’s platform will look like beyond opposing Trump’s agenda and voters will likely have a wide cast of party figures to choose from once early voting begins.

For now, Newsom has filled the void with his redistricting push and fierce resistance to other moves Trump has tried on California like sending troops to quell protests against the administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

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After the central bank made its second consecutive quarter-point cut on Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell made a direct contradiction to what investors had seen as a foregone conclusion — another rate cut in December. Prior to Powell’s comments, markets had priced another cut at the Fed’s December meeting as a 90% probability.

But Powell, who has been under immense political pressure to cut rates, said that was not a certainty.

“Far from it,” he said. “There were strongly different views today. And the takeaway from that is that we haven’t made a decision about December.”

Wednesday’s cuts moved the central bank’s benchmark rate down to a range between 3.75% and 4%, lowest level in three years. That is nearing the rate that most economists and Fed officials believe to be neutral, neither stimulating or holding back the economy.

How long it will take the central bank to get to its final destination on neutral rates is unclear, but officials on both sides of the debate have voiced the same goal.

“The Fed’s overarching objective remains clear: move policy from modestly restrictive to neutral — not into accommodative territory,” said EY Chief Economist Gregory Daco.

Officials are in a challenging position in trying to manage the economy. Inflation is running above its 3% target as of September, while the labor market has shown enough weakness to prompt rate cuts. Cutting rates could spur price increases, while raising them or leaving them too high risks the possibility of more layoffs.

“In the near term, risks to inflation are tilted to the upside and risks to employment to the downside — a challenging situation. There is no risk-free path for policy as we navigate this tension between our employment and inflation goals,” Powell said.

Prior to the shutdown, job growth had stalled and hiring had slowed, bringing the unemployment rate up. Some of the nation’s largest employers announced significant layoffs in recent weeks, which are being closely watched as officials try to gauge whether that is becoming a more widespread issue or one-offs that also come amid corporate restructuring and displacements from artificial intelligence.

A growing number of officials are already concerned about lingering risks to inflation, including Kansas City Fed President Jeffrey Schmid, who dissented on Wednesday’s cut in favor of leaving rates in place. Members brought “strongly different views about how to proceed” at the next meeting, Powell said.

“The policy statement contained few clues about future policy, but we know from last meetings’ dot plot that the committee was almost equally split on delivering no further cuts or two more cuts this year. It is unusual for the committee to be so divided on the near-term outlook for policy,” said Michael Pearce, deputy chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics.

Markets are still favoring another quarter-point cut at the December meeting, but at a much lower rate than before. Those odds have fallen to 76% as of Thursday, according to the CME FedWatch tool.

Adding to the difficulties of making monetary policy is the ongoing government shutdown, which has cut the Fed off from up-to-date data about how the economy is doing. The last labor market data it received was from August, and the most-recent consumer price index that was released might be the last major data release for a while because of the shutdown.

Officials have had to turn to private measures of the economy that are not as widespread or encompassing. A lack of official data could affect the Fed’s December decision.

“What do you do if you are driving in the fog? You slow down,” Powell said.

A lapse in data also raises the risks the Fed could make a mistake on rate decisions as officials have to rely on anecdotal information or incomplete data to formulate their decision-making. It could also make it harder for officials with conflicting views to find a consensus.

Have a news tip? Contact Austin Denean at atdenean@sbgtv.com or at x.com/austindenean. Content from The National Desk is provided by Sinclair, the parent company of FOX45 News.

Job creation has slowed throughout the year and businesses have pulled back on hiring, raising fears of a broader slowdown and stirring worker anxieties about staying employed. Surveys of consumer attitudes about the economy have captured increasing anxiety about the labor market that has already been a difficult one to navigate for people entering the workforce for the first time.

Even with momentum slowing, companies had mostly held onto employees throughout the year. But some sizeable layoffs at major businesses across economic sectors have started to pile up over the last several weeks.

Amazon said this past week that it would cut 14,000 corporate jobs, about 4% of its workforce. UPS is cutting 48,000 jobs in a corporate restructure to adjust to changes in its business. Major retailer Target said it was cutting 1,800 corporate positions, around 8% of its global corporate workforce.

Recent cuts have also affected tech giants in an industry that has seen major gains and investments into AI. Chipmaker Intel has made moves to eliminate thousands of jobs as it tries to keep up with Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices. Microsoft said recently it would be cutting 9,000 positions after laying off 6,000 employees earlier this year.

Reasoning behind the layoffs varied among companies, with some pointing to efficiency gains through artificial intelligence, others going through corporate restructuring and a handful citing rising operational costs because of tariffs or shifts in consumer spending.

Economic growth has been stronger than anticipated this year after the initial announcement of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs as consumers have continued to spend and prices remained mostly stable. Companies have tried to adjust to tariffs by finding new supply chains, stockpiling products to avoid having to raise prices and freezing hiring while they wait to see what comes next.

Companies are cautious about laying people off after running into difficulties during the post-pandemic recovery to find qualified workers. But the rate of hiring and job creation has slowed to a crawl, a possible indication businesses are starting to reach the limits of what they can absorb.

“People are way more resilient than you expect, like stockpiling or finding other ways to absorb costs, maybe not hiring, which is less visible than firing people,” said Ryan Young, senior economist at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. “All these little things are ways that people are trying to adapt. But there’s only so much people can do. We might be reaching that point.”

The recent announcements are prominent examples of a job market that was already struggling to keep up with economic uncertainty and tariffs. But the data blackout from the ongoing government shutdown makes it harder for economists and the Federal Reserve to gauge the economy.

The October jobs report was already delayed because the shutdown and next month’s is also at risk as lawmakers struggle to break the current impasse. Without the government data considered the gold standard, analysts are left with private sector reports to measure the strength of the labor market.

ADP’s monthly private sector jobs report for September showed companies cut 32,000 positions, ramping up concerns that other companies will need to make cuts.

A softening labor market has been the driving factor behind the Federal Reserve’s back-to-back rate cuts, outweighing concerns about inflation still running above its target of 2%.

“It’s tough on a lot of businesses right now that are not in the AI sector. We are seeing manufacturing contraction, and when you get that tradeoff between unemployment and low inflation, the Fed’s usually going to choose to prioritize the unemployment,” Young said.

After the Fed made its second consecutive interest rate cut on Wednesday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said officials still see the risks to the labor market as greater than inflationary forces from tariffs and they have observed a steady hiring slowdown.

“In this less dynamic and somewhat softer labor market, the downside risks to employment appear to have risen in recent months,” he said.

Concerns about the labor market had driven hopes on Wall Street of another cut at the Fed’s December meeting. But Powell was cautious on Wednesday to say another cut is not guaranteed amid dissent among Fed officials and unknowns from the government data blackout.

“What do you do if you are driving in the fog? You slow down,” Powell said.

Have a news tip? Contact Austin Denean at atdenean@sbgtv.com or at x.com/austindenean. Content from The National Desk is provided by Sinclair, the parent company of FOX45 News.

Clocks will fall back an hour at 2 a.m. on Sunday for 48 states, giving people another hour of sleep but meaning more Americans will see the sun go down sooner in the evenings as days get shorter.

While much of the U.S. has observed the biannual clock switch since the 1960s, there is growing appetite to get rid of it among voters and lawmakers. State legislatures have considered or passed bills on how to handle daylight saving time and Congress has also looked at it, but most of the legislation is stuck in place over the debate on the best way to handle it.

Nineteen states have passed legislation to sunset changing their clocks twice a year and observe year-round daylight saving time, but cannot implement it without Congress. Another 16 states have or are currently considering resolutions related to the clock changes, with some pushing for permanent standard time, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

States can switch to year-round standard time, which Arizona and Hawaii have done, but any that want to adopt permanent daylight saving time need an act of Congress.

A coalition of lawmakers has been trying to make daylight saving time the default setting for the country year-round. But those efforts have mostly fallen flat as lawmakers have struggled to reach a consensus on what the best approach to a permanent solution would be.

The issue came up again this week with a bipartisan group of senators who sought unanimous consent approval for a bill that would lock the clocks in daylight savings time. The proposal has the backing of President Donald Trump. But the effort was blocked by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., who missed out on a chance to block a similar proposal in 2022.

“If permanent daylight savings time becomes the law of the land, it will again make winter a dark and dismal time for millions of Americans,” Cotton said in his objection. “The darkness of permanent savings time would be especially harmful for school children and working Americans.”

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., has been leading the charge in recent years to dump the biannual time change for the Sunshine Protection Act that would make daylight saving time the national standard and give states the ability to opt out. The bill has been sponsored by 18 other senators in this Congress.

In his remarks on the floor on Tuesday, Scott said the bill would allow states to decide what system is best for them while getting rid of the “confusing, unnecessary and completely outdated” process of changing the clocks.

“It allows the people of each state to choose what best fits their needs and the needs of their families,” he said. “The American people are sick and tired of changing their clocks twice a year. It’s confusing, unnecessary and completely outdated.”

The Senate Commerce Committee dedicated a hearing to the issue earlier this year and ultimately narrowly advanced Scott’s bill out of committee, but the hearing also highlighted the divide on what the best approach to time change is.

Have a news tip? Contact Austin Denean at atdenean@sbgtv.com or at x.com/austindenean. Content from The National Desk is provided by Sinclair, the parent company of FOX45 News.

The overhaul comes amid frustrations within the Department of Homeland Security over deportation tactics and priorities in the crackdown on illegal immigration that has reportedly divided leadership of immigration officials. President Donald Trump set an aggressive target of more than one million deportations by the end of the first year of his term, which immigration authorities are not on pace to hit.

The proposed shake-up includes reassigning field office leaders who are placed around the country and are sometimes responsible for covering large regions encompassing multiple states. ICE has 25 field office and the plans under discussion could replace nearly half of them as the administration debates how to proceed with immigration enforcement.

Border Czar Tom Homan and ICE Director Todd Lyons have prioritized focusing on migrants with criminal records and final deportation orders. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino and Senior Adviser Corey Lewandowsk want to take a broader and more aggressive approach to boost deportation figures, Fox News reported.

The administration has not publicly confirmed the plans to overhaul the offices.

“This is one team, one fight. President Trump has a brilliant, tenacious team led by (Noem) to deliver on the American people’s mandate to remove criminal illegal aliens from this country,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a post on X. “As we said, we have no personnel changes to announce right now but we remain laser focused on RESULTS and we will deliver.”

As of late September, the last period data was updated because of the ongoing government shutdown, ICE was arresting an average of 1,178 people per day, below the administration’s goal of 3,000 a day.

DHS said in a release on Monday the administration is on pace to deport nearly 600,000 people in the country illegally by the end of Trump’s first year in office, below his goal of one million. More than two million people have left the U.S., including 1.6 million who have left voluntarily along with 527,000 deportations.

The administration has tried to persuade migrants in the country illegally to leave on their own or face threats of daily $1,000 fines. It offered a $1,000 stipend and flights out of the country. DHS also repurposed the CBP One App that was originally used to process asylum claims to register for departing the U.S.

According to the administration, 70% of the people who have been deported had a criminal record.

But the crackdown on immigration has been one of the most controversial pieces of Trump’s second-term agenda. Raids on work sites and border agents flooding streets of U.S. cities has run into mounting frustrations from the public and become the subject of large protests in Los Angeles and Chicago.

More than 60,000 migrants are being held in ICE custody, according to the agency’s data. ICE received a major boost in funding in the Republicans’ tax and spending bill earlier this year to increase detention capacity to hold up to 100,000 migrants as part of the boost to its budget.

Part of the funding directed to immigration enforcement is being spent on recruiting 10,000 additional ICE agents by the end of the year. The administration has said it has received 175,000 applications to ICE after offering incentives to new hires like student loan forgiveness and cash bonuses. It has also relaxed previous age restrictions to widen the pool of candidates.

Have a news tip? Contact Austin Denean at atdenean@sbgtv.com or at x.com/austindenean. Content from The National Desk is provided by Sinclair, the parent company of FOX45 News.

This week’s meeting of the Federal Open Markets Committee that will end with the rate decision on Wednesday, is widely expected to result in another quarter-point reduction with the central bank trying to keep unemployment from spiking.

It comes as the Fed is trying to navigate a delicate balance between its two primary goals of stable prices and maximum employment with forces pulling on both ends. On one hand, cutting rates too quickly or too soon could accelerate inflation, while leaving them at a restrictive level for too long risks further weakening the employment situation.

“Rising downside risks to employment have shifted our assessment of the balance of risks,” Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said during a speech earlier this month. “There is no risk-free path for policy as we navigate the tension between our employment and inflation goals.”

Officials are also trying to figure it out without government economic data that helps inform decision-making.

Friday’s inflation report, the only government data to be released since the shutdown started at the beginning of the month, kept the Fed on track to make another cut at this week’s meeting. Inflation rose 3% in September compared to the year prior, the fastest annual pace since January. On a monthly basis, inflation was 0.3% higher.

But the rate of price increases was tamer than economists had feared and wasn’t hot enough to override job market concerns.

“While inflation is still running above the Fed’s 2% target, we expect Fed officials to give more weight to the risks to the labor market in their policy deliberations. In the absence of most government statistics, the Fed has no basis to conclude that the risks to the labor market have changed,” Nancy Vanden Houten, lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, wrote in a report.

Markets have already priced in a rate cut and are broadly expecting a 0.25% reduction, bringing the Fed’s benchmark rate to a range of 3.75% to 4%.

Even with inflation still running above target, Fed officials have determined the risks of further deterioration in the labor market should take priority. Expansive tariffs from the Trump administration have not brought huge increases to prices like initially feared and Fed officials have mostly reached a consensus that any hikes will be a one-time issue and not a persistent problem.

Figuring out what’s happening in the labor market is a challenging task with the government shutdown lingering toward a second month, reducing the amount of information available to officials. Instead of the gold standard government data, the Fed and economists have had to turn to private measures like the ADP employment report and corporate earnings to gauge the economy.

Officials have already lost the release of one jobs report and appear unlikely to get the November release on time. Private measures of employment have shown a similar outlook to the government data being released prior to the shutdown — low levels of job creation and businesses pulling back on hiring. The unemployment rate is historically strong, but Fed officials are monitoring for signs of increased layoffs.

Markets will also be watching how Powell signals the Fed’s path forward after the meeting. Investors are betting on another quarter-point cut at the conclusion of the December meeting, according to the CME FedWatch tool. But forecasting the path gets more difficult in the absence of current data on the economy.

Have a news tip? Contact Austin Denean at atdenean@sbgtv.com or at x.com/austindenean. Content from The National Desk is provided by Sinclair, the parent company of FOX45 News.

Jeffries, who represents Brooklyn in Congress along with being the top House Democrat, has avoided endorsing Mamdani since he won the Democratic primary earlier this year. He has had issues with some of Mamdani’s most progressive positions and had not given him an endorsement until Friday unlike other top Democrats in the state like Gov. Kathy Hochul and State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie.

Early voting in New York begins Saturday and runs through next Sunday. The election is Nov. 4.

In a statement to the New York Times, Jeffries said the two had “areas of principled disagreement” but that Mamdani had won an election and said the Democratic Party needed to be united to face the “existential” threat posed by President Donald Trump.

“Zohran Mamdani has relentlessly focused on addressing the affordability crisis and explicitly committed to being a mayor for all New Yorkers, including those who do not support his candidacy,” Jeffries said. “In that spirit, I support him and the entire citywide Democratic ticket in the general election.”

New York’s two Democratic senators, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, have not made an endorsement in the mayoral race.

Mamdani has earned national attention as some high-profile Democrats have endorsed his candidacy as an example of how to wage a successful progressive campaign, while Republicans have tried to paint him as the face of the Democratic Party veering toward socialism.

Jeffries has been pressed repeatedly about who he would support in the race. He has said he is focused on getting Democrats back to the House majority after next year’s midterms. Some of his moderate members have voiced concerns about being tied to Mamdani and see his candidacy as a potential liability to the national brand.

In polling in the final days of the race, Mamdani is widely favored to win over former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who he defeated in the primary and is now running as an independent, and Republican Curtis Sliwa. Cuomo has framed his campaign as the only viable one that can defeat Mamdani and pushed for Sliwa to drop out, which the GOP nominee has refused to do despite the city’s heavy Democratic tilt.

Cuomo received the endorsement of current Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday. Adams has been an outspoken critic of Mamdani and many of his progressive policies. He has also gone after Mamdani for his criticism of Israel, which he has said are antisemitic and claimed Mamdani’s election will lead the city to become flooded with crime.

“New York can’t be Europe, folks,” Adams said. “I don’t know what is wrong with people. You see what’s playing out in other countries because of Islamic extremism.”

Have a news tip? Contact Austin Denean at atdenean@sbgtv.com or at x.com/austindenean. Content from The National Desk is provided by Sinclair, the parent company of FOX45 News.