Inflation Vanishes, Leaving Fed Room To Cut Rates

Plus, more new, stunningly grim, exclusive data on being Jewish at Harvard

The government this morning released new Personal Consumption Expenditures inflation data for the month of March. They show market-based PCE inflation at negative 0.1 percent for March and both the overall PCE and market-based PCE excluding food and energy at zero. I wrote already back on March 30, 2025, about the risk that “the big worry for the U.S. economy is going to be not inflation but deflation.” Scott Grannis, who has been consistently right and whose charts and commentary are available free on the web without having to pay Goldman Sachs or for a Bloomberg terminal, had it back on March 13: “I detect no reason to worry about inflation.”

A big part of the inflation numbers are housing, both rents and imputed rent of owner-occupied housing. There’s nongovernmental data showing some signs that inflation in that “shelter” category is also cooling, or that supply is increasing in ways that should eventually translate into easing prices. For example, here’s vacancy data for apartments as published by ApartmentList.com:

Here’s “asking rent” data from Redfin.com through March 2025:

The April consumer price index release is scheduled to come May 13, after the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee meeting scheduled for May 6 to 7. The Fed says it pays closer attention to PCE than to CPI.

There’s been a partisan difference in inflation expectations, with Democrats expecting runaway inflation under Trump and Trump partisans expecting inflation to disappear in a Republican administration. The March data tend to support the Republicans, though the tariffs hadn’t yet kicked in. The dollar also has stopped falling against gold; the erosion of the value of the dollar as measured in gold is another way of measuring inflation. It’ll be interesting to see how long Federal Reserve Chairman Powell can maintain his record of “no rate cuts since the Trump inauguration” if the monthly PCE inflation numbers stay at zero. Eventually he may have to dismount his high horse.

Harvard has gotten worse: After yesterday’s post highlighting Harvard’s own research data showing Jewish students there reporting significantly worse experiences than the rest of the student population, I heard from a sophisticated reader of The Editors (possibly redundant, as there are no non-sophisticated readers of The Editors), who flagged a comparison between the October 2024 data (collected after Alan Garber had been president for nine months already, and in this current academic year, not the 2023-2024 academic year that Garber recently apologized for) and responses to the same questions in a similar survey from March 2019. The results show a stunning and rapid deterioration in the self-reported situation of Jewish students at the university.

Here it is in graphic form:

Here it is in text form for those readers who like text better than bar charts:

I feel comfortable expressing my opinions to others at Harvard (students, Jewish only)

2019 71.9 percent agree

2024 47.5 percent agree

I feel like I belong at Harvard (students, Jewish only)

2019 79.4 percent agree

2024 67.4 percent agree

Source: Inclusion & Belonging Pilot Pulse Survey Results, ​​Harvard Office for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging, report October 29, 2019 of survey fielded in March 2019.

Harvard University Report on the Results of the 2024 Pulse Survey on Inclusion & Belonging, April 2025 Report of survey fielded in October 2024.

This isn’t Elise Stefanik or Donald Trump or some super-conservative national media outlet scoring points by Harvard-bashing. This is Harvard’s own internal institutional research on inclusion and belonging.

Relatedly, and also grim: In rapidly skimming and summarizing the report of the Harvard Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias, I somehow missed a whole section on Harvard Medical School. It is worth a look:

One of the most troubling stories that we heard in the course of our overall work had to do with Admitted Students Preview Days (ASPD) at HMS. HMS, like many medical schools, hosts an event on campus for its admitted students to come and “experience HMS” with the goal of persuading them to enroll. This is an example of a “yield event” where universities welcome their admitted students to campus to see the community they have been invited to join….several accounts described the ASPD event as intensely partisan and off-putting. While we were not in a position to conduct an exhaustive investigation, the common themes that surfaced suggest important issues and concerns meriting close attention:

A lot of the current students made it clear they wanted to send a message to visiting students to discourage Zionist students from coming here. [HMS student]

[At admit day], many students were wearing keffiyahs, including officers of student groups. [There were] many signs like “Stop the Genocide” and “Free Palestine.” There was a talent show where many student organizations put on Palestinian-themed presentations. Current medical students [stood] on an elevated walkway yelling “Free Palestine.” Many students wore red masks to show that they had been muzzled by Harvard (apparently in connection with a student-produced video that was to have more Palestine content). I was told by one of the students that “Zionists are not welcome at HMS.” [Recently admitted HMS student]

HMS students and admitted students described the rhetoric and protests at the event as threatening.

One student described their admission to HMS as “one of the biggest honors” of their life. It was “not even a dream” because they “never imagined it would happen.” There was “true elation.” This applicant identified as a progressive Jew who said they were “not afraid of keffiyehs.” However, the ASPD event revealed to this applicant that HMS was “not an environment that was welcoming to different viewpoint/stances” and not a place where they “could find community. [The ASPD event] burst the bubble of elation.” This applicant, while deeply critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza, shared the following:

What stuck with [me] throughout the [event] weekend: [is] Zionists not welcome here. You [the applicant] are not and will not be. Students were trying to make other students not welcome.

The admitted student felt that HMS did not offer the sort of “respectful and inclusive” environment that they envisioned for their preparation as a health care professional and instead was a toxic place where the student did not want to spend four years. As a result, this admitted student turned down HMS and pursued their medical education elsewhere.

Another admitted student shared with the Task Force a strikingly similar experience. They reported feeling shocked by what they perceived as endorsements of the anti-Israel protests by HMS administrators at the ASPD event. They mentioned noticing the absence of any Israeli or Jewish representation (for example, in flag displays), while seeing HMS tour guides wearing clothing that signaled support of anti-Israel protestors and what they described as “pro-Hamas posters” during the dorm tour. These observations left the prospective student feeling that HMS staff and students would be actively hostile toward them if they enrolled.

This prospective student further reported visiting HMS’s Office for Diversity Inclusion and Community Partnership after the ASPD event to inquire about accommodations for Jewish holidays and express feeling unsafe during the ASPD activities. According to the student, they were told that they were not unsafe but rather uncomfortable, and that they should know the difference. The student was reportedly told that their safety was assured by the presence of security personnel at the event. However, the student replied at the time, the fact that HMS had to bring security to the event for admitted students meant that there was a safety issue. They told us that they left the meeting in tears.

This admitted student also declined HMS’ offer of admission.

I’m grateful to the Harvard Task Force for surfacing this information, along with the story about the Harvard-sponsored Black affinity graduation ceremony at which a faculty speaker denounced “Zionist overlords” for starving Palestinian children. It’s sad that it’s gotten this bad and that the university’s leadership has moved so slowly, and met such resistance, in making the needed changes.

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