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From left to right: Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer and France's President Emmanuel Macron hold a meeting during a summit at Lancaster House on March 2, 2025, in London, England.
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A deep dive into the return of stagflation fears in the U.S., comparing today’s rising inflation, oil shocks, and economic slowdown to the crises of the 1970s, and analyzing whether history is repeating itself.
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With Oil Prices Rising, Is Dreaded Stagflation Making a Comeback?
Apr 09, 2026
Remember back in the 1970s, when the headlines blared warnings about an economic disease plaguing the U.S. economy? It was called “stagflation.” It’s a rare economic affliction in which inflation is high, unemployment is rising, and overall economic growth is slowing, all at the same time. Five decades ago, it caused major havoc to the national economy because it’s a tough disease for the economic doctors to cure. And now, like the hockey-masked villain in those Friday the 13th movies that seems to never die, a number of economic experts fear that: “Stagflation is baa-aaack!”
The U.S. last experienced stagflation starting in 1973, which seems like a long time ago back when Tony Orlando and Dawn’s "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree" was top of the charts. That's when the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), run by Middle East oil-producing nations, imposed an oil embargo, cut production, and banned exports to the U.S. and other nations supporting Israel during the Yom Kippur War. That action caused oil prices to quadruple, leading to severe oil and gas shortages and long-term changes in energy policy.
That was followed by the 1979 crisis ("My Sharona" top of the Top 100), triggered by an interruption in oil production as a result of the Iranian Revolution, which overthrew the U.S.-backed Shah of Iran. The price for a barrel of oil increased tenfold from $4 dollars in 1973 to nearly $40 by 1980. Rising oil prices in turn increased the costs of other goods, resulting in decreased spending on a range of goods and services. That led to reduced economic output by businesses and reductions in hiring that contributed to increased unemployment and lower wages. That in turn contributed to growing government deficits and debt amidst continuing inflationary pressures. A downward economic cycle seized the national economy, with no easy solutions.
Economic theory turned on its head
And thus the word stagflation entered the nation’s vocabulary. Usually, when inflation is high, it’s because economic growth is also high. In normal times, the two work hand in glove, and the natural policy intervention by the Federal Reserve is to raise interest rates, slow down spending, and cool off the economy. That is a classic economic textbook resolution.
But when the scourge of stagflation hit in the 70s, it was a horse of a different color. Attempts to manage the crisis, including large interest rate hikes to double-digits by the Federal Reserve in the late 70s and early 80s, killed off economic growth and pushed unemployment even higher. In what was termed a “double-digit peak,” the unemployment rate rose significantly alongside high inflation, contradicting previous economic theories that suggested an inverse relationship. Unemployment spiked, reaching roughly 9% in 1975 and continuing to climb toward a post World War II peak of nearly 11% by the early 1980s. Meanwhile, the inflation rate reached 13.3% by 1979, a hyper-inflation that the U.S. hadn’t seen since World War II.
All of this resulted in severe recessions in the 1970s and early 1980s. The combination of price shocks from the OPEC embargo and the Iranian revolution, combined with interest rate hikes to contain the price spiral, caused businesses to cut jobs and put millions of people out of work. The economy spiraled into a double-trouble vortex, and the confused experts couldn’t figure out which economic levers were the rights one to pull. The impact of these energy crises became a defining geopolitical and economic moment in U.S. history.
Is history repeating itself today?
Do we see those conditions percolating in today’s economy? An increasing number of economists, including those at Goldman Sachs, fear the answer is creeping toward a “yes.” But are they right? Let’s look at the evidence.
First, the economy today is generally weak, despite what President Trump says, as evidenced by low job creation, slowly rising unemployment, slowing economic growth, and inflation that has ticked upward even as the prices of key goods like groceries, housing, and energy remain stubbornly high. Add to that the uncertainty and impact of Trump’s tariffs, especially following the recent Supreme Court ruling overturning 70% of the tariffs. Falling consumer sentiment contributes to a general sense of unease.
But the biggest factor adding to stagflation concerns over the economy is unquestionably the current U.S./Israeli attacks against Iran. Iran has retaliated by shutting down oil shipping lanes in the nearby Strait of Hormuz, through which passes approximately 20% of the world’s oil supply. That has resulted in a sudden rise in the price of oil. Brent crude oil prices have experienced extreme volatility, surging to over $119 per barrel at one point before easing back to the $100–$113 range and, most recently, to $95 per barrel following Tuesday’s two-week ceasefire between the White House and Iran.
That’s still about a 36% increase since the war began. And U.S. gas prices have risen to a national average over $4.12 a gallon, according to the AAA motor club, an increase of 39% since the attacks against Iran started. U.S. diesel prices have increased even more quickly, to $5.65 per gallon, up 55 percent. Some are calling this the US-Iran “war tax.”
Although the U.S. is not as dependent on oil exports from the Middle East as we used to be, domestic prices are still impacted because of the close interconnection between global energy markets. Trump’s national energy policy of “Drill baby drill” has not insulated American consumers from his foreign policy debacles.
Quite the opposite, the war against Iran threatens to drive up not only energy prices for transportation but also other consumer costs, which if the two-week ceasefire doesn’t hold, will in turn eventually start dampening economic growth. Oil executives and petro market analysts are warning that if Iran does not allow the Strait of Hormuz to be permanently reopened by late April, oil-supply disruptions will get significantly worse and last far longer.
“The oil shock could destroy demand and dent global growth, with potential stagflation implications,” Lisa Shalett, chief investment officer at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, wrote in a research note. “Each day the war rages, we see a reckoning slowly approaching.”
According to these experts, the clock is ticking on whether the economic and market fallout from the war will at some point escalate sharply. Depending on the duration of the ceasefire, a new oil shock may be building.
Differences between today and the 1970s
But there are some key differences between today and the 1970s that undermine the “stagflation is coming” prediction. Some of the differences are obvious.
For starters, the price of oil in the 1970s saw a tenfold increase over the course of the decade, and so far, we are nowhere near that level. And while the unemployment rate has inched up to 4.3% from an extremely low 3.4% several years ago, that’s still a far cry from the double-digit unemployment during the 1970s oil price surges. True, the employment rate today – the number of working Americans – has declined somewhat under Trump, with a notable loss of 92,000 jobs in February followed by a slight rebound in March. But these numbers haven’t yet reached anywhere near a 1970s level.
Similarly with inflation, where core consumer prices have risen to about 3 percent, which signals persistent inflation trends worth watching. But that’s far from the double-digit inflation from the 1970s oil shocks. And while the economy’s growth slowed in Trump’s first year to 2.1% compared to 2.9% in President Joe Biden’s last two years, nevertheless, a recession doesn’t seem to be in sight.
Whither goes the price of oil
The real wild card here is the price of oil. If the recent ceasefire does not hold, future prices will continue to be plagued by uncertainty. Just last week, the spot price for a barrel of oil, which reflects the real-time market price for a barrel of crude oil available for immediate delivery, shot up to $141.36, the highest level since the 2008 financial crisis. Such stratospheric numbers reflect the world’s ongoing financial jitters.
Nevertheless, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell recently said during a press conference, “When we use the term ‘stagflation,’ I always have to point out that was a 1970s term at a time when unemployment was in double figures, and inflation was really high. And that’s not the case right now. We actually have unemployment really close to longer run normal. And we have inflation that's one percentage point above that. I would reserve the term stagflation for a much more serious set of circumstances. That is not the situation we are in…It's nothing like what they faced in the 1970s.”
Fair enough. But the Federal Reserve chair’s role is to be reassuring. After the president, he is the chief cheerleader of the economy. Despite the ceasefire, President Trump has requested $1.5 trillion for defense in the 2027 budget, and the Pentagon is asking for a $200 billion budget supplemental to fight a longer war than President Trump originally promised.
So the White House doesn’t seem to think the war with Iran is truly over. It remains to be seen what the situation will look like six months from now. I would not be surprised if the price of oil keeps bouncing up and down like a ping pong ball, along with all its usual impacts on the prices of transportation, energy, groceries, and other products that will greatly impact American consumers.
Steven Hill was policy director for the Center for Humane Technology, co-founder of FairVote, and political reform director at New America. See more of his writing at his Substack newsletter DemocracySOS.
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An urgent look at the risks of unregulated artificial intelligence—from job loss and environmental strain to national security threats—and the growing political battle to regulate AI in the United States.
Getty Images, Douglas Rissing
AI Has Put Humanity on the Ballot
Apr 09, 2026
AI may not be the only existential threat out there, but it is coming for us the fastest. When I started law school in 2022, AI could barely handle basic math, but by graduation, it could pass the bar exam. Instead of taking the bar myself, I rolled immediately into a Master of Laws in Global Business Law at Columbia, where I took classes like Regulation of the Digital Economy and Applied AI in Legal Practice. By the end of the program, managing partners were comparing using AI to working with a team of associates; the CEO of Anthropic is now warning that it will be more capable than everyone in less than two years.
AI is dangerous in ways we are just beginning to see. Data centers that power AI require vast amounts of water to keep the servers cool, but two-thirds are in places already facing high water stress, with researchers estimating that water needs could grow from 60 billion liters in 2022 to as high as 275 billion liters by 2028. By then, data centers’ share of U.S. electricity consumption could nearly triple.
Meanwhile, there was a 26,362% increase in videos of child sex abuse last year, thanks to AI, and in only nine days, Grok shared 4.4 million images, at least 41 percent of which were sexualized images of women. Conversations with AI chatbots alone have already led two US teenagers to kill themselves and a 56-year old American to kill his mother and then himself, while Anthropic admitted that their AI model suggested it could blackmail and even “kill someone” to avoid being shut down.
Perhaps even more ominously, the Department of War wanted to use Anthropic to make fully autonomous weapons and conduct mass surveillance on Americans, threatening that the company better abandon their ethics rules or else. The Pentagon admitted they used Anthropic’s Claude in the kidnapping of President Maduro; now it may have been involved in the tragic bombing of a girls’ school in Iran, leading to the deaths of 168 children. As a former Lieutenant Commander, helicopter pilot, and mission commander, I’m horrified.
When unregulated AI has proven its potential to be a job-killing, resource-sucking, murderous machine, the fact that national AI regulations aren’t in place already is a failure of our federal government. Congress Republicans have tried to preempt states from regulating, arguing it will disrupt innovation in the industry, but they have no national alternative. The White House only just released a policy framework on March 20, suggesting a “light touch” at best in terms of regulation, but even if Congress did write this toothless and symbolic “regulation” (endorsed by Big Tech), Trump has already vowed he won’t sign anything until the SAVE Act–a thinly veiled voter suppression bill–passes.
Of course, Trump is dragging his feet. When the AI industry stands to rake in trillions of dollars per year, and Trump and tech billionaires have established such a clear symbiotic relationship of self-enrichment, it’s no surprise that the greediest among us are also the most likely to resist restraints. Establishing standards to promote child safety, support workers, stop deepfakes, and give you control of your data are all common sense, necessary, and popular positions, but threatening to Trump megadonors with a trillion-dollar bottom line. Protecting Americans against the dangers of AI will just have to wait.
Indeed, the battle over AI is being waged in the midterms. These tech oligarchs and their super PACs aim to defeat and intimidate lawmakers, signaling: “Try to regulate us, and we’ll ruin you.” Industry leaders have spent more than $11.18 million on the 2026 elections already, mostly in New York, but also Texas, Illinois, and North Carolina; now, a new “dark money” political group with close ties to Trump just pledged to spend at least another $100 million to push his AI agenda. Don’t let their dark money influence you. While there are cogent arguments for the value of AI (it improves personal efficiency, can increase accessibility for people with disabilities, and may have infinite potential in the field of medicine, etc.), unregulated AI is simply not worth defending.
We cannot afford to miss the boat like we did with social media. For now, we must personally regulate our relationship with this technology. If your field requires AI, then master it, but ensure you use it to optimize your personal impact and not as a crutch. Fortunately, this election cycle, we have a unique opportunity to beat the oligarchs and prove that Big Tech does not control our future. We the People can do it. So, please: talk to your friends, knock on doors, and vote. And in the meantime, cultivate your compassion, curiosity, creativity, and ethical judgement. The AI age may be upon us, but large language models cannot come to your improv show or introduce you to a new cuisine. Embrace what it means to be human.
Julie Roland was a Naval Officer for ten years, deploying to both the South China Sea and the Persian Gulf as a helicopter pilot before separating in June 2025 as a Lieutenant Commander. She has a law degree from the University of San Diego, a Master of Laws from Columbia University, and is a member of the Truman National Security Project.
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The Cracks in the Nonprofit System Are Built into Its Foundation
Apr 09, 2026
Across the nonprofit sector, signs of strain are becoming more visible. Staff turnover is rising, compliance demands are increasing, and community needs are growing more complex. Yet the funding structures that support this work remain largely unchanged. What appears today as instability is not a sudden disruption. It is the predictable outcome of a model that has relied on endurance rather than investment.
For decades, nonprofit organizations have been tasked with addressing society’s most persistent challenges. Domestic violence, homelessness, behavioral health, and poverty depend heavily on nonprofit infrastructure to deliver services and stabilize communities. The sector has sustained this responsibility not because it was designed to be durable, but because the people working within it continued to adapt under pressure. Commitment filled the gaps where investment was limited. That approach is now reaching its limits.
In his widely viewed TED Talk, The Way We Think About Charity Is Dead Wrong, social entrepreneur Dan Pallotta challenged a long-standing assumption about nonprofit work. He argued that nonprofits are expected to solve complex social problems while being restricted from investing in growth, talent, and infrastructure. Organizations are often judged by how little they spend rather than by the outcomes they produce. That expectation continues to shape funding practices today.
The demands placed on nonprofit organizations have expanded significantly. Programs must deliver measurable outcomes, maintain compliance with regulations, manage financial risk, protect confidentiality, and respond quickly to crises. These responsibilities require trained staff, reliable systems, and consistent leadership. They require capacity. Yet funding structures frequently prioritize short-term services over the infrastructure needed to sustain them.
Capacity building remains one of the most underfunded components of nonprofit operations. Investments in workforce development, supervision, data systems, and leadership are often labeled as overhead rather than recognized as essential infrastructure. When these functions are under-resourced, organizations operate reactively, addressing immediate needs while postponing long-term improvements. Over time, this pattern weakens stability and limits the ability to scale effective solutions.
The consequences are visible across service systems. Organizations struggle to retain experienced staff when compensation cannot keep pace with the demands of the workload. Training becomes inconsistent when resources are limited. Technology systems fall behind reporting requirements. Leaders spend more time responding to crises than strengthening operations. These challenges are not the result of poor management or lack of dedication. They reflect structural constraints embedded in the funding model itself.
In fields such as domestic violence and homelessness, the impact is particularly significant. Programs are responsible for safety, housing stability, and recovery from trauma. Survivors depend on coordinated, reliable, and responsive systems. When organizations lack the capacity to maintain staffing or implement consistent practices, the risk extends beyond operational inefficiency. It affects safety and accountability.
The nonprofit funding model has historically prioritized short-term outputs over long-term stability. Grants are often limited to short cycles, requiring organizations to repeatedly secure funding for ongoing services. Restrictions on spending may prevent investment in technology, workforce development, or leadership training, even when those investments would improve performance. Instead of building durable systems, organizations are expected to sustain services in the face of continuous uncertainty.
Other countries have shown that stability is possible. In New Zealand, multi-year funding agreements help reduce uncertainty and enable organizations to plan for the future. Stability is not a luxury. It is infrastructure.
Programs addressing domestic violence, homelessness, and behavioral health operate on timelines measured in years, not months. Workforce development, housing stability, and system coordination cannot be built within annual funding cycles. When funding remains uncertain, organizations shift their focus from long-term planning to short-term survival. This cycle reduces efficiency, increases turnover, and limits innovation.
Annual funding renewals also carry an administrative cost that is rarely acknowledged. Leaders and program staff spend significant time preparing applications, negotiating renewals, and advocating for continued support. That time is diverted from improving services and strengthening partnerships. The expectation that organizations must repeatedly justify essential services is not an efficient use of public resources.
One practical reform is the establishment of long-term, earmarked funding for core social services. Agencies responsible for safety, housing, and crisis response should have predictable funding streams dedicated to essential operations and capacity building. Earmarked dollars create stability, allowing organizations to hire staff with confidence, invest in training and technology, and plan strategically for the future.
Stable funding is not about increasing spending without oversight. It is about aligning funding timelines with the realities of the work. Social problems such as homelessness and domestic violence develop over years and require sustained intervention to resolve. Funding structures should reflect that reality.
The strain visible across the nonprofit sector is not temporary. It is a signal that the current model has reached its limits. Long-term solutions require long-term investment, sustained capacity building, and funding structures designed to support stability rather than survival.
The future of nonprofit work depends not only on compassion or dedication, but also on the willingness to build systems designed to last.
Stephanie Whack is a survivor of domestic violence, an advocate at the intersection of victimization and homelessness, and a member of The OpEd Project Public Voices Fellowship on Domestic Violence and Economic Security. In 2024, she was awarded the LA City Dr. Marjorie Braude Award for innovative collaboration in serving victims of domestic violence.
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