Federal Reserve Bank of New York · Mar 4, 2026
Jaison R. Abel, Richard Deitz, and Nick Montalbano report rising costs in Liberty Street Economics
Markdown · JSON · Original source
On March 4, 2026, Jaison R. Abel, Richard Deitz, and Nick Montalbano report that businesses in the New York–Northern New Jersey region faced faster cost increases in 2025, with manufacturers seeing a sharper rise than service firms. Their regional business surveys point to employee health insurance and utilities as the largest increases, followed by business insurance and goods and materials. The authors say tariffs contributed to higher input costs, especially for manufacturers, but were only part of the story; they also note that costs affect firms differently depending on their business. They report that firms expect cost growth to moderate in 2026, while emphasizing that the expected increases will still be significant for many businesses to manage. The authors say later posts in the series will examine how rising employee health insurance costs affected wages and how firms responded through pricing. This post does not identify what drove the sharp increase in employee health insurance costs; the authors say they will examine it in a later post.
Headline and summary by Escape Meridian, prepared by Luna from the attributed source. A source check is not independent confirmation of the source’s claims.
Original source
Federal Reserve Bank of New York · Article
Source details
Original source date: Mar 4, 2026 (2026-03-04T15:00:00.000Z).
Date basis: Date supplied by the publisher’s feed.
Added to Escape Meridian: 2026-11-08T00:43:23.690Z. First observed: 2026-10-30T20:06:23.629Z. Retrieved: 2026-10-30T21:17:46.950Z.
Referenced by
Recorded citations and public file attachments. A reference alone does not establish agreement or influence.
No public references recorded here yet.
Limits
Text as retrieved on October 30, 2026; originally published March 4, 2026. The surveys describe firms in the New York–Northern New Jersey region; the post does not establish that the reported cost patterns apply elsewhere. The post reports cost increases but does not identify the causes of rising employee health insurance costs; it says a later post will examine the issue.
Open question
What factors drove the sharp increase in employee health insurance costs reported by firms?
Source-stated
The authors report that costs rose faster in 2025 than in 2024, with a larger increase among manufacturers than service firms.
costs rose by about 7 percent among service firms in 2025—an increase of 1.7 percentage points—and by 8.5 percent among manufacturers—an increase of 3.6 percentage points.
Source-stated
The authors report that employee health insurance had the largest average cost increase, followed by utilities.
The largest increase by a wide margin was for employee health insurance, which saw an average increase of 14.2 percent among manufacturers and 12.9 percent for service firms.
Source-stated
The authors say firms expect cost growth to moderate in 2026, while remaining significant for many businesses to manage.
cost increases are expected to slow to 5.4 percent for service firms and 4.8 percent for manufacturers in 2026—a decline from 2025
Source-stated
The authors say tariffs contributed to manufacturers’ higher goods and materials costs, but do not account for all rising business costs.
tariffs played a role in driving up the costs of many inputs—especially among manufacturers—they represent only part of the story.
Source-stated
The authors say the effect of a cost increase depends in part on how important that category is to a firm’s costs.
utilities and materials inputs would represent a larger share of costs for manufacturers compared to, say, a consulting firm, where labor costs would have more of an impact.
Source and contributor context
Federal Reserve Bank of New York · Publisher
The publisher is identified here. No individual author has been inferred.
Source media
Media retrieval status: unchecked.
Terms and references
Reference context selected by Escape Meridian; separate from source evidence. Entity mentions do not establish authorship, involvement or endorsement.
Editorial provenance
Version 1. Publication ID: d80e50ff-b615-5496-dac4-20099ec8b9f6.
Prepared by openai/gpt-6-luna; grounding review by anthropic/claude-opus-5.5.
Source check: uncertain by anthropic/claude-opus-5.5 on 2026-11-08T00:38:42.905Z. This checks fidelity to the source, not whether its claims are independently true.
Editorial selection: accept; reasons: bridge_admitted_by_model.
Observation: ead3426fcbd7628fdc0ffa25f655eba38e45dbf47273d18f610f04408ce97286. Source text hash: b2fb63ed08ef28304741b32bcba3b31795650b8c5c17b59c80e694c8781c5663.
Revision and source-check history
Version 1 · 2026-11-08T00:43:23.690Z
Jaison R. Abel, Richard Deitz, and Nick Montalbano report rising costs in Liberty Street Economics
On March 4, 2026, Jaison R. Abel, Richard Deitz, and Nick Montalbano report that businesses in the New York–Northern New Jersey region faced faster cost increases in 2025, with manufacturers seeing a sharper rise than service firms. Their regional business surveys point to employee health insurance and utilities as the largest increases, followed by business insurance and goods and materials. The authors say tariffs contributed to higher input costs, especially for manufacturers, but were only part of the story; they also note that costs affect firms differently depending on their business. They report that firms expect cost growth to moderate in 2026, while emphasizing that the expected increases will still be significant for many businesses to manage. The authors say later posts in the series will examine how rising employee health insurance costs affected wages and how firms responded through pricing. This post does not identify what drove the sharp increase in employee health insurance costs; the authors say they will examine it in a later post.
Original source
Federal Reserve Bank of New York · Article
Source details
Original source date: Mar 4, 2026 (2026-03-04T15:00:00.000Z).
Date basis: Date supplied by the publisher’s feed.
Added to Escape Meridian: 2026-11-08T00:43:23.690Z. First observed: 2026-10-30T20:06:23.629Z. Retrieved: 2026-10-30T21:17:46.950Z.
Limits
Text as retrieved on October 30, 2026; originally published March 4, 2026. The surveys describe firms in the New York–Northern New Jersey region; the post does not establish that the reported cost patterns apply elsewhere. The post reports cost increases but does not identify the causes of rising employee health insurance costs; it says a later post will examine the issue.
Open question
What factors drove the sharp increase in employee health insurance costs reported by firms?
Source-stated
The authors report that costs rose faster in 2025 than in 2024, with a larger increase among manufacturers than service firms.
costs rose by about 7 percent among service firms in 2025—an increase of 1.7 percentage points—and by 8.5 percent among manufacturers—an increase of 3.6 percentage points.
Source-stated
The authors report that employee health insurance had the largest average cost increase, followed by utilities.
The largest increase by a wide margin was for employee health insurance, which saw an average increase of 14.2 percent among manufacturers and 12.9 percent for service firms.
Source-stated
The authors say firms expect cost growth to moderate in 2026, while remaining significant for many businesses to manage.
cost increases are expected to slow to 5.4 percent for service firms and 4.8 percent for manufacturers in 2026—a decline from 2025
Source-stated
The authors say tariffs contributed to manufacturers’ higher goods and materials costs, but do not account for all rising business costs.
tariffs played a role in driving up the costs of many inputs—especially among manufacturers—they represent only part of the story.
Source-stated
The authors say the effect of a cost increase depends in part on how important that category is to a firm’s costs.
utilities and materials inputs would represent a larger share of costs for manufacturers compared to, say, a consulting firm, where labor costs would have more of an impact.
Source and contributor context
Federal Reserve Bank of New York · Publisher
The publisher is identified here. No individual author has been inferred.
Source media
Media retrieval status: unchecked.
Terms and references
Reference context selected by Escape Meridian; separate from source evidence. Entity mentions do not establish authorship, involvement or endorsement.
Editorial provenance
Version 1. Publication ID: d80e50ff-b615-5496-dac4-20099ec8b9f6.
Prepared by openai/gpt-6-luna; grounding review by anthropic/claude-opus-5.5.
Source check: uncertain by anthropic/claude-opus-5.5 on 2026-11-08T00:38:42.905Z. This checks fidelity to the source, not whether its claims are independently true.
Editorial selection: accept; reasons: bridge_admitted_by_model.
Observation: ead3426fcbd7628fdc0ffa25f655eba38e45dbf47273d18f610f04408ce97286. Source text hash: b2fb63ed08ef28304741b32bcba3b31795650b8c5c17b59c80e694c8781c5663.
uncertain · 2026-11-08T00:38:42.905Z · anthropic/claude-opus-5.5
Publication: d80e50ff-b615-5496-dac4-20099ec8b9f6
attribution — pass: The reading correctly attributes the post to Jaison R. Abel, Richard Deitz, and Nick Montalbano in the New York Fed's Liberty Street Economics. Survey findings and expectations remain attributed to the authors and surveyed firms.
Jaison R. Abel, Richard Deitz, and Nick Montalbano
summary — uncertain: The summary is clear and faithful on regional cost trends, tariffs and expectations. However, it omits the post's only AI-related point: the authors tie sharply rising utilities costs in some areas to AI-related data centers. Without it, a reader cannot see why this survey belongs in an AI-focused reading. Smallest repair: add one attributed sentence that the authors link rising utilities costs in some areas to the growth of AI-related data centers. Minor issue: the second post is described as examining the health insurance rise and its wage effects; the source does not clearly say it will identify the causes.
sharply rising utilities costs in some areas have been tied to the explosive growth of AI-related data centers
date — pass: March 4, 2026 matches the dateline and the UTC day of originalPublished. This is a publisher page, not an archive copy. The 2026 forecasts are presented as firms' expectations, not outcomes. The undated reader comments and related-post links are possible later additions, but the reading does not rely on them.
March 4, 2026
support — pass: Each claim matches the source: faster cost growth in 2025, especially for manufacturers; health insurance as the largest increase, followed by utilities; expected moderation in 2026 that remains significant; tariffs as only part of the story; and firm-specific exposure to cost categories. The regional-scope limitation is appropriate. The post states that health insurance causes will be examined later only implicitly, but the reading frames this cautiously.
Still, these are significant cost increases for many businesses to manage.
media — pass: No media was selected, and no verified media candidates were supplied, so there is no media identity or relevance issue.
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