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The U.S. economy was supposed to start the year with a bang, fueled by an unusually large jump in tax refunds from President Donald Trump’s tax cut legislation. Yet spiking gas prices are on track to eat up those refunds, leaving most Americans with little extra to spend.

“Next spring is projected to be the largest tax refund season of all time,” Trump said in a prime-time speech in December that was intended to address voters’ concerns about the economy and stubbornly high prices.

But that was before the Iran war, which began Feb. 28. Oil and gas prices have soared since then, with the nationwide average price of gas reaching $3.94 Sunday, up more than a dollar from just a month earlier.

Gas prices are likely to remain elevated for some time, even if the war ends soon, because shipping and production have been disrupted and will take time to recover. Economists now expect slower growth this spring and for the year as a whole, as dollars that are spent on gas are less likely to be used for restaurant meals, new clothes, or entertainment.

Lower and middle-income households are likely to be hit particularly hard, because they receive lower refunds, while spending a greater proportion of their earnings on gas.

“The energy shock is to going to hit those who have the least cushion,” said Alex Jacquez, chief of policy at the left-leaning Groundwork Collaborative and a former economist in the Biden White House. “And it doesn’t look like those tax refunds are going to be here to save them.”

Neale Mahoney, director of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, calculates that gas prices could peak in May at $4.36 a gallon, based on oil price forecasts by Goldman Sachs, followed by slow declines for the rest of the year. The notion that gas prices decline much more slowly than they rise is so ingrained among economists that they refer to it as the “rocket and feathers” phenomenon.

In that scenario, the average household would pay $740 more in gas this year, nearly equal to the $748 increase in refunds that the Tax Foundation has estimated the average household will receive.

Through March 6, refunds have risen by much less than that, according to IRS data: They have averaged $3,676, up $352 from $3,324 in 2025. Still, average refunds could rise as more complex returns are filed.

Other estimates show similar impacts. Economists at Oxford Economics, a consulting firm, estimate that if gas prices average $3.70 a gallon all year, it will cost consumers about $70 billion — more than the $60 billion in increased tax refunds.

The gas price spike comes with many consumers already in a precarious position, particularly compared to 2022, when gas prices also soared because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. At that time, many households still had fattened bank accounts from pandemic-era stimulus payments and companies were hiring rapidly and sharply lifting pay to attract workers.

Now, hiring is nearly at a standstill and Americans’ saving rate has steadily fallen in the past few years as many households borrow more to sustain their spending.

“When you start looking across the perspective from a consumer side, you’re seeing people who have maxed out their credit cards, are using ‘buy now, pay later’ to purchase their groceries,” said Julie Margetta Morgan, president of The Century Foundation, a think tank. “They’re making it work for now, but that can fall apart quite quickly.”

The impact will likely worsen the “K-shaped” narrativ e around the U.S. economy, analysts said, in which higher income households have fared better than lower-income households. The bottom 10% of earners spend nearly 4% of their incomes on gasoline, Pantheon Macroeconomics estimates, while the top 10% spend just 1.5%.

For now, most analysts still expect the U.S. economy to expand this year, even if more slowly, given the gas price shock. Higher gas prices will likely worsen inflation in the short run, but over time weaker spending will also slow growth.

American consumers and businesses have repeatedly shaken off shocks since the pandemic — soaring inflation, rising interest rates, tariffs — and continued to spend, defying concerns that the economy would tip into recession. Many economists note that the proportion of their incomes that Americans spend on gas and other energy has fallen significantly compared with a decade ago.

Data from the Bank of America Institute, released Friday, showed that spending on gas on the bank’s credit and debit cards shot 14.4% higher in the week ended March 14 compared with a year ago. Before the war, such spending was running 5% below the previous year, a benefit to consumers.

Spending on discretionary items — restaurant meals, electronics, and travel — is still growing, the institute said, evidence of consumer resilience. But there is little sign it is accelerating, as many economists had hoped.

“The longer these gasoline prices persist, the more that will gradually sap consumer discretionary spending,” said David Tinsley, senior economist at the institute.

Other analysts expect growth will slow because of the war. Bernard Yaros and Michael Pearce, economists at Oxford Economics, forecast that the U.S. economy will grow just 1.9% this year, down from an earlier estimate of 2.5%.

“We had anticipated a lift in spending from a bumper tax refund season,” they wrote, “but the rise in gasoline prices, if sustained, would more than offset that boost.”

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The head of the International Energy Agency said Monday that the global economy faces a “major, major threat” because of the Iran war.

“No country will be immune to the effects of this crisis if it continues to go in this direction,” Fatih Birol said at Australia’s National Press Club in Canberra on Monday.

The crisis in the Middle East, he said, has had a worse impact on oil than the two oil shocks of the 1970s combined, and a worse effect on gas than the Russia-Ukraine war.

Israel launched a new wave of attacks early Monday against Tehran. U.S. President Donald Trump also warned the United States will “obliterate” Iran’s power plants if Tehran doesn’t fully open the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours. That prompted Iran to say it would respond to any such strike with attacks on U.S. and Israeli energy and infrastructure assets.

Trump is facing increasing pressure at home to secure the strait as oil prices soar.

One major fear is that the war could knock out oil and gas production in the Middle East for a long time, which would mean high prices could last a while and cause inflation to rip higher around the world. The U.S. stock market has a history of bouncing back relatively quickly from past conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, as long as oil prices don’t stay too high for too long.

Iran on Monday renewed strikes on its Gulf neighbors and threatened to start hitting their power plants.

“The situation is very severe,” Birol said in Australia.

The oil crises of 1973 and 1979, he said, lost together 10 million barrels per day, causing “major economic problems around the world, the recessions. And today, only as of today, we lost 11 million barrels per day — so more than two major oil shocks put together.”

After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he said, the gas markets, especially in Europe, “lost about 75 billion cubic meters, 75BCM. And as of now, as a result of this crisis, we lost about 140BCM, almost twice (as much).”

Birol said 40 energy assets in nine countries across the region were “severely or very severely damaged.”

“Some of the vital arteries of the global economy, such as petrochemical, such as fertilizers, such as sulfur, such as helium — their trade is all interrupted, which would have serious consequences for the global economy,” he said.

He said the International Energy Agency, “in order to comfort the markets,” earlier released 400 million barrels of oil, “which is historic. We have never released so much oil to the markets. … The single most important solution to this problem is opening up the Hormuz Strait as things stand now.”

The official added that he was consulting with governments in Europe, Asia, North America and the Middle East about the prospect of releasing further stockpiled oil.

“We will see, we will look at the markets,” he said. “If it is necessary, of course, we will do it, but we will look at the conditions, we will analyze, assess the market and discuss with our member countries.”

___

AP writer Foster Klug contributed to this report from Tokyo.

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Arrivals and departures were temporarily paused at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey on Monday morning after air traffic controllers evacuated the tower due to a burning smell coming from an elevator, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

It wasn’t immediately clear what caused the issue, and the agency said it was determined that no fire had occurred. The delay lasted less than an hour, and no injuries were reported.

During the pause, FAA staff relocated to a backup tower at the airport, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the airport. They later returned to the primary tower.

Earlier this month, four airports serving Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Richmond, Virginia, halted all flights for over an hour because of a strong chemical smell that was impeding air traffic controllers. Federal Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the source of the strong odor was traced to a circuit board that overheated and was replaced.

The temporary pause at Newark Liberty was not related to a fatal accident at New York’s LaGuardia Airport on Sunday night. In that episode, two people were killed and several others were seriously injured when an Air Canada regional jet struck a fire truck on a runway while landing, officials said.

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Two people were killed and several others badly hurt when an Air Canada regional jet struck a fire truck on a runway while landing at New York’s LaGuardia Airport, officials said.

The pilot and copilot were killed in the late Sunday night collision, which crushed the nose of the aircraft, while around 40 passengers and crew members were taken to area hospitals, some with serious injuries. Most have since been released from treatment, authorities said Monday.

Two Port Authority employees who were traveling in the fire truck also suffered injuries that were not believed to be life-threatening, aid Kathryn Garcia, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the airport.

In the moments before the crash, an air traffic controller could be heard on a radio transmission giving clearance to a vehicle to cross part of the tarmac, then trying to stop it.

The airport was shut down and air traffic was diverted, and on Monday morning operations also were halted at Newark Liberty International Airport in neighboring New Jersey. Air traffic controllers evacuated the tower because of a burning smell from an elevator, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

The shutdowns happened during long waits for travelers due to the busy spring break travel season and a shortage of Transportation Security Administration officers because of a lack of routine funding for the Department of Homeland Security.

Pilot and copilot were based out of Canada

The pilot and copilot who died were both based out of Canada, Garcia said during a news conference.

The airport will remain closed until at least 2 p.m. Monday to facilitate the investigation, which is being led by the National Transportation Safety Board.

“Two pilots were killed and dozens injured in this tragedy. Our thoughts are with the victims, their families, and everyone affected,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul posted online.

The fire truck was traveling across the runway to respond to a separate incident aboard a United Airlines flight, whose pilot had reported “an issue with odor,” said Garcia, who deferred additional questions about the sequence of events leading up to the crash to the NTSB.

There were 72 passengers and four crew members aboard the aircraft, a Jazz Aviation flight operating on behalf of Air Canada, according to a statement from the airline. The flight originated at Montreal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport, the major airport serving Montreal.

Photos and videos from the scene showed severe damage to the front of the aircraft, with cables and debris hanging from a mangled cockpit. Nearby, a damaged emergency vehicle lay on its side.

Stairways used to evacuate passengers from the aircraft were pushed up to the emergency exits on the jet, a Bombardier CRJ. The impact left the jet with its crumpled nose tilted upward.

Air traffic controller tried to stop vehicle after giving clearance

The air traffic controller tried to warn the vehicle.

“Stop, Truck 1. Stop,” the transmission says. The controller can then be heard frantically diverting an incoming aircraft from landing.

Air traffic controllers are not impacted by the partial government shutdown that has caused long delays at airport security checkpoints in recent days. They have been affected by past shutdowns.

As passengers straggled out of the airport into the dark early Monday, some described having arrived at LaGuardia hours before their flight, hoping to beat the lines.

Arturo Davidson said his Miami-bound flight was on the tarmac Sunday night when fellow passengers saw the collision or its aftermath and reactions rippled through the cabin.

The passengers were soon told there had been an accident. About 20 minutes later, they were informed the airport was closing and they must return to the terminal, he said later Monday, gazing at a departure board filled with cancellations.

“I don’t think we’re going at two,” he sighed, referring to the time Monday afternoon that officials gave as the earliest for reopening LaGuardia.

One of the nation’s busiest airports

LaGuardia was 19th busiest in 2024 out of more than 500 U.S. airports, with over 16.7 million passengers boarding there, according to a 2025 FAA database.

The airport, which opened to commercial traffic in 1939, covers 680 acres (275 hectares) and borders Flushing and Bowery bays in Queens. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey describes it as “one of the nation’s leading domestic gateways for business and leisure travel” in its 2024 Airport Traffic Report.

LaGuardia is one of 35 major airports across the country equipped with an advanced surface surveillance system that uses radar and data from locator systems on planes to alert controllers to potential conflicts on runways, according to the FAA.

There are three different models of Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting trucks, according to a video put out last year about the unit by the Port Authority. One carries 1,500 gallons (5,678 liters) of water and firefighting chemicals. Two others carry 3,000 gallons (11,356 liters) of water. One of those models is also equipped with a turret that can extend 65 feet (20 meters) to penetrate inside an aircraft and discharge firefighting chemicals.

It’s still too early to tell what went wrong, and investigators from the NTSB will now start collecting facts, interviewing people, downloading recordings and reviewing data from flight recorders, aviation safety expert Jeff Guzzetti said.

“It might be easy enough just to say, ‘Oh, the controller made a mistake.’ But there’s got to be deeper questions,” he said.

___

The story has been updated to correct that the Port Authority video on trucks was put out last year, not last month.

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As of 9 a.m. Eastern Time today, oil sold for $101.44 per barrel (using Brent as the benchmark, which we’ll get into momentarily). That’s $10.64 lower than yesterday—but approximately a $29 rise over the past year.

Will oil prices go up?

It’s impossible to predict the future of oil prices. Several factors determine the movement of oil, but it ultimately boils down to supply and demand. Again, when threats of economic downturn, war, etc. are high, the oil trajectory can turn rapidly.

How oil prices translate to gas pump prices

When you pay for gas at the pump, you’re paying for more than just the crude oil itself; you’re also springing for links along the chain, such as the refineries and wholesalers—not to mention taxes and local gas station markups.

Still, the crude oil aspect affects the final price most dramatically, as it typically accounts for more than half the price per gallon. When oil prices spike, so do gas prices. And frustratingly, when oil prices drop, gas prices tend to take their time drifting down to the lower price (sometimes referred to as “rockets and feathers”).

The role of the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve

In case of emergency, the U.S. has a store of crude oil known as the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Its primary purpose is energy security in case of disaster (think sanctions, severe storm damage, even war). But it can also go a long way toward softening crippling price hikes during supply shocks.

It’s not a long-term answer—more of an immediate relief to assist the consumer and keep critical parts of the economy running, like key industries, emergency services, public transportation, etc.

How oil and natural gas prices are linked

Oil and natural gas are both major energy fuels. A big change in oil prices can affect natural gas by extension. For example, if oil prices increase, some industries may swap natural gas for some segments of their operations where possible—which increases demand for natural gas.

Historical performance of oil

When examining oil’s performance, there are generally two major benchmarks:

• Brent crude oil is the main global oil benchmark.
• West Texas Intermediate (WTI) is the main benchmark of North America.

Between the two, Brent better represents global oil performance because it prices much of the world’s traded crude. And, it’s often the best way to track historical oil performance. In fact, even the U.S. Energy Information Administration now uses Brent as its primary reference in its Annual Energy Outlook.

Looking at the Brent benchmark across several decades, oil has been anything but steady. It’s seen spikes due to factors such as wars and supply cuts, and it’s also seen crashes from global recessions and an oversupply (called a “glut”). For example:

• The early 1970s brought the first big oil shock when the Middle East cut exports and imposed an embargo on the U.S. and others during the Yom Kippur War.
• Prices dropped in the mid-1980s for reasons such as lower demand and more non-OPEC oil producers entering the industry.
• Prices spiked again in 2008 with increased global demand, but it soon plummeted alongside the global financial crisis.
• During the 2020 COVID lockdown, oil demand collapsed like never before—bringing prices below $20 per barrel.

All to say, oil’s historical performance has been anything but smooth. Again, it’s hugely affected by wars, recessions, OPEC whims, evolving energy initiatives and policies, and much more.

Energy coverage from Fortune

Looking to stay up-to-date regarding the latest energy developments? Check out our recent coverage:

• Natural gas prices in Texas plunge deep into negative territory and producers are burning it off
• ‘Almost exactly offsetting the boost’: Higher gasoline prices this year could wipe out tax refunds
• U.S. allows sale of stranded Iran oil to cap fuel-price rises

Frequently asked questions

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Around the boardroom table, Carmen-Maja Rex’s colleagues slip easily between French and English. When the Airbus CHRO takes her seat, the discussion naturally settles into English without anyone flagging the switch. For a company founded in France, built partly in Germany, assembling aircraft across Europe and flying them globally, English has quietly become the default working language. The same takes place just a few hundred kilometers away at Sodexo’s headquarters just outside of Paris. CHRO Heather Jacobs is American, and most of her conversations in the boardroom are in English, despite the company having roots in the French city of Marseille.

English is now the most widely spoken language in history, with around 1.5 billion speakers worldwide, and fluency in it has quietly become an unwritten yet essential requirement for many senior roles at multinationals. This expectation can disadvantage those who are not native English speakers, and now sits against a wider political backdrop in which leaders such as Donald Trump have designated English as the U.S.’s official language, promoting warnings from scholars about how easily the ‘speak English’ rhetoric can slide into exclusion. 

The OECD examined 11 million online job postings in 2021, across the EU and the U.K., and found that 22% explicitly required English proficiency. German was the next most frequently requested language, appearing in 1.7% of listings, often in tourism-related roles. French was required in only 1.1% of postings, while Italian was required in only 0.4%. 

In Europe’s boardrooms, the growing dominance of English isn’t just a matter of habit; it’s also driven by global business demands, with effects that reach into areas such as rules and safety. It also shapes who fits in, who advances, and how companies operate. The question now is whether AI is reinforcing English as a ‘superior’ language of leadership, or simply making it easier for organizations to maintain a common corporate language—and whether businesses could realistically return to a more localised way of functioning.

A language born of power, not policy

Although English is mandated as the common corporate language in many Fortune 500 Europe headquarters across the region, its dominance is, in many ways, a historical “accident”. Nina Bellak, PhD, Senior Lecturer at the University of Vienna, links the power of English in boardrooms to postwar history. “There’s this power dynamic at a national level between the colonizer and colonized, and it’s a very similar dynamic at a corporate level,” she says. Explaining that English became far more prominent post World War as U.S. economic and political power expanded across the continent. 

Over the following decades, English gradually displaced local languages such as French and German as the dominant working language. Many Fortune 500 European companies have mandated English for simple operational reasons, ranging from safety standards to international financial reporting. Airbus’s decision to mandate English as its working language goes back to the company’s birth in the 1970s, says Rex. “This was very surprising, especially in those days in France—there were not many French companies [that agreed] on English [becoming] the common language,” she adds. The reasoning was largely practical: aviation safety, where English is the global standard. 

Similarly, in the early 2000s, Siemens began using English more consistently after listing on the NYSE, particularly for financial communications, says Nanda Burke, global head of talent and organization at Siemens. In other cases, companies adopted English more organically. For example, at the Swiss electrification and automation company ABB, English became the common corporate language following the merger of Swedish firm ASEA and Swiss company Brown Boveri in 1988. With neither Swedish nor German able to claim precedence, English emerged as neutral ground—less a deliberate strategy than a diplomatic necessity, according to Carolina Granat, ABB’s chief human resources officer.

Beyond industry factors, the prevalence of English within Fortune 500 companies in Europe also reflects its widespread use across countries. In the Netherlands and countries in Scandinavia for example, English classes are compulsory at schools and so individuals pick up the language at a much younger age, hence often functioning as a natural second language. Kaija Bridger, EVP people & communications at elevator engineering company, KONE, says that, in Finland, where the company is headquartered, the country’s small domestic market has caused people to look outward and so most senior leaders operate comfortably in English. “Finnish wouldn’t be the most dominant language to begin with,” she says, adding that one newly employed executive member recently asked for support in learning Finnish. 

Lost in translation

Research suggests this English-first narrative hides a more complex reality. Bellak finds that many multinationals claim to have an official corporate language policy, but day-to-day language choice is messy, hard to regulate and often up to the individual. 

Whilst many companies have officialized English as the common corporate language, local languages remain critical on the ground. At Siemens, day-to-day meetings are conducted in English, although local languages are highly present, and “that is a strength,” says Burke, who is not fluent in German but has been learning “not because it was required but because I now live part-time in Munich and genuinely want to understand and speak the local language.”

At KONE, which operates in 70 countries, Bridger describes the company as a “global company with very local operations”. While English is essential for regional and global roles, local languages dominate among technicians in the field. “Let’s say, all of a sudden, the escalator stops working. Someone needs to be pretty close by and [a technician] needs to be able to fix the lift. That’s where we come to the language and proximity of the business…and that’s where local language plays a huge role,” she adds. Similarly, Sodexo’s Jacobs explains that despite English being the corporate language, “local languages naturally dominate in the markets where we operate”, such as India and mainland China. At the company’s headquarters, more than 25 nationalities are present and so “you hear a little bit of everything,” she notes. While many of these firms have formally mandated English, in practice, they rely on a multilingual ecosystem to function.

KONE

Behind every official language policy, the question arises: whose voices carry furthest when English becomes the default? Whilst most Fortune 500 Europe companies have not officially stated that English is a necessity, it’s almost assumed that at the C-Suite or senior level, individuals can converse in English. “If I think about the C-suite, senior leadership and even middle management roles…If there’s an English language requirement, the idea really is that the person is proficient enough,” says KONE’s Bridger. 

Fluency, status and who gets ahead

Nevertheless, companies remain careful not to treat polished English as a proxy for leadership potential. “Talent is about capability, impact, and values-driven leadership, not accent or fluency,” says ABB’s Granat. Where certain language requirements do matter, most companies take responsibility for removing barriers: localizing job postings, adapting assessment processes and providing learning opportunities so that employees can build language confidence, not only in English but also in the local language of the host country when it is required or encouraged. “Within my first month of being with Sodexo, I had a full week outside of the office [in Southwest France], not just [to learn the] language, but it was about cultural adaptation as well,” Jacobs adds. 

Although many companies invest in language training for employees—including English courses for staff outside English-speaking countries—employees can still experience a sense of status loss. Associate Professor at BI Norwegian Business School, Guro Refsum Sanden, uses this term to describe how non-native speakers of the common corporate language sometimes feel a subjective drop in their professional esteem, as if their competence is being judged through their language skills rather than their actual expertise. This can leave even highly skilled non-native English speakers feeling inadequate when required to operate in a foreign language. By contrast, native English speakers may gain status simply because they remain fluent in the corporate language, even when they are no more professionally capable than their peers—a form of “unearned status”, Refsum Sanden calls it. 

Language isn’t just a communication tool—whether English or the local language of the host country—it is a tool that enables people to integrate and signal whether they ‘belong’ in boardrooms as well as society. Native English speaker Brady Dougan spent eight years as CEO of Credit Suisse and left without ever speaking German; he later called it one of his regrets,  and his inability to speak German was criticized in the Swiss media. In 2015, Anshu Jain, the Indian-born British co-CEO of Deutsche Bank opened the bank’s annual meeting in German before switching to English. However, less than three weeks later, Jain resigned as co-CEO after losing investor confidence. 

Not speaking the native language didn’t directly cost Dougan and Jain their jobs; however, it drew criticism and made it harder for them to connect with local investors, clients and customers. English can evidently get senior leaders into the boardroom; whether they can retain the role without speaking the local language is less certain.

The translator in the room 

That’s also the limit of what AI can currently change. Translation tools, meeting summaries and captions have the ability to smooth over gaps in fluency and assist non-native speakers in writing emails, translating, and functioning more confidently in English-first settings. Airbus’ Rex notes that “AI is supportive in order to build bridges,” and adds that the company has rolled out Gemini globally, resulting in improved translation efficiency. Similarly, Jacobs notes how AI has improved translation processes at Sodexo, making communication faster and more accurate for mandatory learning and employee engagement surveys. 

Yet CHROs broadly agree that even the best AI tools require careful handling to preserve the essence of communication and that AI is nowhere near ready to replace human leadership and interaction. Refsum Sanden warns that the more organisations lean on AI to translate and generate text, the greater the risk that it will “converge” the way people communicate, eroding differences and nuances in local languages. If multilingual companies come to depend on those systems, technology will start to dictate what is considered ‘appropriate’ language in the boardroom and even language included in emails and chat—potentially narrowing, rather than enriching, the range of voices and communication styles that make it into the corporate conversation. 

Executives from KONE, Sodexo and ABB all describe English as the practical “common denominator” that enables cross-border collaboration. Global companies will always have to balance the ‘local’ with the  ‘global’ and KONE’s Bridger doesn’t see that basic tension changing anytime soon. The local side is driven by the markets companies operate in and the customers served, whereas the global side brings scale, shared platforms and processes so that local teams do not need to reinvent the wheel. This is also dependent on population, country and market size. Bridger notes that Finland is a “small nation and [the language] is one of the hardest languages to learn.” Hence, native Finnish speakers at times are empathetic and remain open-minded towards language as a whole.

It’s hard to imagine multinationals operating without at least one shared language to connect their multicultural and multilingual operations. Whether local languages can retain space in multinational boardrooms? “We’re not really there right now,” says Sodexo’s Jacobs, noting that English has effectively become the universal language at the senior level—and that won’t change unless something else emerges to replace it. 

Whilst English has slipped into Europe’s boardrooms as a common bridge over the last few decades, it now carries political and technological weight. President Trump signed the historic executive order designating English as the official language of the United States on March 1st 2025, marking the first time the country has ever had a national language. A symbolic move highlighting how closely language, power and identity are intertwined.

English may remain the boardroom default for the foreseeable future, but it is up to companies to define how tightly they choose to hold onto it—and who that choice leaves out.

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Good morning!

Seven years after Tulsa Remote began paying workers $10,000 to move to their Oklahoma city, the experiment has become a case study in how relocation incentives can bolster a local economy and widen the workforce employers can tap. More than 4,000 workers relocated, contributing some $878 million in economic impact.

That success paved the way for Tulsa’s next act: helping employers tap global talent. Since launching in 2022, the Tulsa Visa Network has helped nearly 100 people from 34 countries secure visas, offering a practical model at a moment when costly H-1B visa fees and a more complicated immigration environment are forcing many employers to rethink how they recruit internationally.

Stan Khrapak, who leads the Tulsa Visa Network, says his program has seen steady demand this year from both individuals seeking visa support and small to midsize companies trying to navigate an increasingly complex system. Roughly half of those the program has helped are in STEM, he says, though the network is also supporting hiring in fields like finance and accounting.

Justin Harlan, managing director of parent program Experience Tulsa, says Tulsa Remote has attracted professionals whose remote jobs strengthen the community without displacing local workers—and that the Visa Network is built on the same premise.

“It’s highly skilled folks coming in [for roles] that companies often have a hard time filling at a local level, and it makes it very hard to argue whether this is adding something to the community.” 

The bigger lesson for HR leaders is that Tulsa’s strategy is not really about cash incentives alone. It is about designing an employee experience that makes people want to live somewhere, stay, and build a life there, Harlan adds.

The Experience Tulsa program has expanded its offerings well beyond the original $10,000 and visa assistance. Participants now receive a $200 monthly health and wellness stipend, access to a free coworking space, and a remote-work certification course developed in partnership with NYU.

The organization also hosts community building events such as movie nights and dance lessons. That, Harlan says, is where many employers still fall short. Companies, especially those with hybrid or remote workforces or those trying to attract global talent, need to think intentionally about how employees experience life outside the office.

“Oftentimes, HR departments will give that lip service or do the quick and easy things that we’re accustomed to,” Harlan says. “But when companies do go out of their way to go above and beyond, I think it’s noticed and can make a big impact in terms of the quality of life that somebody has.”

Kristin Stoller
Editorial Director, Fortune Live Media
kristin.stoller@fortune.com

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The U.S.’s eye-watering debt burden poses an “existential threat to the future of our nation,” the chairman of the House Budget Committee has warned, as the country’s borrowing figure tipped over $39 trillion.

Texan Republican Jodey Arrington highlighted last week that it had taken the U.S. nearly two centuries to build a debt pile worth $1 trillion, whereas a mere matter of decades later, the Treasury is forking out that figure every year merely in service payments on the debt.

For the fiscal year 2025, the Treasury paid $1.22 trillion in interest on the debt, and for FY2026, the government has already paid out $520 billion. By 2036, that figure is expected to hit to $2.1 trillion annually, according to calculations by the Congressional Budget Office.

Indeed, U.S. debt didn’t reach the $1 trillion mark until the early 1980s, hitting $1.1 trillion under President Ronald Reagan.

As Arrington points out: “It took roughly 200 years to accumulate the first $1 trillion. Now we add that in a matter of months. Every child in America today carries a $530,000 share of this debt—a crushing legacy we must reverse. Compounding the problem, we now spend more than $1 trillion a year just on interest to service our debt—more than the entire defense budget and triple the amount when Biden took office.”

Arrington isn’t alone in his concern over the nation’s financial trajectory. Figures on the private side of the economy like Jamie Dimon and Ray Dalio have warned over a reckoning caused by debt, and U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell has also expressed the need for an “adult conversation” about the issue.

There is a range of opinions on which methods should be employed to wrangle borrowing and its associated interest costs. For example, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has advocated for a federal unified budget deficit at or below 3% of GDP, which at the moment sits at around 6%. This idea has been backed by the likes of Representatives Bill Huizenga and Scott Peters, the co-chairs of the Bipartisan Fiscal Forum—indeed, the entire steering committee for the forum has backed the notion and introduced a resolution to that effect.

Arrington has called for a harder-line approach. The resolution for a deficit of 3% of GDP is defined more loosely as a target: Arrington wants to open up a conversation about adding fiscal responsibility to the country’s very constitution.

He said last week: “Here’s the sad, sobering, and stunning truth: despite the urgency of our fiscal crisis, Congress is paralyzed—unable to meet the urgency of the moment. So, if Washington won’t act, then it’s time to look beyond our nation’s capital. The Founders gave us another path in Article V of the Constitution, empowering the states and the American people to step in and demand fiscal discipline.

“I’m calling on Congress to convene an Article V Convention. It’s time to restore sanity in our nation’s capital and reverse the curse looming large over this country.”

An Article Five Convention allows amendments to the Constitution, for example, targeting borrowing and government spending. If two-thirds of state legislatures apply, then Congress must call a convention, with a further three-quarters of states required to back the amendment for it to become a legal requirement.

Other approaches

In recent memory, presidents have attempted to rectify the U.S. fiscal position. President Obama oversaw the creation of the bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, commonly known as the Simpson-Bowles (or Bowles-Simpson) Commission. The ensuing report made several recommendations: Cutting discretionary spending, reforming tax law, and reshaping healthcare spending.

President Trump has suggested some unusual methods to rebalance the books. For example, he has touted a “Gold Card” plan, a visa policy which would charge rich immigrants $5 million for a green card, plus a route to citizenship.”

“A million cards would be worth $5 trillion, and if you sell 10 million of the cards that’s a total of $50 trillion. Well, we have $35 trillion in debt, so that would be nice,” Trump said last year.

Likewise, tariffs were introduced as a way to offset some of the revenue loss from the likes of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Indeed, while Trump’s tariff plans have proved unpopular with foreign governments, economists nonetheless welcome the “peculiar” methods to increase America’s income. As Wharton professor Joao Gomes previously told Fortune: “You can also not deny that [Trump and his administration] bring strange forms of revenue that do change the debt picture.”

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Good morning. In today’s Fortune:

• The war: Oil is at $113 and markets are in meltdown as Trump threatens to escalate the war in Iran tonight if Tehran doesn’t reopen the Strait of Hormuz. In response, Iran has threatened to start taking out its neighbors’ water supplies. The damage to the oil market is greater than that of 1974 and 2022 put together, the IEA says.
• Exclusive: Supermicro’s dark history of smuggling chips to Iran.
• AI isn’t replacing as many jobs as you’d think.
• Tim Cook’s likely successor at Apple.
• Aye, robot! Mark Zuckerberg is building an AI agent for himself.

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Good morning. Adobe CFO Dan Durn isn’t waiting to see how agentic AI plays out—he’s already running the experiment inside his own finance organization.

Durn, who oversees finance, technology, security, and operations, has turned Adobe’s back office into a live proving ground for autonomous AI agents. The results include contract review time cut in half, more than 300,000 emails auto-responded to in a single year, and finance teams surfacing investor insights in minutes instead of hours.

At Adobe (No. 201 on the Fortune 500), the push is deliberate. If finance doesn’t adopt AI, it risks becoming a “rate limiter of growth”—a back-office bottleneck in a company moving fast on product innovation, Durn told me. Inside finance, he breaks AI deployment into three buckets. For a closer look at how Adobe’s finance chief is rewiring the function, and what it signals for CFOs navigating the same pressure, read more of my interview with Durn here.

The rise of AI is also rapidly reshaping corporate leadership. Even long-tenured leaders face increasing pressure from investors to move aggressively on AI. Recent leadership changes, including the announced retirement of Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen, highlight how little patience markets now have for perceived hesitation. At the same time, Adobe reported that annualized revenue from its AI-first products more than tripled year over year in its first quarter of fiscal 2026, which ended Feb. 27.

The make-or-break moment for CEOs is contributing to an era of rapid turnover among chief executives, Fortune’s Claire Zillman writes. In 2025, companies in the S&P 1500 named 168 new CEOs, the highest total in more than 15 years, according to Spencer Stuart, a global executive search and leadership advisory firm.

“CEO tenures are getting shorter and fewer incoming chief executives have prior CEO experience, the data shows, making the two-time CEO exceedingly rare,” Zillman writes. “All told, corporate America has turned into a CEO meat-grinder; it’s chewing up and spitting out leaders at a pace not seen in a decade and a half.” You can read more here.

Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com

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