The Federal Reserve should delay further raising interest rates until after the major party presidential nominees emerge this summer.

GDP growth was only 1 percent in the fourth quarter, and the economy came perilously close to heading south this winter.

Employers added 242,000 positions in February but 304,000 more Americans reported working part time by choice
 and average wages fell. Higher paying jobs in manufacturing, mining and the oil patch continued to disappear.

Americans opting out of full time employment and sinking pay hardly paints a picture of economic health.

Troubles in China, Japan and Europe have pushed up the value of the dollar. In 2015, a surge of cheap imports, depressed sales of U.S. capital goods and the like abroad, and the multiplier effects on domestic spending and investment cut GDP growth by about one third. The drag imposed by a strong dollar on growth is not likely to relent until at least this summer.

Whatever the shortcomings of President Obama’s economic policies, businesses have adjusted plans to his regime, but the populist revolt led by Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders is making them skittish about more changes for the worse.

Hillary Clinton, the Democrat most likely to become president, has countered Sanders’ redistributionist policies and  punitive agenda toward business by promising voters more free stuff too —such as extended Obamacare benefits and free college tuition—and to penalize American companies that relocate production abroad, don’t “invest in employees” or welcome unions.

Thanks to Obama’s expansion in the earned income tax credit, Medicaid, food stamps and the like, families with children earning between $20,000 and $50,000 a year face a 50 to 80 marginal tax rate—from higher payroll and income taxes and lost government benefits—when a parent returns to work or goes from part-time to full time employment.