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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the banking watchdog created after the subprime mortgage meltdown and the 2008 global financial crisis, has been thrown into chaos as the Trump administration works to drastically limit its operations.

 

Last month, workers at the CFPB were told to stop working, effectively shutting down the agency, though that order has since been challenged by a federal judge.

 

Although the CFPB, which is tasked with ensuring banks, lenders and other financial companies play fair with consumers, is severely weakened, Americans shouldn’t be too worried about a repeat of the subprime mortgage crisis that led to its creation, experts told CNN. Lenders and banks are currently more stringently regulated than they were in the years leading up to the crisis, and Americans who borrow money are more protected.

 

Still, with the hobbling of an agency that often acts as a safety net for consumers, Americans may need to become their own consumer advocates when dealing with lenders of all types.

 

“The CFPB’s mission is to protect individuals. After the financial crisis, we saw there were a lot of individuals who had been taken advantage of,” said John Griffin, a finance professor at The University of Texas at Austin who has argued that rampant fraud played a role in the financial crisis. “But I don’t think the CFPB would be able to stop another financial crisis.”

 

The agency, which was a brainchild of Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren when she was a Harvard Law professor, was created as part of Dodd-Frank, a 2010 federal law passed in an attempt to correct the financial vulnerabilities that contributed to the global financial crisis. The CFPB has since delivered $19.7 billion in consumer relief, with 195 million people eligible for that relief, according to the agency.

 

“Gutting consumer protections while simultaneously permitting financial firms to take on greater risk is a dangerous combination,” Warren said in a statement to CNN. “Working families cannot afford for policymakers to repeat the mistakes of the past.”

 

The CFPB did not respond to a request for comment on the impact of its recent changes.

 

A safer home loan market?

 

Buying a home is usually the biggest purchase Americans make in their lifetimes. Although it’s always been important to fully understand the terms of a loan when taking out a mortgage, that may take on even greater importance if the CFPB is diminished.

 

Still, the home loan market is safer now than it once was, said Ira Rheingold, executive director of the National Association of Consumer Advocates.

 

“When Dodd-Frank passed, it included mortgage reform,” Rheingold said. “The types of loans that were being made that created the subprime crisis really can’t be made anymore, because they would be violating the law.”

 

The housing meltdown of 2008 occurred partly because banks and lenders gave out risky home loans to people who couldn’t afford them. Those mortgages were then bundled into complex financial products that collapsed when homeowners started defaulting on their loans.

 

The meltdown led to a crash in home prices and millions of foreclosures.

 

Home loans that required little-to-no proof of income were common before 2008, but today, such loans are rare, said Laurie Goodman, founder of the Housing Finance Policy Center at the Urban Institute.

 

“Prior to the financial crisis, income wasn’t adequately documented, you sort of took the borrower’s word for it,” she said. “Today, a ‘no doc’ loan would be extremely foreign.”

 

Housing market protections codified into law in the years after the financial crisis also include stronger lending standards and clearer disclosures for loan holders.

 

Here’s what you should know

 

However, the defanging of the CFPB would still strip away vital protections for consumers, said Griffin.

 

“Gutting an organization like the CFPB does hurt investors on smaller financial transactions where they can get taken advantage of,” he said. “The CFPB has played a role to provide additional scrutiny to go after unjust fees or unjust financial transactions.”

 

When borrowing money for a home, Americans should pay close attention to the terms of the loan, ensuring there are no hidden fees or relationships. At a time when mortgage rates hover just under 7%, borrowers should shop around to multiple lenders to ensure the most favorable terms.

 

The agency protects consumers from more than just predatory mortgage loans, though. Its broad purpose is to protect from financial abuses in general, including those from credit card companies, auto loans and student loans.

 

Rheingold recommended that consumers continue to file complaints with the CFPB when they have issues with financial products or services. If the CFPB doesn’t take immediate action, your state’s attorney general or legal services programs may still file a lawsuit against a bad-behaving company if you raise the issue to them, he said.

 

Some fear that financial companies could grow increasingly emboldened to engage in predatory practices like hidden fees and unfair loan terms, though it’s hard to predict exactly what those abuses would be.

 

“Will we go back and make the exact same mistakes as we have in the past? We probably won’t. But we’ll make a different set of mistakes,” said Goodman.

Americans increased their spending last month after taking a breather in January, while inflation was a mixed bag, new Commerce Department data showed Friday.

 

As it stood in February, America’s economic foundation remained fairly solid. However, the latest data doesn’t include the elephant in the room: President Donald Trump’s aggressive trade policy.

 

Recently imposed tariffs on auto imports and a looming slew of other levies stand to ding America’s economic engine and drive prices higher, economists warn.

 

The Personal Consumption Expenditures price index rose 2.5% in February from the year before, holding steady with what was seen in January, according to Commerce Department data released Friday. On a monthly basis, prices rose 0.3%, unchanged from January.

 

Economists expected that falling energy prices and stabilizing food prices would help keep the disinflationary trend at hand, and that was indeed the case: Energy prices fell 1.1% for the month while food prices eased just slightly to 1.5% from 1.6%.

 

Forecasts called for the PCE price index to be unchanged from January’s preliminary 2.5% rate.

 

However, one critical barometer — the core PCE index, which serves as a gauge of underlying inflation — came in slightly hotter than economists expected.

 

Excluding food and energy prices, which tend to be more volatile, the closely watched core PCE price index rose 0.4% for the month and 2.8% from a year before, accelerating from 2.7% in January.

 

Friday’s core PCE data “suggests that inflation still remains sticky, despite signs of softening in recent months,” Robert Ruggirello, chief investment officer, Brave Eagle Wealth Management, wrote in a note. “While tariffs are likely to add a one-off shock to inflation, it remains very unclear on how long the tariffs will last, as it’s very possible that a future trade deal leads to reduced or even no tariffs.”

 

Consumer spending rebounded in February, rising 0.4% for the month. In January, spending was weaker than initially reported and fell by 0.3%.

Respondents to the March CNBC Fed Survey have raised the risk of recession to the highest level in six months, cut their growth forecast for 2025 and raised their inflation outlook.

 

Much of the change appears to stem from concern over fiscal policies from the Trump administration, especially tariffs, which are now seen by them as the top threat to the US economy, replacing inflation. The outlook for the S&P 500 declined for the first time since September.

 

The 32 survey respondents, who include fund managers, strategists and analysts, raised the probability of recession to 36% from 23% in January. The January number had dropped to a three-year low and looked to have reflected initial optimism following the election of President Trump.  But like many consumer and business surveys, the recession probability now shows considerable concern about the outlook.

 

"We've had an abundance of discussions with investors who are increasingly concerned the Trump agenda has gone off the rails due to trade policy," said Barry Knapp of Ironsides Macroeconomics. "Consequently, the economic risks of something more insidious than a soft patch are growing."

 

"The degree of policy volatility is unprecedented,'' said John Donaldson, director of fixed income at Haverford Trust.

 

The average GDP forecast for 2025 declined to 1.7% from 2.4%, a sharp markdown that ended consecutive increases in the three prior surveys dating back to September. GDP is forecast to bounced back to 2.1% in 2026, in line with prior forecasts.

 

"The risks to consumers' spending are skewed to the downside," said Neil Dutta, head of economic research at Renaissance Macro Research. "Alongside a frozen housing market and less spending across state and local governments, there is meaningful downside to current estimates of 2025 GDP."

 

Most continue to believe the Fed will cut rates at least twice and won't hike rates, even if faced with persistently higher prices and weaker growth. Three-quarters forecast two or more quarter-point cuts this year. Part of the reason is that two-thirds believe that tariffs will result in one-time price hikes rather than a broader outbreak of inflation. But the policy uncertainty has created a wider range of views on the Fed than normal with 19% believing the Fed won't cut at all.

 

Still, higher tariffs and weaker growth are a dilemma for the Fed.

 

"Powell is really stuck here because of the tariff overhang," said Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer, Bleakley Financial Group. "If he gets more worried about growth because of them and cuts rates as unemployment rises but then Trump removes all the tariffs, he's jumped the gun."

 

More than 70% of respondents believe tariffs are bad for inflation, jobs and growth. 34% say tariffs will decrease US manufacturing with 22% saying they will result in no change. Thirty-seven percent of respondents believe tariffs will end up in greater manufacturing output. More than 70% believe the DOGE effort to reduce government employment is bad for growth and jobs but will be modestly deflationary.

 

"A global trade war, haphazard DOGE cuts to government jobs and funding, aggressive immigrant deportations, and dysfunction in DC threaten to push what was an exceptionally performing economy into recession," said Mark Zandi, chief economist, Moody's Analytics.