A Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago senior economist and economic adviser told a room full of DeKalb County business professionals that recent world events are impacting economic forecasts.

Senior economist, economic advisor and director of the Economic Mobility Project at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Kristen Broady, said Wednesday that recent and current events in Iran, Venezuela and Cuba have made economic outlooks more difficult to project.

Many economic projections that Broady shared during the 2026 DeKalb County Economic Development Corporation’s annual Economic Outlook Luncheon at Faranda’s Banquets, 302 Grove St., DeKalb, touched on the United States’ future gross domestic product, 10-year treasury note yields and the labor market. Many of those projections, however, were made before the U.S. government conducted military operations in Venezuela, ousting leader Nicolas Maduro, and before the U.S., alongside Israel, launched a war with Iran on Feb. 28.

“I think that we have to be careful relying on any of these things,” Broady said. “We’ve seen drastic changes in the stock market. I don’t have an S&P Global prediction for you. I did when I created this presentation a month ago, but when I edited yesterday, I was like, ‘Let me just take this out.’”

She told dozens of business professionals and local county elected officials that gasoline futures had risen by 30% in the past month despite predictions in the beginning of the year that suggested gas prices would be the cheapest since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Broady said military attacks by the U.S. and Israel against Iran on Feb. 28, and Iran’s ensuing closure of the Straight of Hormuz – a narrow waterway that connects the Persian Gulf with the Indian Ocean that had an average of 20 million barrels of oil sail through it per day in 2024, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration – caused the price of oil to significantly increase.

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Kristen Broady, senior economist, economic advisor, and director of the Economic Mobility Project at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, speaks Wednesday, March 25, 2026, during the DeKalb County Economic Development Corporation’s annual economic outlook luncheon Wednesday at Faranda’s Banquets in DeKalb. (Mark Busch)

Broady doesn’t expect gas prices to go down as much as EIA officials have projected, however.

“All I can say is, I’m sorry, I am thinking about getting a bicycle in addition to taking the Metra to work,” Broady said, expressing her own views and not those of the Federal Reserve.

She also said “it’s not a secret” inflation in the U.S. remains above the 2% mark the Federal Reserve aims for.

Tariffs cost U.S. families hundreds of dollars, if not more than $1,000, over the past year, according to studies Broady presented to business leaders. She said the long-term effects of those tariffs have not yet been determined, partly because the tariff rates continue to change.

“Economists generally say on one hand this positive thing is happening, but on the other hand, this negative thing might happen,” Broady said. “That’s not where I am today. I have a different analogy. Normally, things are concrete. I’d be telling you how I feel vaguely sometimes, but today I would use the example of concrete – that you pour concrete, and I would just say that it’s not dry yet."

After the event, Melissa Amedeo, executive director of the DCEDC, was asked what she took from Broady’s presentation.

“I think there were a lot of good insights about. It’s hard to make a prediction with all of the change that’s happening in the world today,” Amedeo said.

Amedeo also said she thinks DeKalb County’s most famous industry has helped insulate the county’s economy from world events.

“We’re probably a little less volatile in my mind because we are so agriculturally oriented that we don’t see the huge swings of where we’re seeing growth and job losses in some of the other areas that she showed on the one map,” Amedeo said.

Among the local leaders attending Broady’s presentation was newly appointed DeKalb County Administrator Ruth Kedzior.

“As a new [DeKalb] County resident, I was impressed by the number of business and community leaders who understand the importance of a healthy economy, and are committed to supporting and attracting development and job growth,” Kedzior wrote in an email responding to a request for comment.

She also wrote she was encouraged by what she called Broady’s “tone of optimism” that DeKalb County remains “a welcoming place to live, invest in and thrive.”

On a worldwide, macroeconomic level, Broady expressed more uncertainty than optimism, however.

“I can’t imagine that somehow things are going to magically settle after what – after Venezuela is over, like how does that end? After the lights come back on in Cuba, I don’t know how that ends," Broady said. “How long will the war in Iran last? I have no idea.”