I guess I am a weirdo for always doing pickup orders rather than delivery. Being in the city means there are lots of good options within walking distance.

Jan business applications data was released yesterday: Overall business applications are skyrocketing, up 37% YoY. But Jan's release updates the methodology & excludes internet sales from high-propensity & corporate application serieses and you can see those have been revised down substantially

Initial unemployment insurance claims ticked down to 227,000 from 232,000. Continuing UI claims rose slightly to 1,862,000 from 1,841,000. Continuing claims are largely unchanged from a year ago, improving from 2025 when it was a little higher than 2024 for most of the year.

BofA: The u-rate has risen half as fast in this cycle vs. any prior cycle. As a result, the economy has avoided a recession.

The more telling picture is what the revised data says about where growth actually came from in 2025. The revisions flipped two sectors from positive to negative average monthly growth: Construction and Retail Trade. Sectors supposedly adding jobs all year were actually shedding them.

Person who was fired here - you should still trust BLS data. The agency is being run by the same dedicated career staff who were running it while I was awaiting confirmation from the Senate. And the staff have made it clear that they are blowing a loud whistle if there is interference.

manufacturing and trade job loss during 2025 is even worse than it looked (already really bad)

Great charts on sectoral impacts of benchmark revisions. Really really big hits to retailers, wholesalers, transportation/warehousing, and finance.

BLS #jobsreport better than expected for Jan, but confirms much slower 2025 than orig. reported -Payrolls +130k in Jan vs. +48k in Dec -Payroll revisions (-898k for Mar '25 level), in line w/ expectations, bring 2025 job gains down to 181,000 from 584,000 -Unemp down to 4.3% in Jan from 4.4% 1/

Ah ha, I see the folks at FT Alphaville are also wondering if the scale of the AI investment boom has been overstated. By their preferred metric, it's real but modest - comparable to the investment boost from ARPA/CHIPS under Biden, or to the mid-2010s shale boom. www.ft.com/content/918f...

The Employment Cost Index shows continued deceleration in compensation growth in Q4. All metrics of wage growth are slowing even as inflation has gotten stuck confirming that labor demand < greatly reduced labor supply

This finding is a few years old now but relevant again after Bad Bunny's all-Spanish Super Bowl performance: In 2024, only around half of White Trump supporters (48%) said they were comfortable with people speaking a language other than English in public: www.pewresearch.org/politics/202...

Super Bowl halftime producer: Now that you’ve signed your extensive NDA, you are ready for your incredible role in our show. Me: I can’t wait. I’ve danced to Bad Bunny my whole life. Producer: Great, you’re gonna be grass Me: What Director: Shut up nerd and put the grass suit on

a Pokémon ad?! 😮

Bad Bunny “together we are America”

Fellow puzzle lovers: In honor of the Super Bowl I made a little football-themed crossword with my friend @robdubbin.bsky.social for @puzzmo.com. You can play for free today: www.puzzmo.com/puzzle/2026-...

Employee sentiment ticked down to kick off 2026. In the Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index, 45.9% of employees reported a positive business outlook for their employers in Jan, down from 46.3% in Dec. Sentiment is ironically almost unchanged from a year ago (45.8%). 1/

Bank of America Institute Employment Report is more optimistic for January 2026: -Payroll employment +0.8% YoY, highest in several months -Their UI payments data is tracking a little higher than continuing claims, but also improved in Jan institute.bankofamerica.com/content/dam/...

#JOLTS Dec report: -Hires rate 3.3%, up from 3.2% in Nov -Quits rate flat at 2% -Openings drop sharply to 6.5m, from 6.9m in Nov -Layoffs up marginally to 1.76m, from 1.7m in Nov Mixed data but imo, the stable hires/quits is higher signal than the sharp drop in the volatile openings series 1/

Initial unemployment insurance claims rose to 231,000 from 209,000 last week. Continuing claims rose to 1,844,000 from 1,819,000. Modest increase but not an alarming sign of compared to how claims are tracking vs. the same time last year.

The Future of Media is a $250 million national newspaper devoted solely to the debate over cooking at home vs delivery.

-Dec JOLTS rescheduled to tmrw Thu Feb 5 10 AM ET -Jan jobs report rescheduled to Wed Feb 11 830 AM -Jan CPI rescheduled to Fri Feb 13 830 AM www.bls.gov/bls/2025-lap...

Also, get ready for "Doritos Protein" 😭

PepsiCo was the poster child during the pandemic-era inflation spike of "price over volume" or what many called "excuseflation," as the company cranked up prices on drinks and snacks. Now they appear to be going in reverse cause people won't pay (from @deeanndurbin_ap): apnews.com/article/peps...

I'm looking to talk to someone about regrets. Specifically regrets about trying new things. Do you regret moving city? Taking on a new career? Dabbling across hobbies instead of focusing on one? DM me!

The groundhog saw his shadow and said TK more weeks of no data.

Another government shutdown, another delay in key economic data. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/02/b... #NumbersDay #EconSky

Interesting paper: -75% of identical Uber & Lyft trips in NYC have base prices with differences of at least $1. Neither app is consistently cheaper/more expensive, so it should make sense to comparison shop -Only 16% of users do vs. 97% who "should" according to model www.nber.org/202602/diges...

Immigrant advocates are challenging the Trump administration's freeze on visas for 75 countries based on "public charge" risks.

After declining for 13 years, US births have held steady since 2021. Why? Moms 30 and up are having more kids than ever, offsetting the long-term decline for moms under 30.

Just got confirmation from BLS: "The Employment Situation release for January 2026 will not be released as scheduled on Friday, February 6, 2026. The release will be rescheduled upon the resumption of government funding." #EconSky

*BLS WON'T RELEASE JANUARY JOBS REPORT ON FRIDAY

A List of Complaints from 1926 🧵

New post: What is the impact of AI on productivity? I review all of the studies and data that I can find and try to provide a synthesis. A disagreement emerges: micro studies find positive benefits but these benefits are yet to show up in the macro data. aleximas.substack.com/p/what-is-th... 🧵

Tillis:

🚨 The Senate has agreed to a deal to vote on 5/6 full appropriations bills and replace the DHS funding measure with a 2-week stopgap bill, per multiple sources. That gives time to negotiate on the Dem demands for ICE and CBP restraints.

Still no deterioration in unemployment insurance claims data: Initial: 209,000 vs. 210,000 prior Continuing: 1,827,000 vs. 1,865,000 prior If anything, a slight improvement in continuing claims vs. same time last year.

The Labor Department has proposed rescinding an Obama-era rule that gave home care workers the right to overtime pay and other wage protections. The administration says the rule made care too costly. n.pr/4a1rrSZ

#$META employee count ended 2025 at 78,865, up +0.5% QoQ and +6% YoY. Despite recurring headlines about layoffs, they still have been expanding headcount, even if at a slower pace.

Must-read post for labor data nerds from @JedKolko on the implications of the new Census pop. estimates. More on this to come, but three immediate takeaways: jedkolko.substack.com/p/four-takea... #EconSky

Agree! 7/25-7/26 projection of 321k should roughly reflect estimated current pace. Top of 2026 range from @taraelizwatson.bsky.social, @stanveuger.bsky.social & me: 200k. 7/24-7/25 hard to interpret given huge policy change. We're likely well below Census for '25H1. www.brookings.edu/articles/mac...

Smart of NYT-Siena's latest poll to ask an open-ended question on what Americans worry about affording. Housing and health care top the list, but the age gap is stark. Many other interesting questions in the poll www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Big immigration decline. Agreement among different agencies' estimates. Downward adjustments coming soon to the CPS. And revisions to state populations: New York up, Florida down. Key takeaways from today's new Census population estimates for 2025. jedkolko.substack.com/p/four-takea...

New Census Bureau data estimates US population grew only 1.8m in the '25 estimate year*, slowest since '21 during Covid Decline is mostly due to a drop in int'l migration, estimated at 2.7m in '24 down to 1.3m in '25 and projected to decline even further to 321k in '26 *Estimate year: Jul 1–Jun 30

Big drop in jobs plentiful minus jobs hard to get, now back at mid-2016 levels:

It would be a very good idea to allow BLS to collect monthly employment/unemployment and price data during a shutdown. This isn't a good moment to turn the navigation signals off on the US economy again.

Initial UI claims up to 200,000 from 199,000 and continuing claims down to 1,849,000 from 1,875,000. Neither showing significant deterioration in the job market to start the year, consistent w/ what we've been seeing in claims for some time now. (had to reset computer so no charts this wk)

US data center construction inched up to a new record high in data released today, exceeding a $42B annualized rate (and this only includes the data center facilities, not the expensive computers within) Growth has slowed down, but investment is still up 18.5% over the last year