Statement from Fed Gov Lisa Cook: “President Trump purported to fire me “for cause” when no cause exists under the law, and he has no authority to do so. I will not resign. I will continue to carry out my duties to help the American economy as I have been doing since 2022.”

The President firing the BLS Commissioner last week stirred up many criticisms agency. One that I found most troubling is the idea that the private sector could do it better. No, there's no substitute for the BLS as I argue in my @opinion.bloomberg.com piece: www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

This wouldn't even cover the higher costs the average American family will pay because of tariffs. $3.3 Trillion in imports annually * 20% effective tariff rate = $660 Billion. Divide this by 132 million households in the US and each household is paying $5,000 a year in tariffs.

My piece on ABC News this morning. Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution: The CONGRESS shall have the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises... To regulate commerce with foreign nations... abcnews.go.com/US/video/sto...

Looming problems from BLS statistics politicization. Social security benefits and many long term labor market contracts are indexed to the CPI. BLS makes the CPI. Recipients care about indexed cost of living increases, a lot. /1

"Outside recession" is doing a lot of work here. Big revisions aren't unusual during economic turning points.

Looking forward to our new Congressional districts in Illinois.

The BLS is like going to the doctor for preventive screenings. If there's bad news, you want to know it so you can take early and preventive action... abcnews.go.com/US/video/eco...

It has been the honor of my life to serve as Commissioner of BLS alongside the many dedicated civil servants tasked with measuring a vast and dynamic economy. It is vital and important work and I thank them for their service to this nation.

It's not as if people won't realize the jobs market is slowing and inflation is rising. But they'll figure out the hard way -- as they're looking for jobs, negotiating wages, shopping for everyday items. This is going to make it harder for policymakers to react in time. www.cnbc.com/2025/08/01/t...

Thanks to @barrons.com for featuring my op-ed on why the Fed is right to wait before continuing to cut interest rates. www.barrons.com/articles/fed...

It's not every day that @tracyalloway.bsky.social mentions you in her Odd Lots newsletter. I have officially peaked! cc: my all-star co-authors @shaciogluhoke.bsky.social and Jack Chylak. www.bloomberg.com/news/newslet... Thanks @tracyalloway.bsky.social and @bloomberg.com for featuring our work.

And will all of that sugar be produced in the US or will it be imported from countries subject to 50% tariffs? Because the US can't produce that much sugar.

Thanks to the @bloomberg.com team for having me on this morning. Great conversation about why we're not seeing tariffs having a meaningful impact on consumer prices yet, but that doesn't mean we're in the clear. youtu.be/j0aUJzrPzIE?...

This is a huge understatement, @kairyssdal.bsky.social. Deploying elite military forces against your own country and against your own people is what fascist, authoritarian governments do.

We asked 2,000 representative US households what one word they would use to describe the United States. We asked 1,000 representative Canadian households what one word they would use to describe Canada. Here are the results from our latest survey (May 1-7):

Thanks for featuring our FEDS note, @adamshap.bsky.social!

It's a good day to be a Leo from Chicago!

"What one word would you use to describe the world today?" Here is a word cloud of the responses of 1,000 representative US households from Numerator panel data.

Powerful and important opinion piece by David Brooks: What’s Happening Is Not Normal. America Needs an Uprising That Is Not Normal. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/17/o...

Thanks to ABCNews for the opportunity to talk about tariffs, consumers & stocks Sec. Bessent: happy to share w/ you Numerator's data so you can hear what 150,000 US households think about the market going down & how they're planning to cut back discretionary purchases abcnews.go.com/US/video/mar...

Thanks to @zhoyoyo.bsky.social, @pbump.com, @crampell.bsky.social for featuring Numerator data in this tracker. At Numerator, not only do we expect food prices to go up b/c of tariffs, we're also hearing from our panelists that high prices are what they're most concerned about for the year ahead.

I'm Jewish, named after my uncle who was executed by the Nazis in a forced labor camp in Poland. My gradfather died in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Trump's use of antisemitism as a smokescreen to underminine free speech and destroy academic research is reprehensible. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/24/p...

@tracyalloway.bsky.social: to pay down the US deficit or fund regressive tax cuts?

I made a pun in the newsletter that was so bad no one even bothered to be like “that was a terrible pun.”

Americans eat far less healthily at the end of the year than they do in January. s2.washingtonpost.com/camp-rw/?tra...

@weisenthal.bsky.social can we really call this a "tariff negotiating strategy"? It seems to be more chaos, make things up as you go, than strategy.

Econ friends with BLS experience: I'm getting close to replicating the BLS methodology to calculate the CPI for all the items we track at Numerator. This will be items purchased from retailers across the US. If anyone with BLS experience can help, please DM me. #econsky

Econ friends with BLS experience: I'm getting close to replicating the BLS methodology to calculate the CPI for all the items we track at Numerator. This will be items purchased from retailers across the US. If anyone with BLS experience can help, please DM me. #econsky @kairyssdal.bsky.social

What explains the "vibecession"? We asked consumers how they were feeling, and then we used their verified retail purchases to track their consumption. Is it just "vibes" or are consumers truly worse off compared with 2019? #econsky h/t @kyla.bsky.social hbr.org/2025/01/rese...

Will the Trump Administration reignite inflation? Yes, most likely. Full write-up here: www.macrobond.com/insights/out...

Thanks to @economist.com for reporting on our work (joint with @kevinrinz.bsky.social and Jack Chylak): www.economist.com/united-state...

Toady in @briefingbook.bsky.social, @leofeler.com, Jack Chylak, and I dig into consumer sentiment changes since the election. As expected, Republicans started liking the economy right after the election, and Democrats started hating it. But what it’s going on below the surface?

Republicans are optimistic about the future. But everyone's biggest concern is still inflation. People will be quickly disillusioned if the Trump administration's policies reignite inflation. www.briefingbook.info/p/digging-in..., with @kevinrinz.bsky.social and Jack Chylak

We now have causal real-world analysis that Ozempic and other GLP-1 medications lower snack purchases by 5% (8% if you're rich). Chips & baked goods take the biggest hit. Yogurt & Slim Jim's are unaffected. The decline is about $416 per year per person. youtube.com/shorts/qsCqU...

Ozempic economics: How GLP-1s will disrupt the economy in 2025 wapo.st/3BSKbXY

How households with at least one member taking GLP-1s are changing their shopping habits: overall grocery spending goes down ~6%, spending on chips/savory snacks falls ~11% wapo.st/3BSKbXY

Thrilled to be working with @jurawho.bsky.social and @leofeler.com on such an important topic! The paper documents how purchasing patterns change with adoption of GLP-1 medications, exploring changes across key dimensions like motivation, age, and income.

🚨Closing out 2024 with a new paper with @hristakeva.bsky.social and @leofeler.com: How GLP-1 medications like Ozempic are reshaping food demand and changing the rules of the game for the food industry.

Numerator's research on GLP-1 weight loss drugs (Ozempic, Wegovy,...) with Cornell's @jurawho.bsky.social and Sylvia Hristakeva featured in the Washington Post. wapo.st/3BSKbXY #econsky @crampell.bsky.social

Hey @kairyssdal.bsky.social, can you please cover this business in your "My Economy" segment?

Following-up on the FEDS Note doi.org/10.17016/238..., Numerator is now releasing a monthly decomposition of retail sales by household income: leofeler.com/2024/12/17/n... #econsky #numbersday

I keep looking at this chart and thinking of Margaret Thatcher's rebuke "you'd rather the poor were poorer provided the rich were less rich."

Your regular reminder that for every 1 domestic solar manufacturing job the feds try to protect with tariffs like this, 8 other solar-linked jobs (in installation, maintenance, etc.) are put at risk irecusa.org/census-solar...

This is madness. If other countries want to sell us solar on the cheap so we can expedite adoption of clean energy, let them. Either climate change is a crisis, or it isn't. www.reuters.com/business/ene...

Fascinating to see how consumers' views of their own financial conditions a year ahead changed pre and post election. We divide counties into quintiles of population (with roughly 20% of the US pop in each group) based on counties' vote shares for President in 2020. #EconSky

www.bloomberg.com/news/newslet... @weisenthal.bsky.social: Great write-up today! What's the purpose of having a strategic Bitcoin reserve? I don't think there is one, but what are those who are advocating for one saying?

Hey #EconSky: do you know of any studies / econ papers looking at deportations during the Eisenhower-era ("Operation Wetback" -- awful name)?