Austerity was extremely bad in an environment with the zero lower bound and fixed exchange rates But deficit reduction is a good idea when interest rates are high and you have floating exchange rates

Less well known than Tahoe but also an enclosed body of water next to a prominent mountain - the Brisbane lagoon

I got to pinch hit on labor markets with one of the greatest economists in the business, @jc-econ.bsky.social . Thanks to @nabe-econ.bsky.social for having me! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

Happy 50th birthday to this classic youtube.com/watch?v=EjFV...

Lots of great versions of “Ruby, My Dear” out there but this is the best, I think. youtu.be/6liAgg4SN88?...

Caligula’s reputation would be much better w/historians if he had been 3 years old while in office

"Old people are not going away." - I'm glad I managed to land this zinger(?) while talking to Harriet Torry about the state of the labor market and employment growth. www.wsj.com/economy/jobs...

Thanks to @bencasselman.bsky.social for including me in his discussion of the big revisions to the establishment survey in this week's jobs report. (Though maybe someone should be interviewing Ben. My mind is constantly boggled by how much he knows on this topic!) www.nytimes.com/2026/02/11/b...

My comments to @paigemcglauflin.bsky.social at @morningbrew.bsky.social on the new BLS head, & why private sector "alt data "(which I love!) can't replace high quality government statistics. Wishing Brett M success in his new role, because we'll all benefit from it. www.hr-brew.com/stories/2026...

I think about this song a lot youtu.be/7Uc73diJ3CI?...

1950s nostalgia is generally very wrong on “the facts”, but it looks positively genius compared to 1880s/1890s nostalgia

More meh data from the latest round of Indeed job postings. Will make neither "Team Reacceleration" nor "Team Doomer" happy. To the degree we're converging to a trough, it's happening at an excruciatingly slow pace

Elsewhere, @mattyglesias.bsky.social is cooking up some fun Claude Code generated data articles What stands out to me: 1/ skills that will be load-bearing in a lot of occupations will be different eg you’ll need skilled editors/writers to effectively curate & evaluate AI-generated data journalism

If you exclude ages 0-18, people get shorter as they grow up

Imho “if you subtract what is growing the most, growth is slower” is a poor approach to understanding what is going on in the labor market

1/ Is the mostly-reversed fall hump in the unemployment rate a result of the bad job market for young graduates? A seasonal adjustment story that I'm gradually sketching out.

Mark your calendars! It’s never too late to start thinking about the next benchmark revision

It's a tough time for young people of all educational levels - not just college grads. 1/ Over the past year, the unemployment rate for 18-19 year old HS grads averaged 15.4%, comparable to early '17 levels, & an increase of over 1 pp Y-Y. (3.4pp increase over the last 3 years)

Claims: 1/ Initial claims a little lower in the week ended 2/06. Probably still weather-impacted. ~10K higher than a year ago. If not weather-impacted (let's see next week) - this is the magnitude of increase I would have expected from the fall surge in layoff announcements.

“Coltrane!” Probably the best Monk album for beginners (and one of the best he ever made) youtu.be/q-d32veDFOw?...

My recap of today's jobs report - "Team Reacceleration" scores one over "Team Doomer". (I guess I am "Team Mild Pessimism"?) Link: macromostly.substack.com/p/jobs-repor...

Good, clean fun: fact-based harrumphing The bad place: poorly-informed harrumphing

I don't want to hate on anybody's harrumphing fun. But if you're going to harrumph about future revisions to economic data that annoy you, best to check if they'll actually get revised.

The impact of the bad weather on HH survey collection is a potential asterisk on the precision of this month's very good data (though the error could go either way) h/t Alex Etra on the other site

Setting: The Halls of Mandos, 250th Age of Arda Maedhros: Dad, I kept hearing about negative revisions to the jobs data. Whatever happened to January 2026 unemployment rate? Fëanor: I have the worst sons. I bet Finarfin's kids know it's been about 4.3% for millions of years

It’s Jobs Wednesday, and the 2nd good jobs report in a row!

I'm noticing a lot of people who have pessimistic theses about the labor market are torturing the data in today's very good jobs report. Don't do this. It's a waste of your time and looks silly. It's just one jobs report. If you're right you'll be vindicated in a few months.

I know the BLS have their hands full due to understaffing but I would like them to take on the San Mateo County Robin Census so I am insulated from Matt’s scurrilous attacks

There is a crazy huge flock of robins in my neighborhood over the past week. Never seen something like this before

In the fall I was a little more optimistic about the labor market than a lot of folks and I guess it’s now my turn to be a little more pessimistic than the median

At 2nd glance, this isn't just a good report... it's a borderline very good one. Still the case, though, that the job market is in slightly worse shape than it was a year ago.

a beginning of the year treat for team "labor market reacceleration" (obvious caveat that the data is noisy)

BLS Charts: 1/ At first glance, a 2nd consecutive good jobs report. The unemployment rate fell to 4.28% in January, the lowest since July.

JUST SAY NO

I love a good troll as much as anybody and don’t begrudge the thirst for engagement But I hope for the sake of JS’s viewers that he engages more seriously with these topics going fwd

Before tomorrow's revisions: the unemployment rate rose by about 1pp between March '23 and December '25 After tomorrow's revisions: the unemployment rate rose by about 1pp between March '23 and December '25 Resist temptation JUST SAY NO to "in worse shape than we thought"

If your opinion on labor market health radically changes as a result of tomorrow's revisions, I strongly recommend re-evaluating your approach to thinking about labor markets

A cheat sheet for tomorrow's revisions: 1/ There are 3 distinct sources of revisions in tomorrow's reports: seasonal adjustment factors; benchmark revision; update to net birth/death model. These apply *only to the establisment survey*. Household survey unaffected!!!

In what is possibly the greatest tribute a practitioner economist can pay to one of his peers, there is a data file on my computer named after @mtkonczal.bsky.social

In the latest edition of "nothing ever happens", 2025 GDP growth will probably end up looking a lot like 2024 GDP growth

I agree with my fellow economists Kevin Hassett and Peter Navarro that increasing immigration into the United States would boost monthly employment growth, possibly by a lot

ECI, our best wage growth indicator: 1/ Private sector wage growth flattish or trending very slightly down. Comparable to what it was just before COVID.

Lots of conspiracy theorizing about Wednesday’s number given what Hassett said and who knows maybe he saw it But this is mostly just a routine restatement of what every labor market wonk has been saying for the past 8 months if not longer

Fun: “is this improbable policy idea a good idea?” Useful: “what would need to happen for this improbable policy idea to be adopted?” / “what is the probability of that actually happening?”

Nonfarm payroll employment can grow by 15% Y/Y if we only start growing fully-grown adult humans in large Petri dishes

Such a banger… not sure they ever topped it in this format youtu.be/5w3s2T0VBug?...

Maybe just me but I always thought it was obvious that the economic returns of this technology would be much higher in a business context than as a consumer toy One of the reasons the 2010s tech boom had such limited aggregate econ impact - it was mostly about consumer toys

I'm excited to announce that I've joined Access/Macro as a Senior Advisor on Labor Markets! I've known Tim Mahedy for years - ever since he was down the street at the SF Fed. And we've enjoyed talking about macro all this time... But why deprive *you* of all that fun? www.accessmacro.com

Explorers have discovered a new cargo cult, worshipping something called a "Fed Treasury Accord"