A whole article about people advocating eschewing modern birth control because they want to avoid artificial hormones, and the reporter never asks why they don't just advocate for Paragard (the very effective and easily reversible no-hormone IUD) instead? www.nytimes.com/2025/11/09/u...

Trying to use my furlough well. Yesterday, I went on a long bike ride and fixed things around the house. This morning, I have soup simmering in the stove and children's clothing to mend while I listen to www.piie.com/events/2025/...

Why is it that every disappeared US citizen is not front page news? At the very least we should have a little box with a count of the number of citizens who have been taken away and are not locatable and a link to a story with photos & min-bios, just as we used to do with military casually figures.

A year ago, I noticed a new lump in my body. Medical tests showed I had a very treatable early stage common cancer. Over the past year, I had surgery to remove the lump, plus chemotherapy, radiation, and continuing medication to reduce the likelihood of it coming back. I learned a few things:

12 years ago today I went back to work at BLS at the end of the 2013 shutdown. I remember watching then-Associate Commissioner Wiatrowsky pushing a cart into the building stacked with dozens of pizzas for his staff.

Time to write my annual list of home production tasks to complete if there is a lapse in federal appropriations.

I really like the way my brother-in-law (the candidate for public office) presents his city's budget visually in this pair of videos: youtu.be/RehrElsji7w?... and youtu.be/UQ8Ohc1six0?...

I finally had a chance to listen to this talk in full. Worth hearing. And someone asked Erika about changes in the imputation of CPI data at the very end; her answer was illuminating.

Happy Constitution Day! I like the resources the Library of Congress has assembled on the Constitution: constitution.congress.gov

I've been reading about what Generative AI is and is not good for. It can be summed up as "Aggregating data without a underlying model of how things work." Seems very similar to the way many economists see the shortcomings of data science (when it isn't combined with domain knowledge).

Looking for a non-stressful video from somebody running for office? My talented brother-in-law is running for a small city council in Massachusetts, and illustrated upcoming city infrastructure plans on camera: youtu.be/ofTRdLS9zP4?...

At 10am on Tuesday, BLS will publish preliminary benchmark revisions for March 2025 employment for all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and selected metropolitan areas at the total nonfarm level. www.bls.gov/sae/notices/... See below for a 2-page reference explanation of benchmark revisions.

This publication is now outdated. Last week, a court overturned the 2023 AEWR rule and DoL said they won't appeal. That means an AEWR based only on the Farm Labor Survey (FLS). Now USDA said it's discontinuing the FLS. www.nass.usda.gov/Newsroom/Not... I don't know what happens to the AEWR now.

I wrote a 2 page overview of CES Monthly Revisions, at www.congress.gov/crs-product/...

Why are wages rising in agriculture? Why has demand for H-2A workers been increasing, when hiring these workers is so expensive? I read everything I could about US agricultural labor markets and summarized what I learned in www.congress.gov/crs-product/...

Looking for a 2 page explanation of CES Benchmark revisions? I wrote one at www.congress.gov/crs-product/...

Am Econ Assn speaks out about firing the #BLS Commish. "It is standard practice for statistical estimates to be revised as [better] data become available. These revisions reflect the commitment of statistical agencies to accuracy, transparency, and methodological rigor--not failure or bias."

This paper. Wow. The authors linked years of car crash data from Florida with income tax data. They found that having your parked car crashed into was associated with substantial reductions in earnings FIVE YEARS LATER. (Only for people with low earnings to start out).

Is anyone else writing to children at summer camp about interesting papers heard on the NBER YouTube channel, or just me?

I commute to the Capitol complex from Union Station. I have seen many weird policy marketing campaigns. This has got to be the weirdest.

Stories like this bug me. I was a young woman who wanted to be a mother of at least three children. I think of what it meant to me to have examples of economists like my teachers who were mothers of three children, like Christina Romer and @diveq.bsky.social. share.google/gyrm7G3OvhGN...

NEW: “I would want to keep investing in that for the good of the general public,” said Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell about federal statistical agencies that produce economic indicators facing layoffs and survey cutbacks, adding he hates to see “cutting back” on measuring the U.S. economy

My brother-in-law wrote this piece for the Naval Institute's Proceedings: www.usni.org/magazines/pr...

Economists love when random variation makes it possible to measure causal impacts. I wrote a CRS 2-page summary of three studies that use random variation in application processing to measure the impact of the H-2B visa program on employers and employees: www.congress.gov/crs-product/...

Economists love when random variation makes it possible to measure causal impacts. I wrote a CRS 2-page summary of three studies that use random variation in application processing to measure the impact of the H-2B visa program on employers and employees: www.congress.gov/crs-product/...

How many farmworkers in the US have no work authorization? I've published a guestimate in my new CRS 2-pager, "Work Authorization Among Hired Agricultural Workers," www.congress.gov/crs-product/... (One common estimate is 42%. That estimate doesn't include H-2A workers in the denominator.)

Great, concise overview of ghost jobs @elizwebhand.bsky.social www.congress.gov/crs-product/...

My attorney colleague Alex Pepper and I wrote a CRS 2-pager on "Ghost" Job Postings. It's at www.congress.gov/crs-product/...

I tried and failed to write a comprehensive yet easily digestible summary of research on the labor market impacts of the H-1B visa. So I wrote 2-page summaries of the best recent research on the domestic and foreign labor market impacts of the H-1B visa: www.congress.gov/crs-product/...

The Library's employee newsletter last week highlighted new additions to the National Recording Registry. The list includes great works of music... and also the Windows 95 reboot chime. www.loc.gov/programs/nat...

How Many People Work in Agriculture in the United States? It's a surprisingly complicated question, but I have a new two page overview of answers at www.congress.gov/crs-product/...

Just dropped my kid and her roommate back at university after spring break. Her roommate is an international student, with the organizational skills to manage university thousands of miles from home. As a parent, I am THRILLED with the peer effects on my kid.

I'm attending an NBER CRIW conference on Labor Market trends and their measurement (www.nber.org/conferences/...). A paper presented by a BLS researcher is being discussed by an expert from Statistics Canada. In light of current events, I find that reassuring.

I tried and failed to write a comprehensive yet easily digestible summary of research on the labor market impacts of the H-1B visa. So I wrote a 2-page summary of the best recent research on the domestic labor market impacts of the H-1B visa: crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/...

First, the Bureau of Labor Statistics is really good, and the people who put the jobs numbers together are extremely dedicated, mission-driven, and extremely protective of data integrity. If there is political interference, I have no doubt we’ll hear about it.

Third, I worry that OPM itself doesn’t yet know how many workers were fired. It may be some time before it can report accurately to BLS.

Very sorry to miss the chance to catch up with so many of my labor economist colleagues at the WALES conference today, but I've got a medical appointment that can't be rescheduled. Post about the research you see, please?

When I took demography in graduate school, they told me the baby boom was a period (not cohort phenomenon) without an adequate explanation. I've now heard two explanations in recent months (this paper says mortgages, and a paper presented at NBERSI/DAE said unions).

I spent literally years of my career in a statistical agency, trying to figure out how to improve our statistics without access to data from another government agency, because the other agency could not legally share datasets that had been improved using Treasury data.

Confused about wage requirements for the H-1B visa? I have a new 2-page explainer at crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/...

Interested in trying to understand the various measures of agricultural employment in the U.S.? I have a new report: crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/...

The abstract of this paper literally made my jaw drop. They randomized what? How?

My colleague Sarah Donovan and I have updated our two-page overview of the current Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR) methodology for the H-2A visa. It's at crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12408

I love reading all the different economists who write about the Employment Situation every month and I do love seeing their charts. But I don't think enough people know about the charts that BLS publishes itself every month. They're available at 8:30am at bls.gov/charts/emplo...

The 1906 San Francisco Fire was one of the largest urban fires in American history. @hannaschwank.bsky.social's excellent paper on its long-run consequences has sadly become very timely. Luckily we have learned some lessons (e.g. insurance more common), still an invaluable piece of research.

People in the Baltimore/DC region: this group played a spectacular free concert this afternoon in a church that could have easily fit five or six times as many people (and my kid and I were the youngest people there). You're missing out! www.mountvernonvirtuosi.com/202425-season

I'm not seeing enough other people reposting this story, so maybe you haven't all already read it yet? www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

The US Capitol was missing this morning.

I was asked to write a 2-page explanation of CES Benchmark Revisions--what they are, why they happen, etc. The online version with links to detailed BLS documentation is only available to Congressional staff, but a PDF is publicly available at crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/...

I paid $5.20 for this service, and have confirmed that my stand-alone tweets have been moved (there were not so many of them, as most of my Twitter activity was quoting or replying to other people's Tweets). Now I will delete the original Tweets.