I think the appearance of a “6-7” joke in an #ASSA2026 session on time-use data might be the final nail in the meme’s coffin.

Packed room for a session honoring the late Bill Spriggs. #ASSA2026

Heading to Philadelphia for the #ASSA2026. Presenting research you think our readers would be interested in? Working on something you think I should know about? Reach out here or by any of the ways linked in my bio: www.nytimes.com/by/ben-casse... #EconSky

BLS clarifies that they will NOT do a one-off change of their rent/OER methodology in April, as their updated FAQ yesterday seemed to imply. h/t Omair Sharif, who I think was the first to pin them down on this. #EconSky #NumbersDay

Just got a bit more from BLS on how they calculated November CPI. This re: rent is particularly notable: "Rents for October 2025 were carried forward from April 2025, yielding unchanged index values for rent and owners’ equivalent rent for October." #NumbersDay

BLS says it relied somewhat on "different cell" imputation in November than it did in September. And no use of "carry-forward." But it isn't providing detail on how it treated October, which is key to understanding these November figures.

U.S. consumer prices were up 2.7 percent from a year earlier in November. "Core" prices, excluding volatile food and fuel, were up 2.6 percent. Be very cautious with these numbers, though. Shutdown distortions may have biased them down. Live coverage: www.nytimes.com/live/2025/12... #NumbersDay

OK, so having had some time to digest all of this, a few thoughts: #EconSky #NumbersDay

Charts! Starting with the unemployment rate, which rose to 4.6 percent, its highest level in more than four years.

U.S. employers added 64k jobs in November but the unemployment rate rose to 4.6 percent. Payroll employment fell by 105k in October, mostly as a result of the federal government's deferred-resignation program. Data: www.bls.gov/news.release... Live coverage: www.nytimes.com/live/2025/12...

Ben raises a good point about the gap, how you treat the @claudia-sahm.bsky.social rule. Here’s my shameless plug for the conclusion of my WP: the #SahmRule shouldn’t be understood as a singular heuristic, but rather a really flexible labor-oriented turning point framework.

Today in "adventures in false precision": If the unemployment rate comes in at 4.6% tomorrow, and does the same in December (not most people's base case, but hardly inconceivable), then the question of whether the Sahm Rule triggered will depend on how you handle October's missing number. #EconSky

Update on JOE postings -- things are worse: paulgp.com/2025/12/10/q...

A sharply divided Federal Reserve cut interest rates by a quarter point, as widely expected, but with three dissents in opposite directions. Statement: www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/p... Full coverage: www.nytimes.com/live/2025/12...

A nice piece on algorithmic pricing worth your time. A question I got frequently when I led BLS was why the agency went into stores and didn’t just collect prices online. My answer, “prices online are often different than in the store, so we do both” often surprised people.

Today's #JOLTS report gives our first official look at the labor market in October. Short version: Not that different from August, but some signs of further weakening. #NumbersDay Data: www.bls.gov/news.release...

Same product. Same store. Same time. But on Instacart, different customers may see different prices. My story on a fascinating new experiment from @groundwork.bsky.social & @consumerreports.org and how the idea of a single price is breaking down in the digital age: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/09/b...

You know what's not a great way to advertise trinkets commemorating my dead dad? A subject line advertising them as "A great gift for my dad."

The AEA has imposed a lifetime ban on Lawrence H. Summers’ membership and participation in AEA activities. See the full statement here. www.aeaweb.org/news/aea-sta...

Excellent piece from the always-excellent @josephpolitano.bsky.social on why no one should be citing Current Population Data on immigration levels, and why it's a problem that we don't have better data on this crucial question. #EconSky www.apricitas.io/p/america-is...

Thanksgiving prep underway! #BreadSky

For Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities, monthly CPI values are used to interpolate daily index ratios that determine accrued interest Without CPI value, regulations for TIPS call for a synthetic number “based on last available 12-mo change in CPI” www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Shoutout to everyone who's going to get to spend Thanksgiving fixing their code so it doesn't break when it hits an NA for October.

BREAKING: BLS says it will not publish an October CPI. November CPI will be delayed to Dec. 18, meaning too late for the FOMC meeting the previous week. #NumbersDay #EconSky www.bls.gov/bls/2025-lap...

The delay in the data did have one benefit: more survey responses! The collection rate for the establishment survey topped 80% in September, far above the recent average for the first release. Though still below the ~90% that is typical for the second release. #NumbersDay

OK but this is the genuine big news in today's release: "Effective with the release of January 2026 data, the establishment survey will change the birth-death model by incorporating current sample information each month." #NumbersDay

Finally, some data! U.S. employers added 119,000 jobs in September and the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.4 percent. Data: www.bls.gov/news.release... Live coverage: www.nytimes.com/live/2025/bu... #NumbersDay

NEW: Adriana Kugler, who abruptly left the Fed, repeatedly violated the central bank’s trading rules. New disclosures show trades in individual stocks, like Apple, Southwest Airlines and Cava, many of which took place during the blackout period ahead of policy votes www.nytimes.com/2025/11/15/b...

Update: September jobs report is coming out on Thursday! www.bls.gov/bls/2025-lap... #NumbersDay

The shutdown is over. The data drought is not. What we know (and mostly don't) about when the data flow will resume, what we'll never get, and what the lasting damage could be: www.nytimes.com/2025/11/14/b... #EconSky

This is tonight! Hope to see some of you there.

Forgot until just now that this is one of those years when the CPS reference week for November comes early. Is this week. www.bls.gov/cps/definiti...

I'm honored to be delivering the annual Ellen C. Gstalder Memorial Lecture at Georgetown next week. I'm talking about what A.I. will mean for the job market. And since the real answer is "I have no idea," I'll be looking at it through a historical lens. Details: events.georgetown.edu/event/35638-...

We did get *some* data today: Jobless claims increased slightly in the final week of October. But the four-week average actually fell. Still no sign of a surge in layoffs in these numbers. #NumbersDay

It's #jobsday! Except it isn't, because of the government shutdown. Which means that we're left sifting through alternative data sources to try to figure out what's going on in the labor market. So, what are those sources telling us? A 🧵:

AP calls it for Mamdani.

We should be cautious in interpreting claims filings right now, several hundred thousand people have been fired from the federal govt but most will be ineligible for UI because layoffs were either structured as voluntary deferred resignations (Fork in the Road) or for cause (provisional workers)

We now have unemployment claims data for all 50 states for the week ending 10/25. Still no sign of a big uptick in initial claims. (Note that these charts do NOT include federal workers -- see down thread for those.) #NumbersDay #EconSky

Highly recommend @colbylsmith.bsky.social's interview with Steven Miran. She really pushes him to explain his thinking on interest rates, immigration, and other topics. (Whether you find his explanations credible is up to you.) #EconSky www.nytimes.com/2025/11/01/u...

Shohei and Vladdy both up in the 11th.

Let’s play another nine, shall we?

Well, can’t say this isn’t dramatic.

Long line to vote in Crown Heights, Brooklyn at noon on Saturday, for whatever prognostication value that carries (probably not much).

Since we are having another round of high profile layoff discourse this week (with ‘blame AI’ to spice things up): 1/ High profile mass layoffs have been the “kid who cried wolf” for the last few years. Maybe this is changing but we don’t see it, yet, in the data.

Powell says there were “strongly differing views about how to proceed in December" and that another cut is "not a foregone conclusion."

The Federal Reserve cut interest rates by a quarter percentage point for a second straight meeting, as widely expected. Statement: www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/p... Full coverage: www.nytimes.com/live/2025/10...

The Treasury has collected $31 billion in tariff revenue so far in October, and looks on track to set another monthly record. Most analyses show that most of that money is being paid by American companies and consumers. #NumbersDay #EconSky

CPI data collection issues continued in September. A record 40% of missing data was subject to "different cell" imputation, meaning the data comes from a different region. Please see follow up tweets for some clarification of what this does and doesn't mean. #NumbersDay

Enjoy this inflation report. It could be the last one we get for a while. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/24/b... #NumbersDay #EconSky