But two points I'd emphasize at the end here: 1. "Private" data sources often rely on government data -- if you want good private data, you need good government data to back it up;

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.

To show my cards, I think the setup Schumer negotiated provides more leverage than this bcuz it separates out DHS. The DHS bill would continue for 2 weeks, but then we’d have a DHS-only shutdown. Harm is limited to DHS, so Ds aren’t worried bcuz SSI or Section 8 payments would eventually stop. YMMV!

Comparing the two, we see a clear disconnect developing at the moment between U.S. producer prices for finished durable and nondurable consumer goods. A similar gap developed early in the pandemic, when global supply chains were initially thrown into turmoil.

Great podcast with @hpschneider.bsky.social on the ridiculous idea of nominating a “shadow Fed Chair”, and why it makes such little sense that it’s probably not going to happen, even in this administration open.spotify.com/episode/7a52...

Manufacturing employment fell for the second month in a row.

The replies to this are so unhinged - do better @bsky.app community! The whole point of moving here is to elevate the dialogue

Fed's Powell on tariff pass through: "Ultimately, the cost of the tariff has to be paid, and some of it will fall on the end consumer. We know that because that's what businesses say. That's what the data say from past.”

Denouncing Israel in Gaza while supporting their strikes in Iran, and possibly even a U.S. strike, seems like a reasonable position that an uncomfortably small portion of the population probably hold

• Key Takeaway: Evidence of tariff-driven price increases remains minimal but with an effective tariff rate in the mid-teens, it is a matter of when, not if.

CBO posts dynamic score of House version of One Big Beautiful Bill. Conventional, static cost: Increases deficit by $2.41 trillion over 10 years. Dynamic estimate (increase in GDP, increase in net interest costs): $2.77 trillion over 10 years. www.cbo.gov/publication/...

Quite the swing here from “Mexico will pay for the Wall” to having each American taxpayer chip in almost $300 for it. And you’d think Mar-a-Lago fees could go to security for the President who refused his $400k salary 🙄

Thread: 1/ Why has the labor market for young people with Associate Degrees has been more resilient than the one for young people with Bachelor's Degrees? At least part of the reason - not all of it - seems to be industry exposure.

Political ideology continues to skew perceptions massively, with Democrats now expecting inflation to exceed 10% by June 2026 vs only 1.5% for Republicans.

Tariffs may not have showed up much in retail inflation through May, but import prices haven’t fallen through April like you’d expect if foreigners were “eating” the costs either

So, Core Goods inflation would have accelerated in May if it weren't for the big drag from car prices.

Rather than the “re-privatization” shift the Trump administration promised, the labor market is on track for being 50/50 across contracting/expanding industries, with healthcare being the single engine powering net hiring

Newsom: These images are unacceptable. These people on the car. These aren’t peaceful protesters. They are playing right into Trump’s hand and they need to be called out. They need to be arrested but Donald Trump is the sponsor of these conditions

Some irony as well: While tariffs may spur some onshoring, concerns about retaliatory tariffs mean some businesses have an incentive to offshore U.S. production of goods destined for international markets.

When he says CBO is unreliable, what he's referring to is that CBO didn't predict inflation would spike. He'll say, "CBO said the Trump tax cuts would lose revenue, but revenues are at their pre-TCJA projections." But ONLY if you don't adjust for inflation. If you do.... CBO was dead on target.

ICYMI: Joint Tax Committee dynamic score of (only) tax provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill: Would increase GDP growth rate by 0.03 pct pts from 1.83% in current-law baseline to 1.86%. www.jct.gov/publications...

Was quite a moment, a sense we reached some kind of inflection point in U.S. history. You can now personally pay a U.S. president to gain an audience.

Any time Apple CEO Tim Cook has to spend on lobbying Trump about tariffs, such as with a trip to Saudi Arabia, is time he is not spending on developing the world's next great product. Tariffs will sap productivity growth over time finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-l...

Teleworking in the federal government has now dropped below the private sector average despite public workers skewing towards the more educated, professional services sectors that telework the most. www.bls.gov/opub/ted/202...

My introductory remarks on the panel discussion about the future of central bank operating systems at the @AtlantaFed's Financial Markets Conference open.substack.com/pub/macroeco...

Credit standards were eased; much of that vintage of loans is showing stress but will not be renewed. We saw the last in forbearance on student loans lapse on October 1. Sure enough, three months later, 90-day delinquencies soared.

Liberals should try the *hardest* to knock the 3% of long-term non-disabled, non-workers off Medicaid rolls or convince the broader population that healthcare is best delivered universally. Otherwise, it hurts the program’s reputation and that’s why states like Missouri struggled to expand coverage

A few weeks ago there was significant risk that a large tariff-driven tightening would occur (plus maybe DOGE / legislative budget cuts). That created a significant downshift in growth expectations. But that wasn't driven by hard data - it was an "expectations recession."

So far, it looks like the impact of tariffs is generally not being meaningfully passed on to consumers, but they do appear to be getting passed on to businesses.

I, for one, am glad that the ‘national security’ threat used to justify US tariffs on China has clearly been resolved so quickly.

From @robinwigglesworth.ft.com: "Although the chances of the US government haphazardly defaulting on its debts is still vanishingly small, the price of credit default swaps on Treasuries has climbed markedly in recent weeks." #DebtCeiling on.ft.com/3GKIj5H #econsky

The NY Fed numeracy screen is probably my favorite one of all economic surveys. If you’re a complete idiot, you think inflation is staying where it is; otherwise, you’re expecting tariffs to push it at least one percentage point higher 😆

It could be interesting for the Fed reporters to get Chair Powell talking about policy uncertainty and downbeat sentiment readings today, and whether they're seeing any real economic consequences from that

June SEP gonna be spicy

The Fed's dilemma: Navigate a recession or manage a period of stagflation. The result: “This is not going to be a cycle where the Fed pre-emptively cuts because there’s a forecast of a slowdown. They’re going to actually need to see it in the tangible data." www.wsj.com/economy/cent...

The GDP report showed a big jump up in the Q1 federal government price deflator as taxpayers paying for severance packages to employees who are no longer working counts as inflation (i.e., spending more to get less service). DOGE is doing "efficiency" in the least efficient way possible!

A big part of #China’s UST portfolio is those held by offshore custodians, and it started precisely when the US started producing detailed monthly data of overseas foreign holdings in 2011, chart @JPMorganAM

6) Indeed job openings still falling

Today's job number did in fact show DOGE's fingerprints. Federal workers now have a lower teleworking rate than the private sector. It's a pretty dramatic shift. A quick data observation post here. Share and commiserate with the federal workers in your life! mikekonczal.substack.com/p/federal-em...

If you had told policy makers two years ago, when core inflation was above 4.5% and the unemployment rate was down to 3.4%, that two years hence, the unemployment rate would be at 4.2% with 2.5% core inflation and 2-3% real final demand, they'd have given an arm (or leg) for that outcome.

The index of aggregate weekly payrolls is a good monthly proxy for nominal income growth and correlates well with nominal GDP growth. It was up 5.3% on the year in April and has held in a range over the last year that is back to where it was from 2018-19

Despite early trade/shipping data showing tariff impacts, transportation & warehousing added 29,000 jobs. Much of the sector's growth since November has been driven by courier & messengers, which *could* point to some tariff front-running in last-mile delivery. 4/

3/ We're seeing a moderation in state & local government wage growth, after a period where it grew faster than its private sector counterpart.

The Port of Los Angeles--the country's largest container port--is currently projecting a 20% decline in import containers over the next three weeks relative to last year. This is what the beginning of a supply chain crisis looks like--hopefully we can stop it there.

2. NY Fed applies different methodological choices: a. median vs mean b. Distribution questions vs point forecasts c. Panel conditioning effects

What I’ve seen on the consumer from various companies in earnings season so far: -banks/credit cards: no change -airlines: softness (international inbound, main cabin domestic leisure) -regional casinos: no change -consumer packaged goods: low-end pressure Haven’t heard from big box guys yet.

Firing rate is low but so is the hires rate. Jobs seem frozen in place.

I’m generally in favor of free speech but think there should be licenses for podcasts in America lest we get idiots like Chamath trying to describe “the Fed put”

The Powell firing fake-out suggests that monetary independence may not be so important in an economy with large and liquid capital markets. Whatever boost Trump would have gained from short-term rates, he would have lost at the long end. The Fed should defend its regulatory independence instead