Latest / The Macro Memo with Fexingo: Daily Conversations on Inflation, GDP, and Federal Reserve Policy
Why Unemployment Fell While Payrolls Shrank
In this episode of The Macro Memo, Lucas and Luna dig into a quiet anomaly in the July jobs report: the unemployment rate ticked down to 4.1 percent even as nonfarm payrolls posted a net decline. They explore how the household survey and the establishment survey can diverge, what falling job openings (down to 7.36 million) and a slight uptick in initial claims tell us about labor market slack, and why the Federal Reserve is paying more attention to the unemployment rate than to payrolls right now. With the Fed funds rate steady at 3.63 percent and inflation cooling, they consider whether this…
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