In this week's post, we look at the impact of unions on wage gains for workers and what trends suggest for the road ahead.

Out of the many components that make up the PPI, one particularly relevant item from the perspective of shoppers may be the PPI's trade indexes.

In our dynamic economy, new businesses are opened, and older businesses shut down continually over time. How does the BLS account for this churn when reporting jobs growth?

As the economy continues to normalize from the shock of the pandemic, what changes have we seen in terms of mothers' labor force participation?

How do the Fed's interest rate hikes affect bank lending standards? One way to find out is to directly ask banks whether they've tightened lending standards to borrowers.

While the level of inflation-adjusted household spending remains high, recent monthly growth rates are no longer as buoyant as before.

Household savings have been a tailwind to spending and inflation, but is that tailwind finally dissipating?

In this week's post, we look at the data to see which businesses are driving this picture of lean inventories relative to sales.

April's advance monthly retail sales report showed consumer demand expanding to kick off the second quarter of 2023. Why do some economists and economy-watchers emphasize these core retail sales?

While auto sales have been trending up over the past several months, we'll look into a couple of reasons why the future may not be so bright.

Recent inflation readings continue to come in below their COVID-19 era highs, but has the persistence of inflation also come down?

Our preliminary findings suggest that, across industries, the decline in job openings may be more related to hiring challenges rather than quit rates.

Smaller businesses' demand for workers has made up a considerable part of the surge in job openings observed over the past two years. But some data suggest that surge is beginning to wane.

Indexes of market rents are currently showing a significant slowing versus their peaks in 2022, but the rent and owners' equivalent rent (OER) components of inflation continue to rise.

Will strong hiring continue in the leisure and hospitality industry?

This post explores what impact the personal savings rate could have on households and their spending.

How can a plethora of individual price changes in the economy be combined into a single number that represents the overall change in the cost of living? The BLS accomplishes this with the CPI.

Some workers may continue to see larger than normal pay increases as wage differentials across sectors revert to their pre-pandemic norms. These increases, however, aren't distributed evenly across sectors.

Are households cutting back on spending, and if so, where?

Debt is bouncing back as consumers borrow more to pay today's higher prices. So, how has consumer debt trended in recent months?

For our first post in 2023, we pick up right where we left off: discussing inflation

For the month of December, Macro Minute will be on hiatus. We'll resume our normal programming in January 2023.

This year, inflation will probably feature in some of conversations over Thanksgiving dinner. To prepare you for this onslaught, this post will take stock of how inflation has gobbled up part of the holiday budget.

How related are wages and prices, and does the current environment mean such a relationship has changed?

As central banks around the world tighten their monetary policies, the U.S. dollar has appreciated significantly compared to other currencies.

Declining gasoline prices have contributed to an easing of inflation and lower inflation expectations, working in tandem with the FOMC's efforts to bring price levels down. But how hard is monetary policy tapping on the brakes of the economy?

For homebuyers who are still in the market despite higher prices and borrowing rates, their options may be limited as homebuilders focus on clearing backlogs rather than starting new construction.

Examining how nominal income and spending behaved during the months surrounding past peaks in inflation may yield insights into the current bout of high inflation.

The elevated number of job openings in recent months have been a very stark signal of labor market tightness. But some signs may be pointing to that tightness starting to ease.

While several indicators have pointed to a recent slowdown in economic activity, one that uses unemployment rates to gauge recession probabilities may offer new insights.

While some measures of inflation show modest signs of improvement, trimmed mean inflation tells another story.

Recent JOLTS data on job openings, hires and separations may shed some light on establishment size and the challenges of snagging new employees.

The impact of the recent rise in prices on households and how people perceive future price increases may vary according to income, according to recent research.

For decades, economists have been looking for leading indicators that can signal the future direction of the overall economy. In today's post, we look at a few of these indicators and what they suggest for growth going forward.

Since last summer, rising home prices have threatened to push up rent prices, adding pressure to overall inflation. How have actual rents fared and what do the most recent numbers imply for rent inflation going forward?

Recent reports revealed strong growth in hiring and wages for April. But is that growth enough to keep up with inflation?

The recent fall in real GDP has sparked considerable concern, but an alternative measure provides hope that the economy didn't fare as poorly as the GDP data suggest.

A recent analysis shows significantly higher inflation in rural areas versus urban areas, using data from nine broad census divisions. But does this difference in price levels hold true drilling down to the state level?

Purchases of durable goods have been moderating after experiencing a surge during the pandemic. But is this due to falling demand or constrained supplies?

While the unemployment rate has yet to fall to its pre-pandemic level, another measure of labor market tightness has reached levels not seen since the 1970s — job openings per unemployed person.

Crude oil prices spiked following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, adding to the pricing pressures that were already affecting energy markets. Filling any supply gaps won't be easy.

Despite improvements in the unemployment rate and labor force participation, one measure indicates continued hiring challenges in the private sector: the hires-per-job opening ratio.

While consumers haven't been the best forecasters of the future rate of inflation, their expectations may have additional weight now because more people are paying attention to price levels.

There are a lot more people who say they aren't working due to COVID-19, according to a recent survey. However, other data indicates that most of those workers remain in the labor force.

The New York Fed recently combined a variety of indicators into a single measure of global supply chain pressure. Plotting this index against the Richmond Fed's "prices paid" measurements from its business activity surveys can provide a window into the effects of supply disruptions on the Fifth Federal Reserve District.

While nonfarm payrolls increased only modestly in December, both monthly and high-frequency data on job openings bode well for upcoming employment reports.

A model takes a fresh look at the relationship between producer prices and consumer prices and can be used to make a simple forecast of inflation for 2022.

The emergence of a new COVID-19 variant poses risks to next year's economic outlook, especially if a spike in cases leads to supply disruptions in China and higher prices for Chinese imports.

Despite an impressive drop in the unemployment rate in November 2021, looking at the breakdown of the unemployed shows that the labor market is not back to normal.

Americans have spent less and saved more during most of the COVID-19 pandemic. What will happen to these accumulated savings is an open question.

Doing a deep dive into inventory-to-sales ratios can yield insights into supply chain issues during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the post-COVID-19 labor market, there is still an inverse relationship between the unemployment rate and the job openings rate, expressed as the Beveridge curve. But it takes a lot more openings to get to the same level of unemployment. This shift suggests a high degree of labor market mismatch.

Average hourly earnings continue to grow strongly. With inflation running high, however, real wage growth has been more muted. Inflation has even outpaced wage growth in a few sectors.

Household savings have been elevated since the start of the pandemic, especially among high-income households. This is expected to fuel the seasonal burst of demand ahead of the holidays.

Recent data from the Institute for Supply Management and other sources offer early indications of whether and how much supply chain disruptions have eased.

How consumers respond to the ongoing Delta variant outbreak has been a key question facing the economy. Fortunately, consumer spending is holding up better than sentiment surveys would have suggested.

There could be multiple explanations for why more workers are staying on the sidelines compared to the pre-COVID-19 days. One reason could be that some people have reconsidered the costs and benefits of working.

The housing market has boomed during the pandemic, but data over the past few months have been more mixed. Is this bumpiness the result of weaker demand or lower supply?

Household spending fell sharply, especially on services, during the early days of the pandemic. That story is expected to change significantly as the recovery continues.

The two main employment surveys can present differing views of the health of the labor market in any given month, adding to the challenges of determining how far the economy has recovered from last year's severe downturn.

Employers are reporting they are unable to find workers. But is every industry experiencing the same difficulties, and are the industries having more trouble raising wages in response?

The recent acceleration in the prices people pay for housing might have more lasting implications for the path of core inflation ahead.

Policymakers have been using the trimmed mean PCE inflation rate to get a better sense of the overall direction of prices in the long term. But does using this metric risk missing anything that short-term price hikes might be telling us?