FEATURED POST
March 11, 2025
The other T word: Part II
In my last Main Street Macro exploring the state of labor market turnover, I argued that a healthy job market requires a healthy level of churn. Employers need to have the ability to attract talented and skilled people with strong pay and better career prospects, and they need to be able to replace departing employees. But how much turnover is too much? How much is enough?
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September 23, 2024
Main Street Macro: What’s debt got to do with it?
The Federal Reserve’s move to cut its benchmark interest rate by half a percentage point won’t likely be felt immediately by its primary targets, employers, and households.
Yes, the Fed has a mandate to promote full employment and price stability, but in practice it takes a long time for rate cuts to translate into more hiring and spending on Main Street.
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September 16, 2024
Main Street Macro: There’s still no foregone conclusion on inflation. Here’s why
It would be easy to ignore the economic news this week and pay attention only to Wednesday’s Federal Reserve vote on interest rates. I caution you: Don’t.
Even with a Fed meeting on the calendar, there will be much more important data news to watch. That’s because we still don’t know with certainty the future path ...
September 9, 2024
Main Street Macro: The landing: It’s not how, it’s where
For the last two years, economists and market strategists have been intensely engaged in a debate over this question: Is the U.S. economy headed for a hard or soft landing?
The how is one thing, but much less attention has been paid to where the economy will land. But after a week of weaker-than-expected job data, the economy’s destination is coming into focus.
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August 27, 2024
Gen Z prefers blue-collar jobs. Or does it?
by Sam Adieze • Ben Hanowell
College enrollment data suggests that Gen Z is moving toward the skilled trades. We took a look at the payroll data.
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July 1, 2024
Main Street Macro: Three job questions for the next six months
Over the past six months, the job market has proven to be the most consistently upbeat indicator of the U.S. economy. Hiring didn't surge like the U.S. deficit, which the Congressional Budget Office projects will increase by more than $400 billion to $1.9 trillion this year, the third-largest deficit on record, behind 2020 and 2021, when pandemic relief spending pushed it to a record high.
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June 24, 2024
Main Street Macro: People are buying less stuff. That might matter for inflation.
Over the last four years, Main Street’s elevated consumption of durable goods has had both plusses and minuses for the economy. On the plus side, consumer spending on items such as electronics, refrigerators, and new cars helped pull the U.S. economy from the depths of the pandemic downturn into three years of robust growth.
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June 17, 2024
Main Street Macro: Jobs aren’t everything
By several measures, the job market is starting to look like its pre-pandemic self. Openings are marching resolutely downward. Fewer people are quitting. Unemployment is still low. Recently, we learned that the labor market is generally doing pretty well in aggregate (see the ADP National Employment Report, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics household survey and establishment survey). But jobs aren’t the whole story, not by a long shot. Wages link the job market to inflation, and while hiring might be normalizing, pay patterns are changing dramatically.
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June 10, 2024
Main Street Macro: AI and the global workforce
Artificial intelligence—heard of it? Of course, you have. In the past year, advanced AI has made its presence known on Main Street and worldwide. What we know as generative AI has been around in less-sophisticated forms for decades, but it only recently captured the public’s imagination with the release of inexpensive tools that create content on the fly. In our annual global survey, the ADP Research Institute asked nearly 35,000 private-sector workers in 18 countries how they felt about artificial intelligence. Here’s what they told us.
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