One of my family’s favorite pastimes is playing board games. Our faves include chess (which my teenage boys dominate), Scrabble (my husband’s the GOAT on this one) and Monopoly (the most frequent victor is me, obviously). But not all games are quite so fun. My least favorite, when it comes to the economy, are guessing games. Wall Street right now is in the midst of a guessing game on key economic data. I call this game “peak or plateau”. This week, we examine three elements of the economy to determine if we’re at a peak or a plateau.

The truly great always make it look easy, don’t they? Be it Meryl Streep or Michael Jordan – no matter how hard, no matter what the feat – they make it look so easy. The Fed is trying to do something now that’s really hard: Rein in inflation without choking growth. Last week, the central bank announced its intention to raise short-term interest rates by a half percentage point. In this week’s blog we share three things to keep in mind as the Fed tries to pull off one of the trickiest maneuvers in modern monetary history.

This week, all eyes will be on new labor market data. On Tuesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics shares its latest on the great resignation and job openings. On Wednesday, the ADP Research Institute offers the first read on April employment numbers, and official government jobs data is due Friday. Hirings, job openings and quits provide a snapshot of the labor market. But like other snapshots of life, like holiday photos, vacations or the kids’ sporting events, they don’t tell the whole story. The pandemic has affected more than just monthly hiring – the changes we’re living through now are likely to persist well into the future. Here are three enduring changes wrought by the pandemic.

For the third year in a row, the ADP Research Institute surveyed 30,000 workers in 17 countries to understand their views on the workplace. The negative effects of the pandemic still linger, and the workforce is evolving as it adopts new priorities

Inflation rose to 8.5 percent in March, reaching a fresh 40-year high. Not only that, a measure of what wholesalers pay for goods, before they get to store shelves, rose by 11.2 percent. That’s the biggest jump on record, and it means there could be more pain in store for consumers. The breakneck pace of inflation didn’t rankle markets – stock prices were flat after last week’s reports, with analysts positing that the March data could be the peak for price increases. But Main Street is likely to react differently. Here are three ways Main Street is reacting to high inflation.

We get a flood of new data on the state of the economy this week, including the latest imprint on an important but oft-ignored driver of the economy – global trade. Here are three reasons why global trade matters for Main Street.

Last week, the government released data showing that the economy created 431,000 jobs in March. It was hard to find something not to like about this report – job gains were strong and broad-based. But if you’re looking for areas still in need of improvement (and let’s face it, as an economist that’s kind of my job), turn to the labor force participation rate. Today, we give the jobs market a check-up to see if it's really as healthy as it seems.

It's been a jobs recovery like no other. As the nation emerges from the darkness of the pandemic and moves closer to closing the coronavirus-induced employment gap, many of us are wondering what happens next. This week, we come to you by video to explain the workforce and economic influences that will define the great alignment.