{"id":717,"date":"2025-09-04T07:53:04","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T07:53:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/717\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T07:53:04","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T07:53:04","slug":"few-signs-of-immediate-change-in-september-jobs-data-but-broader-concerns-remain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/717\/","title":{"rendered":"Few Signs of Immediate Change in September Jobs Data, but Broader Concerns Remain"},"content":{"rendered":"

August has been a structurally chaotic month for economic policymaking. But despite the erratic moves\u2014firing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)<\/a>, which produces both jobs and inflation data, and a historic power struggle over the Federal Reserve<\/a>\u2014the policy stakes for this Friday\u2019s jobs data are surprisingly low. The odds that the Fed will cut rates by a quarter point are currently over 90 percent<\/a>, just above where they\u2019ve been for the month since August data revisions<\/a> showed weaker job growth than previously reported. Forecasts for this month\u2019s jobs report are about what they have been for the past few months.<\/p>\n

There are real risks to the economy\u2014higher and more uncertain tariffs, risks to the monetary policy independence of the past 100 years\u2014but they are more of the structural, long-term variety. In the short term, the unusually negative revisions to employers\u2019 reports of job growth last month are a cause for concern and for heightened focus on this month\u2019s numbers. The short-term signals matter, but the larger story is how these immediate cracks connect to longer-term risks that could reshape growth and worker power.<\/p>\n

Across an economy that\u2019s been cooling since the global freakout over inflation, the risk is that the US has chosen slower growth and a weaker job market that shifts power toward employers. Long-term unemployment is rising back toward levels where wage growth slows down. A dramatic slowdown in immigration means the economy will grow more slowly as the workforce shrinks and as falling demand\u2014a result of less spending by working immigrants\u2014reduces hiring. The labor market is softer in ways that look both structural and cyclical, with teenage employment<\/a> set to turn in its weakest May\u2013July surge<\/a> on record.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics (via FRED<\/a>)<\/p>\n

This looks less like a rapid onset of a recession than a time to rethink how policy should work when one next occurs. The US currently has much higher tariffs than it has in recent history, the Fed is under more political pressure than at any recent point, and tax revenues are even lower than last time, so any fiscal response will face debt and inflation concerns. There is little margin for error, so these discussions need to start soon. The response to the last crisis\u2014including the American Rescue Plan<\/a>\u2014proved how quickly strong policy can restore growth and protect workers. But today, fiscal space is narrower, and the margin for error smaller, which is why policymakers need to start reimagining their available policy options now.<\/p>\n

Author<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

Michael Madowitz<\/p>\n

Principal Economist<\/p>\n

Michael Madowitz is the principal economist at the Roosevelt Institute, shaping economic strategy across programmatic areas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"August has been a structurally chaotic month for economic policymaking. But despite the erratic moves\u2014firing the head of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":718,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[138,232,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jobs","tag-business","tag-jobs","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}