Unemployment And Jay Powell's "Pain" Speech -- August 28, 2022

Stagflation:

• high inflation
• slow growth
• high unemployment

The current unemployment numbers fascinate me. 

Pundits tell us that U-3 is irrelevant; we need to be following U-6.

Pundits tells us labor force participation is a concern.

Pundits tells us jobless numbers is/are a lagging indicator.

Pundits tell us a lot of things.

Pundits have a way of shaping our thinking, making us lazy.

Whatever. 

Link here.

The internet has made it so easy to look at the numbers ourselves and do some of our own thinking without pundits filtering the data.

Now, on top of all that, Jay Powell's "pain" speech, Jackson Hole, August 26, adds another dimension.

He spoke for only eight and a half minutes. Pundits came away with a number of highlights.

One highlight from Mr Powell: "pain" for households."

A lot of moms dropped out of the workforce during the year of the plague for any number of reasons. 

This chart below blows me away.

Look at U-1: 

• Persons unemployed 15 weeks or longer, as a percent of the civilian labor force: 1%.

The full chart:

Much could be said, but I will leave it at this: Jay Powell said US households are going to feel some pain. With U-1 at 1%, he has a lot of room to work.