The spending cutbacks spurred by higher prices unemployment will rise and labor market will cool further, dampening nominal wage growth and making real declines even worse. This war is obviously a disaster across the board, but will have direct and terrible effects on affordability. 3
Real wage growth in 2025 was already negative for lowest-wage workers, and was below 1.5% for just about everybody. A price shock of 1.5% (what's likely baked in based on oil price per barrel increases so far) means 2026 is looking like a year of negative real wage growth for most workers. 2
Price effects of the Iran conflict already showing up in March data. For the month, prices up a lot and real earnings are down. And it almost surely gets worse from here. 1
We don't have the inflation data yet to show real wage changes in March, but slowing nominal wage growth coupled with rising prices from the Iran war almost surely means real wages will suffer, contributing to worsening affordability.
#EconSky
Economic Policy Institute Development Director The Development Director will lead EPI’s fundraising strategy and operations, deepen and expand philanthropic support, and bring outstanding organizational and process-management skills to ensure fundraising systems, timelines, and workflows are effective, disciplined, and scalable. This is a senior leadership role that will collaborate across departments to build a sustainable, diversified revenue base for EPI’s mission-driven work. The Development Director supervises two staff— the Associate Director of Development and the Senior Development Associate—and is a part of the senior management team, reporting to the Executive Vice President. This position is in our Washington, DC office and is on a hybrid schedule with in-person work at least two days per week
Come work at @epi.org! We're hiring a Development Director
The gender wage gap grew when Wisconsin let school districts negotiate pay individually with teachers instead of following union pay schedules based on seniority and credentials. Men's pay rose while women's pay fell.
Today is #EqualPayDay, but there's no cause for celebration. This is how far into 2026 women would have to work on top of the hours they worked in 2025 simply to match what men were paid in 2025. Emma Cohn and I detail changes in the pay gap and what we can do about it.
www.epi.org/blog/the-gen...
Manufacturing jobs fell again, down 12,000 between January and February 2026. Since January 2025, the manufacturing sector has lost 100,000 jobs. I repeat: The manufacturing sector lost 100k jobs since Trump took office.
#EconSky #NumbersDay
Today's jobs report was much weaker than expected. Payroll jobs fell 92k in Feb, and revisions to Dec data show a loss of 17k jobs. Average job growth over the last 3 months now under 6k.
Household survey population controls indicate a significant drop in the labor force.
#NumbersDay #EconSky
Line graph showing average daily ICE removals in 2025 from biweekly detention reports published by ICE. The title of the figure is "Trump is deporting more than 1300 people every day"
Latest deportation data: ICE is on course to deport more than 400 thousand people in 2025.
The current deportation rate is about half of Trump's goal (1 million annual deportations).
NEWS: By vaccinating babies at birth, the U.S. nearly eradicated hepatitis-B in children.
Kennedy's vaccine advisory panel is expected this week to recommend delaying the shot, opening a window for kids to be infected.
Exclusive by @jackie-fortier.bsky.social
kffhealthnews.org/news/article...
While changes at the median or 10th percentile were not statistically significant between 2023 and 2024, income grew 1.3% and 2.2% in real terms at the middle and bottom, respectively. However, inequality did rise because the top grew even faster (4.2% at the 90th percentile).
#EconSky #NumbersDay
Supplemental child poverty rates since 2021 by race and ethnicity
Disparities in income continue to leave families of color with children disproportionately vulnerable to poverty. Black & Hispanic children remain 3 times as likely as their white peers to suffer poverty. #EconSky #NumbersDay
Real median household income by race and ethnicity
New Census 2024 income data show a mixed picture for families of color. Asian & Hispanic families saw their median income rise. But Black families experienced a fall. Typical Black & Hispanic households continue to earn just a fraction of their white peers' income. #EconSky #NumbersDay
The latest data out from #Census today show median earnings and median household incomes kept pace with inflation in 2024. Men's earnings rose 3.7% increasing the gender wage gap back to 2019 levels. Income grew at the top, but not the middle or bottom, reversing recent trends.
#EconSky #NumbersDay
Bar graph from new Census data showing that 8.0% of people lacked any form of health insurance in 2024.
About 8% of people lacked any form of health insurance in 2024. Unfortunately that rate will dramatically increase in the coming years, from 27 million to more than 40 million thanks to Republicans who cut Medicaid and ACA marketplace subsidies
But frankly this is too much to ask of our civil service—they work hard enough collecting and analyzing this data, they should not also have to be activists safeguarding its integrity.
To be fair, extreme competence and professionalism of federal workers who staff the statistical agencies have thus far shielded most of the data they release from manipulation or quality-erosion.
There is simply no substitute for government data infrastructure. Pressure from the executive branch to alter data to fit political aims will damage a valuable public good that is critical for business decisions, policymaking, and planning by all stakeholders in the economy.
Gvt staffing cuts and politically motivated firings threaten the credibility of future data releases. See Exhibit A: www.nbcnews.com/business/eco...
The Trump admin is trying to politicize federal statistical agencies and to manipulate the reporting of anything that seems like bad news for the economy. This erodes trust, is deeply undemocratic AND BAD.
Some big #NumbersDay releases today—Just a reminder that the Census data are incredibly valuable. We get transparent and non-politicized data to make informed decisions about what policies are delivering economic security for working people.
Today’s BLS preliminary benchmark revisions are necessary for timely and accurate data—not fodder for Trump’s attacks Today’s preliminary benchmark announcement from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reveals weaker job growth between March 2024 and March 2025 than when it was first reported based on survey data. These numbers are likely to anger President Trump and the White House who incorrectly view revised data as political manipulation. Trump has already lashed out at BLS, including firing the agency’s commissioner because a jobs report showed a rapidly weakening labor market. But these BLS data revisions are not corrections of mistakes. Revisions are part of the regular, transparent process to update employment counts with the most comprehensive data possible.
Today's preliminary revisions to March 2024-March 2025 data suggest job growth was half the pace of initial estimates
These regular, transparent steps by BLS to ensure its data are as accurate as possible are one of the hallmarks of the federal statistics infrastructure
www.epi.org/blog/todays-...
Statement from the National Association of Business Economics in light of ongoing attacks on the quality and integrity of US data and BLS staff. It is a pretty transparent effort to reduce transparency and accountability, not increase it
@nabe-econ.bsky.social
nabe.com/common/Uploa...
Black unemp is a volatile series, but 3 months of increases denotes a trend that should be given some attention
The sharp decline in immigration that began mid-2024 and has presumably accelerated in 2025 has not helped the native-born unemployment rate.
@gbenga-ajilore.bsky.social
Job losses were particularly acute in professional/business services, the federal govt, and wholesale trade, but there have also been sustained losses over recent months in manufacturing, construction, and mining, an indication that Trump's blue-collar renaissance is clearly not happening.
#EconSky
Good morning folks! Today's #jobsday has payrolls at +22k and unemployment edged up to 4.3%. Follow @elisegould.bsky.social for all the gossip
I was in California conducting focus groups with teachers last week. My big takeaway? Abbot Elementary is not a comedy, but actually a docuseries that accurately reflects how teachers scrape to get by all across the country.