U.S. consumer prices rose 0.3% in February and were up 2.4% from a year earlier. "Core" prices, excluding food and energy, were up 0.2% month/month and 2.5% year/year. But remember that all these numbers are from before the war in Iran sent gas prices soaring. #NumbersDay
ICE has arrested and detained a Nashville journalist who reported stories critical of ICE. She’s married to a U.S. citizen and has been seeking asylum here after fleeing death threats in Colombia because of her journalism there.
They’ve already sent her to Louisiana.
Government job cuts are part of the story, but nowhere close to all of it. Even looking just at the private sector, job growth has slowed to a crawl.
Between the decline in employment in February and the downward revision to December, job growth has now effectively slowed to zero. #numbersday
A SNAPSHOT OF TRUMP'S ECONOMY—judged by his own goals: manufacturing jobs are down 100,000 since Trump took office, private-sector job growth is the weakest we’ve seen outside a recession in more than 20 years, and the unemployment rate for U.S.-born workers has increased.
While employment in health care shrank this month, it continues to account for more than all of the jobs created over the past year.
This is not good.
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
I continue to be gobsmacked at 1) how common this formulation is 2) how antisemitic and generally bigoted it is 3) and how for all the talk of anti-semitism this is never cited as an example even though it’s quite literally the original incarnation.
Finally got to @gelliottmorris.com's piece this week on how poll question wording dramatically affects responses. It's excellent. This is classic stuff in the political behavior subfield of poli sci, but we don't hear enough about it in punditry.
www.gelliottmorris.com/p/many-ameri...
The FBI being on high alert for terrorist actions is important right now.
Too bad they fired and gutted their counterterrorism capacity
The central constraint on public-sector performance is not the power of unions—it is chronic underinvestment.
@hshierholz.bsky.social + @joshbivens-econ.bsky.social: If we want a high-functioning public sector, we need to pay for it.
There is no shortcut.
Need to answer a question about labor law?
@mattbruenig.bsky.social built a Claude skill that writes a legal memo on any NLRA/NLRB-related topic with specific links to decisions, court opinions, manuals, and agency memos
This really feels like an Orban/Erdogan situation in which the aspiring dictator is making sure his friendly oligarchs control as much media as possible
www.cnbc.com/2026/02/26/w...
This week's cover @thelancet.com
Thanks to @audrelawdamercy.bsky.social for highlighting this ridiculous under-the-radar SCOTUS decision from yesterday.
The DHS agent surge in Minnesota reduced employees working in the MSP metro by 2.8%, total hours worked by 1.9%, and open business locations by 1.7% through mid-February. Estimated impact: $106 million in lost wages.
new research from @aaronsojourner.org and @aaronrosenthal.bsky.social
Many workers have missed shifts without jobs being destroyed making it challenging to measure labor impacts with conventional sources.
We use real-time daily data from Homebase to measure impacts. Thanks to UChicago and Homebase for making the data available.
#EconSky #NumbersDay
The President boasts of "no tax on tips", but this expires in 2028.
He boasts of "no tax on overtime," but it is taxed, and the break expires in 2028.
He boasts of "no tax on social security," but it is taxed, and his break expires in 2028.
He also passed tax cuts for the rich. They're permanent.
I'm old enough to remember when polio ripped through the globe and put my friends into iron lungs.
We dutifully lined up at school to get vaccinated. We eradicated the disease. We protected the common good and saved lives.
RFK Jr. is a disgrace.
Note to aspiring empirical/policy economists: Don't fall into these traps! #EconSky
econbrowser.com/archives/202...
P.S. Credit to Margaret Poydock for the excellent analysis in the first post—should have said that up top!
In a time of uncertainty and direct attacks from the most anti-union president in history, it is clear that workers are exerting control over their jobs and their lives by organizing, striking, and winning gains. 4/
The data showing an increase in strikes comes on top of other recent data showing increased momentum in the union movement. Two days ago, we learned that unionization surged in 2025, rising by 463,000 to 16.5 million workers. 3/ bsky.app/profile/hshi...
According to BLS, 306,800 workers were involved in 30 major work stoppages in 2025—a 13% increase from 2024. (That’s likely an undercount, but it confirms that strike activity remains far above early-2000s levels.) 2/
New numbers out this morning from @usbls.bsky.social show that in 2025, a growing number of workers went on strike. 1/ www.epi.org/blog/a-growi...
Only the best people.
Turns out there’s an economic cost to everyone hating us.
Despite all the attacks on working people and their unions, the number of workers covered under union contracts is at its highest in 16 years. Workers know that the best check on a bad boss is a strong union contract.
