Arin Dube

New WP: We study how minimum wage increases affect poverty and food hardship in the U.S from 1981-2019. Different from recent work, we study the Supplemental Poverty Measure + two measures of food hardship, factor in cost-of-living differences, and more. www.iza.org/publications...

One of the more meta similarities between 2000 and 2025 is the extent to which the likelihood of a bubble is widely recognized and discussed, even as asset prices climb.

This is literally what the actual "siege" of the auxiliary ICE building looks like

Since "war ravaged" is now being used without any relationship to reality, I hope everyone is enjoying this beautiful sunny afternoon like the one here in war ravaged Western Mass.

The pro-worker labor policy of the Trump administration is getting very hard to detect

Finally some good news out of UCLA… Our program has been elevated to an official Department of Labor Studies, the first labor studies department in UC history!

newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/ucla...

Btw he also engaged in ad hominem attacks on Zucman, while opposing the 2% wealth tax.

Shocking news.

The BLS is NOT postponing the monthly inflation report, the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Rather, the delay is for the annual Consumer Expenditure Survey (CEX). CEX provides the "weights" for the CPI and other inflation measures.

‘Tax the Rich,’ French Protesters Cry, as the Wealthy Push Back on Paying More

Link to gifted story on the Zucman tax debate in 🇫🇷: www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/b...

Don't look now, but I expect calls for tax justice to grow louder here in America too.

Pope Leo's 1st formal interview: Wage inequality, Elon Musk, peace and polarization Pope Leo XIV decried economic inequality between rank-and-file workers and corporate titans, according to transcripts from his first formal interview with a journalist since ascending to the papacy.

Link: www.ncronline.org/vatican/pope...

Pope Leo XIV speaks out against wage inequality.

It was a conditional statement not a prediction 🙂

Its possible Trump
was misinformed.

If he publicly apologizes to Cook and explains his errors, I would consider believing his sincerity.

To remind everyone, If she did not claim both houses as primary residences, it means that the President's entire claim (that he can fire her) is faulty.

Exclusive: Fed Governor Cook declared her Atlanta property as “vacation home,” documents show A loan estimate for an Atlanta home purchased by Lisa Cook, the Federal Reserve governor accused of mortgage fraud by the Trump administration, shows that Cook had declared the property as a “vacation home,” according to a document reviewed by Reuters.

Not surprising, but still very important.

www.reuters.com/world/us/fed...

How Lutnick Is Using Government Power to Pressure Private Companies

Love it or hate it, this type of pressure on corporations to shape the contours of the market is something the left has wanted to do for a long time, but any actual attempt would have led to an uproar.

Trump has been able to do it with relatively little uproar.

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/10/u...

I lived in Seattle in 1991. When my kids ask me what I memories I have about music from my youth this is it.

“Smells Like Teen Spirit”, released as a single 34 yrs ago today

“No one had any psychic foresight .. that the song would go on to do what it did,” said Grohl. “We just fuckin’ rocked it in a little rehearsal space that was like a barn. .. We just thought it was another cool song for the record.”

Alt title: Reimagine carbon based life forms demanding social security privatization

Here is a scary story: a two-sided Wile E. Coyote cliff. One is Trump policies: market may have under-priced costs. Another is AI: investors may have been overly optimistic.

Correcting beliefs on one may lead to corrections in the other: with a scary multiplier.

Line plot showing Black employment to population ratios for those ages 25-54 each month between 2023 and 2025. The title of the plot is "Black employment rates fell in 2025"

a major concern coming out of the jobs report today is prime-age Black employment, which fell in 2025

these data are noisy and while it would be great if they turned around, I'm not optimistic: there will be downward pressure from federal job losses over the next few months

Overall, if you separate the signal from the noise, the labor market is looking increasingly under duress.

Unfortunately, policies by this administration have not helped, to put it charitably.

Finally, if the labor market were not becoming more slack, we might see an uptick in wage growth. That's not happened: nominal wage growth has slowed a bit over 2025.

Second, if we look at particularly vulnerable groups, like African Americans, we see a rising unemployment rate. Keep in mind that subgroup estimates are noisy (small sample size).

But smoothing by 3 or 6 months shows a disturbing signal: the trend here is not your friend.

First, immigration is certainly playing a direct role in reducing jobs. However, if demand conditions were stable and there were a reduction in labor supply, raising tightness, we'd expect unemployment rate to *fall.*

Unemployment rate has been inching *up.* That's not good.

There are two (not mutually exclusive) explanations for the sharp weakening of the jobs numbers.

1) Sharp curtailment of immigration ("labor supply")
2) Reduction in job openings ("labor demand")

Is it only 1? I think that's unlikely.

First, we now have 4 months of below-100k net job growth. The 3-month average is 29k and 6-month average is 64k, with all showing an unmistakable slowdown since April of this year.

Month-to-month job changes are noisy, but at this point the signal is getting alarmingly strong.

That quote below was from me, yesterday, expressing concerns about a slowdown in the labor market.

Today's weak jobs report makes things worse.

Here's why. 🧵