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Journal Article
KC Fed LMCI Suggests Recent Inflation Is Not Due to the Tight Labor Market
A tight labor market tends to raise wages and lower unemployment, but an overly tight labor market can cause inflation. Labor market momentum, as measured by the Kansas City Fed Labor Market Conditions Indicators (LMCI), can signal whether the current level of activity in labor markets is inflationary.
Journal Article
Young Workers Fuel Recovery in Jobs Requiring a High School Diploma or Less
The labor force of individuals with a high school diploma or less has surpassed pre-pandemic levels thanks to an increase in the number of young workers. However, this shift toward younger workers could affect both the current and future productive capacity of the economy. Young workers lack experience and work fewer hours, which could lead to productivity losses in the short term. More concerningly, some young people appear to be foregoing education to work, which may hurt their future labor market prospects.
Journal Article
What Explains Lifetime Earnings Differences Across Individuals?
Expected lifetime earnings are a key factor in many individual decisions, such as whether or not to go to college and what kind of occupation to pursue. However, lifetime earnings differ widely across individuals, and uncovering the factors that explain these differences can be challenging. Some characteristics, such as race and sex, are observable. But other intangible characteristics, such as work performance, are more difficult to quantify. To what degree observable characteristics explain lifetime earnings is an empirical question. {{p}} Jos Mustre-del-Ro and Emily Pollard use a unique ...
Journal Article
An Alternative Version of the KC Fed LMCI Suggests the Level of Activity Was Little Changed but Momentum Decelerated Sharply in October
Last month, we published an alternative version of the Kansas City Fed’s Labor Market Conditions Indicators (LMCI) that excludes delayed government series to continue tracking the health of the labor market in a systematic fashion. The October reading of this restricted LMCI suggests little change in the labor market, but a deceleration in labor market momentum caused by a high number of announced job cuts. This has pushed down our model's forecast of payroll employment growth for October.
Journal Article
Labor Shortages in the Healthcare Sector Have Eased, Which May Soften Price Pressures
Following severe labor shortages during the post-pandemic recovery, employment and wage growth in the healthcare sector have returned to their pre-pandemic trends. The healthcare sector is labor intensive, and inflation in the sector has historically tracked wage growth. Thus, lower wage growth may limit price pressures in the healthcare sector.
Journal Article
Labor Market Cooling Has Been Uneven Across Industries
The U.S. labor market has cooled over the last two years but remains healthy overall. However, an industry-specific version of the KC Fed’s Labor Market Conditions Indicators (LMCI) suggests pockets of tightness and weakness have appeared in a few industries. Tightness appears to be limited to less labor-intensive industries, limiting upside risk to inflation. Weakness, on the other hand, has appeared in the interest-rate-sensitive information industry, which may be vulnerable to further labor market cooling.
Journal Article
As Manufacturing Weakens, Consumers Pull Back
The United States has faced two recent downturns in manufacturing: one from 2014 to 2015 and one that has been ongoing since 2018. We examine consumption growth at the state level to see how consumers have responded to the current downturn relative to the last. We find that during the current downturn, changes in consumption growth at the state level have been negatively correlated with the state?s share of workers in manufacturing. In contrast, we find the opposite relationship during the 2014?15 downturn.
Journal Article
Decline in Number of Workers with “Some College” Is Boosting Healthcare Wage Inflation
Compared with the pre-pandemic period, the labor force contains about 1.5 million fewer individuals who have some post-secondary schooling but less than a bachelor’s degree. As a result, vacancies for jobs that require a post-secondary certificate or an associate degree remain elevated, especially in health-related fields. These shortages have contributed to higher wages in the fast-growing healthcare field and are unlikely to resolve quickly.
Journal Article
Lifetime Earnings Differences across Black and White Individuals: Years Worked Matter
In this article, Andrew Glover, José Mustre-del-Río, and Emily Pollard go beyond point-in-time measures of earnings and examine lifetime earnings differences between Black and white individuals. They find that, on average, Black individuals earn about one-third less than white individuals over the course of their lifetimes (a difference equivalent to about $550,000), though the size of this gap varies by sex and education level. In addition, they find that differences in years worked, which are not captured by point-in-time measures, contribute substantially to earnings differences between ...
Journal Article
The Rise and Fall of College Tuition Inflation
The cost of college tuition increased rapidly from 1980 to 2004 at a rate of about 7 percent per year, significantly outpacing the overall inflation rate. Since 2005, college tuition inflation has slowed markedly and has averaged closer to 2 percent per year for the last few years. Understanding what drives tuition inflation is important for predicting future tuition as well as personal income mobility. However, untangling the various supply and demand factors influencing college tuition can be challenging. {{p}} Brent Bundick and Emily Pollard document changes in college tuition inflation ...