by Karl Denninger
Market-Ticker.org
The latest employment report out Friday told the story nobody wants to deal with.
By the claims, the establishment survey with its “adjustments” claimed 431,000 people found jobs, and the unemployment rate dropped to 3.6%. That, standing alone (remember, this is third week of March data, so it includes the Ukraine situation) is enough to wildly-propel The Fed to tighten policy — even though, at least thus far, they are talking but not doing (e.g. principal is being reinvested in MBS rather than allowed to roll off.)
In other words Powell and the rest are, thus far, lying.
There were monstrous and nasty numbers in that report from a policy standpoint, however. Those who have followed my reporting on this series know that my most-critical number is in fact the employment:population ratio. It was up four ticks last month, on the back of five ticks previously. These are big moves folks but we are not back to pre-Pandemic levels. Yet.
But we’re close.