There's roughly 1.7 job openings now for every one person who counts as unemployed in the U.S. To bring inflation down, you really do need to see some cooling of demand; that would also involve some cooling of labor costs. So theoretically, if there was to be a wage price spiral, this would be quite a worrying sign about the future trajectory of inflation.
The killing of a teenager in a Paris suburb has ignited national unrest. We ask what is driving the disquiet, and what it means for a president squeezed on both political sides. In high-inflation times, rising wages worry economists—“wage-price spirals” are a textbook bogeyman. But perhaps the risk is overblown (10:34). And the researchers making burgers from extinct animals (18:22).
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