The Economics Show What’s up with the US economy? With Austan Goolsbee
24 snips
Oct 13, 2025 
Austan Goolsbee, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, shares insights on the US economy. He discusses the impact of the current AI investment boom against a backdrop of sluggish hiring and inflation challenges. Goolsbee explains the Fed's cautious stance on interest rate cuts and addresses concerns about tariffs and their longer-term effects on manufacturing. The conversation also underscores the importance of maintaining the Fed's independence in policy decisions amidst political pressure.
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Real-Time Job Market Tracking
- The Chicago Fed built real-time job-market measures combining 11 data sources to fill gaps from paused government data.
- These measures showed the unemployment rate likely unchanged at 4.3% and overall labor-market stability.
Low Churn Labour Market
- The labour market shows low hiring and extremely low layoffs, creating a rare low-churn equilibrium near full employment.
- That pattern complicates recession signals because typical downturns raise layoffs while lowering hiring.
Services Inflation Is The Worry
- Inflation has been ticking up and has stayed above the 2% target for a long time, with services inflation also rising.
- Services inflation is particularly worrying because it is stickier and unlikely to come from tariffs.
