🧵 I think it is a mistake to conclude based on data describing the economy before the Trump/Musk clownshow got going that "the hard numbers tell us that the economy is in very good shape." It *was* in good shape in January. Is it now? The numbers don't say. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/12/o...

Tagging @justinwolfers.bsky.social

Sure. Nor do I. But it seems relevant that basically none of the high frequency measures are high frequency enough to tell us about the last 3-4 weeks.

I'm not sure that's quite right, though one has to look at more esoteric measures. Here's the Lewis-Mertens-Stock weekly index through the first week of March: www.dallasfed.org/research/wei

I haven’t dug into all of the component measures, but two of them are initial and continuing UI claims. The most recent initial claims data are for week ending 3/1 (or earlier if they aren’t using the advance series). Continuing claims are for week ending 2/15.

My expectation is that the biggest hit will be on hiring due to enormous uncertainty. If that is right, look to a rise in the ratio of continuing claims to new claims.