Imagine you live alone and walk into a local food market in Lagos, the Nigerian commercial capital, to buy a week’s worth of basic food items. In less than 15 minutes, you would find that you’ve spent at least 10,000 Naira (or US$24 at the official exchange rate of US$1 = 416 Naira). This may […]
the business benefits of hiring people with intellectual disability
There are many reasons to employ people living with intellectual disability. Most obvious is that it’s the right thing to do – it helps promote social justice, diversity, corporate social responsibility, and equal opportunity. Even so, data released in 2020 (the latest available) show just 53.4% of people with disability are in the labour force, […]
Wages up as Americans are encouraged back to work and into the office – 3 takeaways from the latest jobs report
After a lackluster jobs report in September 2021, the latest news on employment gives Americans plenty of cheer about ahead of the holiday season. In total, 531,000 jobs were added in October – outstripping the already optimistic predictions of economists. This caused the unemployment rate to fall 0.2 percentage points to 4.6%. Even with those […]
Americans are returning to the labor force at a quickening rate – do they just really need the work?
The U.S. economy surprised analysts by adding 467,000 jobs in January, overcoming omicron concerns and continuing a long streak of gains, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Feb. 4, 2022. Yet at the same time, the unemployment rate ticked up a notch, from 3.9% to 4%. Confused? Shouldn’t a large increase in jobs drive […]
Jobs are up! Wages are up! So why am I as an economist so gloomy?
In any other time, the jobs news that came down on Dec. 2, 2022, would be reason for cheer. The U.S. added 263,000 nonfarm jobs in November, leaving the unemployment rate at a low 3.7%. Moreover, wages are up – with average hourly pay jumping 5.1% compared with a year earlier. So why am I […]
The Federal Reserve and the art of navigating a soft landing … when economic data sends mixed signals
With inflation easing and the U.S. economy cooling, is the Federal Reserve done raising interest rates? After all, gently bringing down the trajectory of prices without crashing the economy was the central bank’s objective when it began jacking up rates over a year ago. Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of an economy’s output, expanded […]
Why stagflation is an economic nightmare – and may already be here
The economy is cooling while inflation remains elevated. And that is raising alarm bells among economists who worry it means “stagflation” is on the way. But what is stagflation exactly? We asked Veronika Dolar, an economist at SUNY Old Westbury and a visiting professor at Stony Brook University, to explain what it is, what causes […]