Wage inequality fell for the second year in a row in 2023 but still remains extremely high, according to our analysis of newly available wage data from the Social Security Administration (SSA).

Average real earnings mostly held steady in 2023 (–0.1%) as inflation receded, but there were significant differences across the earnings distribution. The bottom 90% experienced the only growth of any group in 2023 (+0.9%), while the top 5% and the top 1% experienced losses of 2.0% and 3.3%, respectively. Even the top 0.1% experienced real wage losses in 2023 (–4.7%). These losses are surprising given that pay at the very top tends to move with the stock market, which held steady in 2023.1 We found similarly puzzling findings among top CEOs.

Table 1 shows average annual earnings by wage group for each of the business cycle peaks since 1979, as well as for the last two years (in 2023 dollars).

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In the 2024 election, Alaska and Missouri voters approved ballot measures to increase their state minimum wages to $15 an hour in the coming years. This means that now 15 states and Washington D.C. either have or will have minimum wages of at least $15 an hour.

In addition, four more states will likely reach the $15 mark by 2027 because of automatic annual inflation adjustments built into their minimum wage laws. With these changes, nearly half (48.1%) of the U.S. workforce will live somewhere with a minimum wage at or above $15 an hour by 2027.1

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Below, EPI senior economist Elise Gould offers her insights on today’s release of the jobs report for November. Read the full thread here.

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This November, EPI’s Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy updated our interactive chartbook showing racially disaggregated data across several domains, including population demographics, civic engagement, labor market outcomes, and health. In addition to updating the charts with the most recent data available, many of the charts now include new data on American Indian and Alaskan Native (AIAN) populations. The chartbook was originally created as part of our Advancing Anti-Racist Economic Research and Policy handbook that includes a series of essays capturing perspectives and resources on race, ethnicity, and the economy.

The newly updated chartbook provides a more detailed snapshot of the social, political, and economic conditions for AIAN, Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI), Black, Hispanic, and white households, and those data are also disaggregated by gender where possible.

The addition of AIAN data represents an ongoing effort to improve and expand representation of Indigenous communities within economic research and policy discussions. Historically, their exclusion has reflected a genuine lack of data of comparable quality and quantity compared with more populous groups within the United States. However, it is important to also acknowledge that Indigenous Americans have often been deliberately erased from the American narrative, even when those conversations center on social and economic justice. A history of physical, cultural, and economic violence—combined with institutional neglect and the denial of sovereignty—has resulted in AIAN communities experiencing rates of poverty, incarceration, and unemployment much more similar to Black and Hispanic Americans than white and Asian Americans. Supporting the self-determination of Native American communities while simultaneously working to make those communities whole through compensation for the harm done by American policy is critical to reducing those inequities.  

Significant gaps in employment opportunities and lower wage levels translate to lower median household incomes among Black, Latino, and AIAN households. As shown in the figure below, these income disparities have been persistent across time, even as recent years have seen increases in household incomes across groups. 

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American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) is a broad and diverse Census-defined racial category that includes Indigenous populations with origins in North America and South (including Central) America. Within the United States, American Indian or Native American is also a political identity defined by tribal citizenship. Of the nearly 8 million people who selected the AIAN racial category in the 2020 Census, more than half (4.9 million) did so in combination with another race. The vast majority of those who self-identify as AIAN alone reported American Indian (70.4%) or Latin American Indian (25%) heritage.

Relative to the 2010 Census, total multiple-race AIAN responses in the 2020 Census rose 240.6%, while single-race AIAN responses (AIAN alone) increased 37.2%. According to the Census Bureau, the increase in multiple-race AIAN responses is largely due to redesigned questions for race and ethnicity, which included a write-in option with examples of corresponding national origins for each racial or ethnic category. The agency also made improvements in data processing and coding to provide a more thorough and accurate accounting of the nation’s racial diversity. However, since Census racial categories are self-reported, AIAN population counts differ from official tribal enrollment records.

In 2022, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) began publishing monthly labor force estimates for AIAN workers over age 16, shedding new light on a historically invisible segment of the U.S. labor force. Comparable data are available back to 2003, including monthly unemployment rates, labor force participation rates, and employment-to-population ratios. While these statistics are available from BLS’s website, they are not included in the monthly jobs report and are less publicized than labor market statistics for other demographic groups.

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The country’s largest and most important government anti-hunger program faces a renewed threat as Congress returns from recess next week: privatization.  

Congress needs to reauthorize the now-expired Farm Bill—the enormous legislative package that includes funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, also known as food stamps)—but a privatization scheme was attached to the bill.

Earlier this Congress, Rep. Don Bacon (R, NE-02) introduced the “SNAP Staffing Flexibility Act,” which was also included as a provision in the current version of the Farm Bill. The bill would allow state agencies to hire outside contractors to administer key requirements of the SNAP program under certain conditions, such as in the aftermath of natural disasters or during pandemics and public health emergencies. Rep. Bacon and supporters of this proposal now aim to tack this provision onto the emergency disaster relief package under consideration this year. Make no mistake: this is an attempt to use emergency disaster relief as cover to privatize the SNAP program and workforce, instead of giving the SNAP program enough money to operate effectively.

Privatization is often touted as a solution to bureaucratic red tape or cutting “wasteful” government spending, but in practice, it can mean cutting the experienced public workforce who administer complicated government programs. This can result in prolonged delays, more people wrongly denied benefits, and ultimately worse outcomes for people who need the benefits most.

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President-elect Donald Trump recently announced his nomination of Congresswoman Lori Chavez-DeRemer to serve as Secretary of Labor. She is one of only three House Republicans to co-sponsor the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act and one of only eight Republicans to co-sponsor the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act. Both bills would help reform our nation’s badly broken system of labor law. While Congresswoman Chavez-DeRemer’s support for these needed reforms is encouraging, if confirmed, she will be Secretary of Labor for a president who steadfastly pursued an ambitious anti-worker agenda during his first term in office.

Chavez-DeRemer has stated that “working-class Americans finally have a lifeline” with President-elect Trump in the White House. If workers truly have an ally in Chavez-DeRemer, she will advance policies that improve workers’ lives. Here are a few policies that will reveal whether the second Trump administration will actually aid working-class Americans or be a continuation of his first administration’s agenda attacking workers’ rights.

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Registered apprenticeship programs represent the lifeblood of the construction industry. These vital workforce development programs—which typically do not require a nickel of student debt or government tax dollars—build worker skills while offering career pathways to good-paying jobs for blue-collar Americans. These programs are also key to the long-run sustainability of the U.S. construction industry, making it critical that apprenticeship programs recruit and retain capable and dedicated apprentices.

In recent years, many industry stakeholders have increasingly focused on recruiting more women and workers of color to construction apprenticeship training. These efforts are designed not only to increase diversity and access to good jobs, but also to expand the pipeline of committed apprentices who will become the next generation of skilled trades workers in the United States.

Assessing diversity outcomes within these registered apprenticeship training programs, however, has long encountered a problem: Data collected by the U.S. Department of Labor from states and programs are often incomplete and notoriously riddled with inaccuracies. However, our new book—The State of Registered Apprenticeship Training in the Construction Trades—has resolved many of these data issues and offers a comprehensive, first-of-its-kind examination of the U.S. construction industry’s registered apprenticeship training programs.1 Our analysis reveals two broad trends in the area of diversity among construction apprentices:

• Women, Hispanic workers, and workers of color have higher participation and completion rates in union-based registered apprenticeship programs compared with nonunion programs.
• Across the entire industry, the share of women and Hispanic workers in registered apprenticeship programs grew from 2015 through 2021, though the share of apprentices of color declined during this period.

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U.S. employers have tremendous power over worker conduct. For decades, federal law has allowed employers to require workers to attend “captive audience” meetings—and force employees to listen to political, religious, or anti-union employer views—on work time. 

Last week, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled that anti-union captive audience meetings in particular are illegal because they interfere with workers’ right to freely choose whether to form or join a union.

The NLRB ruling is game changing because while workers’ right to organize without employer interference is spelled out clearly in federal labor law, employers have long used captive audience meetings and other tactics to violate these rights in practice. Analysis of NLRB elections documents shows that 89% of all employers conduct captive audience meetings in response to unionization efforts. Employers spend over $400 million per year on “union-avoidance” consultants, who specialize in using captive audience meetings to intimidate, threaten, and instill fear in workers for the purpose of coercing them to oppose unionization. The NLRB ruling makes these egregious, widespread abuses of employer power illegal in the context of worker organizing.

Meanwhile, a growing number of states have enacted legislation to protect workers broadly from the overarching threat of employer coercion, banning mandatory captive audience meetings on political or religious matters (including, but not limited to, employer opinions on unionization). Importantly, these state policies (like the NLRB ruling) do not limit employer rights to express opinions or even to invite employees to political or religious meetings during work time. Instead, this legislation is designed to prohibit employers from threatening, disciplining, firing, or retaliating against workers who choose to not attend mandatory workplace meetings focused on political or religious matters that are unrelated to an employee’s job duties.

Both because the NLRB has ability only to address captive audience meetings focused on anti-union speech, and because the new ruling will be at risk of reversal by a future labor board, it remains equally important for states to protect workers’ freedom of choice and conscience on a broad range of political and religious matters.

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As the school year got underway in August and September, school districts throughout the country once again faced a daunting challenge: severe bus driver shortages. For instance, the St. Louis Public School District had to cobble together a transportation plan that included Metro bus rides and private cab companies after the district’s primary bus driver vendor declined to renew its contract due to insufficient pay. Meanwhile, a city in Ohio responded to the shortages by eliminating bus routes for students living within a two-mile radius of its school, forcing many elementary and middle school students to walk to class.

We documented this problem last year, describing how excessively low pay and the particularly acute health risks facing this disproportionately older workforce during the pandemic have led to massive declines in bus driver employment. Unfortunately, since last fall, the situation has hardly improved. Some aspects of the problem, such as pay for drivers, have become even more dire.

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In this year’s election, voters given the opportunity to weigh in directly on questions of economic justice showed policy preferences far more progressive than those reflected in many national and state election outcomes. Across the country, voters seized opportunities to approve state or local ballot measures increasing the minimum wage, expanding paid leave, strengthening workers’ rights to unionize, preserving public education, and protecting access to abortion. These ballot measure outcomes reflect a clear ongoing trend of strong voter support for policies that prioritize worker, racial, and gender justice—and illustrate how state and local governments can continue to play important roles in enacting such policies. 

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Days before one of the most consequential elections in recent history, it’s a good time to consider what’s at stake when it comes to racial and gender economic equality and worker empowerment.

You’ve heard the political rhetoric, but here’s a reality check.

Here are five things to keep in mind before you enter the voting booth:

• Immigration bolsters our economic well-being. Immigrants are an integral part of the U.S. economy. Immigration has led to better wages and work opportunities for U.S.-born workers and increased economic growth and human capital contributions across occupations and industries.
• Unions lift up workers. Unions have been important for promoting economic equality, building worker power, and improving working conditions. Unions have been critical to narrowing the pay gap between critical public-sector jobs (like local government workers and school staff) and the private sector.
• Abortion restrictions undercut women’s economic freedoms. States with more abortion restrictions have lower wages, weaker labor standards, and higher levels of incarceration.
• The U.S. economy is doing well. The economy today is extraordinarily strong by nearly every historical benchmark, including relative to the years immediately preceding the pandemic. Inflation-adjusted wages have reached a record high and have grown more rapidly since 2022 than before the pandemic.
• Public education is the bedrock of our children’s success. Since the early 2000s, many states have introduced harmful voucher programs to provide public financing for private school education. These voucher programs are deeply damaging to efforts to offer an excellent public education for all U.S. children. Public education is one of the most important achievements in our country’s history and is crucial for the social and economic welfare of future generations.

The broader sweep of economic evidence—including yesterday’s extremely strong reading on gross domestic product (GDP) growth for the third quarter of 2024—tells a clear story: The U.S. economy and labor market is extraordinarily strong relative to any historical benchmark. For example, private-sector job growth and inflation-adjusted wages have grown noticeably faster since the end of 2022 than they had over the full pre-pandemic business cycle (2007–2019) and even since the peak of that expansion (2017–2019). The table at the end of this post highlights several other economic indicators that have performed extraordinarily well over the past two years.

This Friday will see the last significant piece of economic data released before the election—the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) will release the monthly report on how many jobs were created and what the unemployment rate was in October. The timing of the report will tempt some into exaggerating what it tells us about the U.S. labor market going into next week. We’d remind people of the following when they read through Friday’s data:

• Any monthly jobs report carries limited information about the underlying strength or weakness of the labor market—monthly data are volatile, and new trends should only be taken seriously when they recur for a number of months.
• This Friday’s report is going to be much more volatile and less informative than most because of the hurricanes (Milton and Helene) impacting the U.S. in October when the data were collected, as well as a large number of workers on strike during the October reference week. This will make it entirely unreliable as any signal of the underlying strength of the labor market.
  • The hurricanes will likely significantly depress job growth for the month (most estimates are that it will depress growth by roughly 50,000 jobs but leave open the possibility of a significantly larger effect).
  • These jobs will likely rebound quickly and add to job growth numbers in coming months.
  • The hurricanes will also likely change average weekly hours worked due to job losses being concentrated in particular sectors (construction, for example). The change in weekly hours will mechanically affect calculated hourly wages, which are just weekly wages divided by total hours worked.
  • The BLS reported that 44,000 workers were on strike as well during the October reference week, which will further depress job growth for the month. Again, these temporary payroll losses will be nearly guaranteed to rebound and add to growth in coming months.

In short, unlike the last election, whoever wins the presidency next week is highly likely to inherit an extremely strong economy.

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The strong labor market over the last two years has produced historic employment gains for Hispanic workers. In 2022, Hispanic workers achieved one of their lowest unemployment rates on record. Later in 2023, the share of the Hispanic population ages 25–54 with a job reached the highest point in recorded history.  

Behind these aggregate statistics, however, there is a more nuanced picture of one of the most diverse ethnic groups in the United States. This blog provides a brief description of how different groups of Hispanic workers have fared during the economic recovery from the pandemic recession.  

The unemployment rate of Hispanic workers from all backgrounds has declined, but notable differences remain  

In 2022, the Hispanic unemployment rate reached 4.3%, one of the lowest figures in recorded history. By 2023, the unemployment rate of both Latinos and Latinas had returned to pre-pandemic levels, below 5%. Though the economic recovery has been robust, noticeable differences in employment outcomes have remained depending on country of origin (see Figure A). 

Among Latina workers, those originating from Cuba had the lowest unemployment rate at 2.5% in 2023. However, unemployment rates were more than twice as high for Latinas of Dominican, Puerto Rican, and Central American (excluding Salvadoran) origin. While the unemployment rate for Latinas originating from Mexico, South America, and the Dominican Republic had fully recovered to pre-pandemic levels by 2023, the unemployment rate for Latinas of Salvadoran origin remained above the pre-pandemic rate.  

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Economic performance looms large in every presidential election year. In 2024, people’s perception of their own economic situation is high, yet their estimation of the economy’s performance more generally has been noticeably negative. It is often taken as given in economic commentary that the economy was stronger pre-pandemic. This impression is deeply mistaken.

The economy today is extraordinarily strong by nearly every historical benchmark, including relative to the years immediately preceding the pandemic. Unhappiness about the economy’s performance is mostly a hangover induced by the extreme shocks and aftereffects of the pandemic and the Russian invasion of the Ukraine. These shocks led to a pronounced “bullwhip effect”—the economy saw aggregate demand collapse which led to unemployment spiking (during the late Trump administration) and then demand snapped back as supply chains broke down which caused inflation to spike (during the early Biden administration).

By the end of 2022, the shocks had largely subsided and their economic effects were being quickly dampened. A serious assessment of how the economy is doing today should look past these short-term bullwhip effects and focus on comparisons of the pre- and post-shock “normal.”

The table at the bottom of this post compares economic performance along a range of measures across three time periods: since the end of 2022, the last full business cycle before the pandemic (2007–2019), and between 2017–2019—the tail end of that business cycle’s expansion that coincided with the Trump administration before the damaging pandemic effects were felt.

Compared with the other two periods, the second half of the Biden administration has seen pronounced economic strength. Each indicator is summarized below:

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December 31 is the deadline for states, cities, and municipalities to obligate their State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF). The $350 billion program—part of the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA)—has played an important role in rebuilding and sustaining public services over the last 3.5 years. However, the latest data show many recipient governments still have substantial sums left to obligate and, just as worryingly, some may mistakenly believe they have satisfied the obligation requirements even though they have not. Advocates, and all those interested in successful public services, should make sure their state and local government have plans to meet the obligation deadline.

As EPI has recently reiterated, the post-pandemic economic recovery is very much a success story, and that is in part due to SLFRF. It took a full decade for public-sector employment numbers to recover from the Great Recession, but SLFRF ensured that it happened in less than half that time following the COVID-19 recession.

SLFRF can be used in many ways—from recruiting and retaining workers to enhancing public health measures, building housing, installing broadband, and so much more. This flexibility has been key to SLFRF’s success, but also has created some challenges. In conversations with state and local advocates, policymakers, and researchers at EPI’s network of state and local think thanks, we have heard that policymakers in many governments have experienced a sort of “paralysis of choice,” unable to choose between the myriad good options available.

The time to choose is now. Any dollars not obligated by the December 31 deadline need to be returned to the U.S. Treasury (the funds don’t have to be spent until the end of 2026). Worryingly, the latest public data on SLFRF obligation and spending through March 31 suggest many state and local governments may not be on track.

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In a previous post, we highlighted the data indicating a shortage in teacher labor markets and offered solutions to address it. But closing the current labor shortage would not necessarily imply that we have invested enough of society’s resources in public schools.

A teacher shortage means that demand for teachers (proxied by vacant positions) is greater than the current supply of willing teachers (proxied by new hires). But the demand side of the teacher labor market is not set through any market mechanism. In this country, we rightly think that education is a public good everyone deserves and, as a result, rely on policymakers to decide how much society should invest in public education. If policymakers set the demand for inputs into public education (like teachers) to be low relative to the socially optimal level of investment in public education (by not allocating enough funding for public schools), shortages are easy to avoid. Yet the absence of a shortage would not mean we got the level of education investment right.

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The new school year has begun with some confusion over the state of teacher labor markets. News outlets have reported conflicting stories on the teacher shortage, with some saying it is over or improved, and others reporting still not having enough teachers to meet classroom needs. This two-part series looks at labor market conditions of educational professionals and teachers over time to make sense of these conflicting claims and dig deeper into how to diagnose and solve the teacher shortage.

There are two key problems in the teacher labor market. Since at least 2018, and especially since the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, labor market data has clearly signaled a textbook labor shortage for public school teachers. Closing this shortage and attracting—and retaining—enough teachers to fill currently vacant positions should be a high priority for policymakers at all levels of government. To accomplish this, the obvious strategy is to increase the attractiveness of teaching jobs—both through higher compensation for teachers, but also via investments that make teaching easier and more rewarding.

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Last week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 254,000 jobs were created in September and that job growth in both July and August was stronger than initially reported. This report was just the latest confirmation of the extraordinary strength of the U.S. labor market in recent years. This strength is what led to real (inflation-adjusted) incomes recovering far faster after the COVID-19 recession than they have following previous recessions. Even better, real wage growth has been by far the fastest at the low end of the wage scale, which has reduced inequality.

This labor market strength was also 100% a policy choice. Unlike previous business cycles, policymakers passed fiscal relief and recovery measures at the scale of the shock, and it proved that low unemployment could be restored very quickly after recessions so long as this policy lever was pulled with enough force.

Public appreciation of this accomplishment has been blunted by the outbreak of inflation in 2021 and 2022. While inflation has been steadily reined in since early 2023, the public’s perception of the economy remains soured by it. In a strict economic sense, the public mood seems odd: If real wages are higher and more equal now than at equivalent points in previous recoveries, why isn’t the public mood much better?

One reason put forward as to why the public dislikes inflation even if real wages and incomes are rising is pretty persuasive: workers see wage growth as something they individually achieved while inflation was a policy mistake inflicted on them. This outlook is understandable, but it’s totally wrong.

Policy choices influence wage growth every bit as much as inflation—and sometimes more. When wage growth is slow, policymakers deserve blame—not workers. When wage growth is strong, however, it is because policy has done something right, not because workers spontaneously decided to become more productive or harder-working.

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Below, EPI economists offer their insights on the jobs report released this morning, which showed 254,000 jobs added in September.

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Political debates about the impact of immigration on the economy have often been at odds with the facts. But the consensus is surprisingly uncontroversial among economists: Immigration expands and strengthens the economy.

The Economic Policy Institute and the Immigration Research Initiative have come together to synthesize some of the most essential facts on immigration, immigrant workers, and the economy in a one-page fact sheet. We will co-release additional fact sheets summarizing state-by-state economic impacts in the coming days.

The fact sheets highlight the reality of how immigration benefits the economy and all workers. For example:

• Immigrant workers are a major and vital component of the U.S. workforce across occupations and industries, many of which would struggle without their contributions.
• Immigration expands U.S. Gross Domestic Product and is good for growth.
• Immigration overall has led to better—not worse—wages and work opportunities for U.S.-born workers.
• Immigration is enabling the United States to see continued economic growth despite an aging U.S.-born population and shrinking number of prime-age working adults.
• Immigrants play a key role in health care and home care jobs that help ensure retirement with dignity for seniors and independent living for people with disabilities.
• People who immigrate to the United States increase the economy’s stock of human capital and ideas, two crucial ingredients for long-run economic growth.

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It is indisputable that the U.S. labor market is strong. The share of the population ages 25–54 with a job is at a 23-year high, median household incomes rose 4.0% last year, and real wage growth over the last four years has been broad-based and strong. The economy has not only regained the nearly 22 million jobs lost in the pandemic recession, but also added another 6.5 million.

Are some folks still having a hard time? Absolutely. Even when the unemployment rate is low, there are still sidelined workers, and it remains difficult for many families to make ends meet on wages that are still too low. Unfortunately, that’s a long-term phenomenon stemming from a too-stingy U.S. welfare state, rising inequality, and the legacy of anemic wage growth during past economic recoveries. But when comparing the labor market with four years ago (during the pandemic recession) or even before the pandemic began, the answer is clear: More workers have jobs and wages are beating inflation by solid margins.

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The Federal Reserve belatedly began cutting interest rates two weeks ago, putting a quasi-official stamp on the “soft landing” with inflation nearly being brought down to the Fed’s long-run 2% target without any substantial weakening of the labor market. This milestone seems like a natural time to assess how well macroeconomic managers handled the past four years.

The answer—underappreciated by far too many—is very well!

In a nutshell, the Biden-Harris administration pushed a frontloaded and significant fiscal stimulus as the first major priority of their administration. The Federal Reserve accommodated this stimulus early on, and then began raising interest rates (more sharply than I would have) to try to rein in inflation. But they wisely never followed the advice of many to “keep raising rates until something breaks.”

In short, a return to full employment was prioritized in the Biden-Harris fiscal approach, and the value of low unemployment was clearly appreciated by the Fed. The results of this approach have been a clear success. There is no other plausible set of decisions about fiscal policy and interest rates over the past four years that would have led to lower inflation yet still would have seen real (inflation-adjusted) wages as high as today or as many people employed. That means there is no real argument against the assessment that macroeconomic policy has been a success.

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Absent federal action, states and localities have expanded workers’ ability to earn paid sick leave to care for themselves and their families. The results of these efforts over the past dozen years are clear: there have been significant gains in access to paid sick time among private-sector workers. The latest data released this morning from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that these trends continued into 2024: 79% of private-sector workers have the ability to earn paid sick leave, an increase from 63% in 2012.

While these gains are welcome news for millions of working families, access to paid sick leave remains vastly unequal. As shown in Figure A, higher-wage workers have greater access to paid sick days than lower-wage workers. Among the 25% of private-sector workers with the highest wages, 94% have access to paid sick days. By contrast, among the 25% of workers with the lowest wages, only 58% have access to paid sick days. Prior releases have shown that the bottom 10% fare even worse, with only 39% having access to paid sick days in 2023 (though their access has improved, likely from state action).

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Better late than never, the Federal Reserve will almost surely cut interest rates at the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting later this week. This cut is too long in coming—disinflationary pressures have been apparent in the economy for almost two years by now. In essence, the Fed decided to discount these disinflationary pressures and to only cut rates when inflation was not just falling rapidly, but was also low and extremely close to their 2% target. This approach took on far too much risk of throwing the economy into a totally unnecessary recession by keeping interest rates too high for too long. So far, a recession or damaging slowdown has thankfully been avoided, but there has been some notable labor market softening in recent months. Given all of this, the Fed should see its job now as quickly getting much closer to neutral on interest rates. This means cutting by at least 2 percentage points over the next year—so a cut of 50 basis points this week would be a better start than 25.

Background on interest rates compared with 2019

The effective federal funds rate today sits between 5.25-5.5%. In 2019, right before the pandemic hit, it sat between 1.5-1.75% (after a recent cut). Estimates of the “neutral” federal funds rate—the rate that is neither providing stimulus and inflationary pressure to the economy nor is it providing contraction and deflationary pressure—is roughly 2.5-3.5%. The neutral rate is often presented in real (inflation-adjusted) terms, with the inflation assumption being that the Fed is hitting its 2% target. That means a 1% real neutral rate should be read generally as a 3% nominal effective federal funds rate.

Figure A below shows one estimate of the neutral federal funds rate as well as the actual rate in recent years. By all estimates, today’s effective federal funds rate is far from neutral—it is clearly in contractionary territory. And by almost all estimates, the 2019 effective federal funds rate was far from neutral—clearly in stimulative territory.

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