Indicator exploder: jobs and inflation

Planet Money

NPR

Business, News

4.6 • 29.8K Ratings

🗓️ 18 October 2023

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When someone says "the economy is doing well"—what does that even mean? Like, for workers, for employers, for the country as a whole? According to what calculation? How do you put a number on it?

The world of economics is filled with all sorts of "measuring sticks." GDP. Inflation. Unemployment. Consumer sentiment. Over time, all kinds of government agencies, universities and private companies have come up with different ways to measure facets of the economy. These measures factor into all kinds of huge decisions—things like government policy, business strategies, maybe even your personal career choices or investments.

On today's show, we're going to lift the curtain on two of these yardsticks. We are going to meet the people tasked with sticking a number on two huge measures of our economic well being: the official U.S. government inflation report and the monthly unemployment and jobs numbers. Come along and see how the measures get made.

This episode was hosted by Darian Woods, Stacey Vanek Smith, and Wailin Wong. It was produced by Julia Ritchey and Jess Kung with help from James Sneed. Engineering by Gilly Moon and James Willetts. It was fact-checked by Michael He and Corey Bridges, and edited by Kate Concannon and Viet Le. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This message comes from an PR sponsor, ServiceNow.
0:03.2	Everyone's talking about AI, but how can it actually help your business?
0:07.6	The ServiceNow platform brings intelligence into every corner of your company.
0:12.6	Put AI to work.
0:14.2	See how at ServiceNow.com slash Gen AI.
0:20.1	This is Planet Money from NPR.
0:25.7	When someone says the economy is doing well,
0:29.4	what does that even mean? Like for workers or for employers or an average of the country as a whole?
0:37.1	Is the objective here to tame inflation or is it to lower unemployment or to have less inequality?
0:43.9	Is it some of these things? Is it none of these things or a mix of all of the above?
0:50.7	Hello and welcome to Planet Money, I'm Darian Woods. The world of economics is filled with all
0:56.3	sorts of measuring sticks. And over time, all kinds of government agencies and universities and
1:02.4	even private companies have come up with different ways to measure slices of the economy.
1:07.8	And we pay attention to these measurements because they go into all kinds of huge decisions,
1:13.6	things like government policies, but also personal investments.
1:17.8	So today on the show, we're going to lift the curtain on two of these yardsticks.
1:22.4	We're going to meet the people behind the inflation and jobs numbers and see how the ruler gets made.
1:32.8	This message comes from NPR sponsor Raymond James. What do you want for the future of your wealth?
1:38.4	Napping out your vision is the first step in building the momentum that can carry your financial
1:43.1	success forward to the people and causes that matter to you most. Explore how you and the
1:48.0	Raymond James financial advisor can build a strategy to keep your wealth going from one generation
1:53.2	to the next at RaymondJames.com slash momentum Raymond James and Associates Inc. Member New York
	...

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