Economics
Full Employment May Be Redefined as Trump Attacks Benchmark
- Treasury nominee says unemployment rate has too much clout
- Main rate is still best indicator, former stats chief says
Hooper: U.S. Labor Gap to Be Persistent for a While
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Just as the U.S. nears full employment based on the principal measure used for almost eight decades, President Donald Trump and his team are looking at new yardsticks.
The jobless rate probably held in January at 4.7 percent, according to the median estimate from economists ahead of Friday’s Labor Department report. Federal Reserve policy makers see such a level -- which is down from a post-recession high of 10 percent in 2009 -- as being at or near full employment, meaning anything lower would push inflation higher.