Hey, Federal Reserve! What about the real world like, oh, wages?

Hey, Federal Reserve! What about the real world like, oh, wages?

You know the saying, When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail? How about this data world version, When you don’t track the data, you can’t see the problem? I was drawn to paraphrase the classic hammer/nail adage by the release of the Federal Reserve’s most recent economic projections, the Dot Plot, on Wednesday, March 20 when I thought about the economic data the Fed didn’t include in its projections.

Economy adds a middling 164,000 jobs in April

Economy adds a middling 164,000 jobs in April

There was good news in today’s jobs report for April since the economy added 164,000 jobs, up from a revised 135,000 jobs in March. So yay! The jobs market rebounded from March weakness. And there was bad news in the report since economists had been projecting that the economy would add 193,000 jobs.