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Speaker 1: Meanwhile, of course, we know that the macro has been

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Speaker 1: driving things, and we did get a big job support

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Speaker 1: today that June job support showed US employers added fewer

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Speaker 1: jobs and projective. Remember every month we've been getting these

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Speaker 1: upside surprises, not anymore. It does illustrate a labor market

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Speaker 1: that is gradually cooling, but a labor market that, at

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Speaker 1: least by some measures, is still resilient.

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Speaker 2: Jared Bernstein joining us right now.

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Speaker 1: He is the chair of the US Council of Economic

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Speaker 1: Advisors out there on the lawn of the White House.

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Speaker 2: And Jared, let's start off here.

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Speaker 1: Two hundred and nine thousand jobs created in the month

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Speaker 1: of June. Let's just be clear, I mean pre pandemic.

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Speaker 1: I think most of us would have taken two hundred

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Speaker 1: and nine thousand jobs. But given the high base of

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Speaker 1: what we're coming off from, there is some concern here

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Speaker 1: about whether we're cooling a little bit too much.

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Speaker 3: Well, I think some cooling is important and expected, and

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Speaker 3: you're absolutely right, two hundred and nine thousand jobs is

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Speaker 3: a solid number at this point in the expansion. One

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Speaker 3: of the things we did today on our CEA blog

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Speaker 3: is to look at precisely that you expect at this

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Speaker 3: point in an economic expansion, about thirty eight months in,

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Speaker 3: and we compared it to prior expansions. We looked at

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Speaker 3: where unemployment is and job gains have been traditionally with

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Speaker 3: that relationship, and we come up with numbers in the

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Speaker 3: set of one hundred and sixty hundred and seventy thousand range.

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Speaker 3: So we are continuing to outperform as the economy as

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Speaker 3: the labor market necessarily cools to better align labor supply

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Speaker 3: and demand.

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Speaker 1: I am curious as to whether there is concern here

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Speaker 1: from an economist perspective, and whatever discussions you have to

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Speaker 1: have with the President and the rest of his team here,

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Speaker 1: that what the Fed has done so far and what

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Speaker 1: it may continue doing could provide material additional weakness I

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Speaker 1: should say, to certain areas of the economy. That could

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Speaker 1: maybe mean that we're not talking about two hundred and

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Speaker 1: nine thousand jobs in the next support of the report

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Speaker 1: after that, we could be talking about something a lot smaller.

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Speaker 3: Well, let me tell you that, as you well know,

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Speaker 3: and I think your intro suggested this, for something like

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Speaker 3: fourteen or fifteen months in a row, the jobs report

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Speaker 3: beat expectation. So the fact that this is one month

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Speaker 3: where it underperformed expectations via a little bit shouldn't lead

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Speaker 3: us to completely rewrite recent history. Look, as you well know,

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Speaker 3: we don't get into the Fed's knitting. And one of

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Speaker 3: the most important things we can do to help ease

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Speaker 3: inflationary pressures, I should say, to help continue to ease

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Speaker 3: inflationary pressures, because inflation is down by more than half

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Speaker 3: since its peak, is to let the Fed do its thing. Now,

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Speaker 3: when I listen to Chair Powell talk about the macroeconomy,

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Speaker 3: and certainly from our perspective, when we talk about transitioning

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Speaker 3: to steady, stable growth, the kind of things we're looking

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Speaker 3: for is a deceleration from the breakneck pace of job gains,

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Speaker 3: but still significant additions. And that's exactly what we saw

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Speaker 3: in June. You know, we have an unemployment rate that's

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Speaker 3: been below four percent for seventeen months. That's a fifty

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Speaker 3: year record. So we still have a strong job market,

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Speaker 3: but we're making important progress on easing inflationary pressures.

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Speaker 1: There are a lot of people that are looking at

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Speaker 1: this report to Jared, and they're looking at other measures

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Speaker 1: like payroll diffusion indexes and saying that maybe the job

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Speaker 1: growth that we have is a little bit more concentrated

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Speaker 1: in certain sectors.

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Speaker 2: So yes, we're creating those jobs.

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Speaker 1: Those jobs are at a level and aggregate that are healthy,

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Speaker 1: but this is not necessarily a broad based expansion of

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Speaker 1: the labor market right now.

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Speaker 3: Well, we really like to get under the hood. And

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Speaker 3: in fact, I'm glad you brought up the diffusion index

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Speaker 3: because I think that's an important in there there that's

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Speaker 3: a bit under loves. But of course that's been you know,

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Speaker 3: north of fifty percent for a while now, and one

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Speaker 3: reason for that is that, at least over the course

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Speaker 3: of the expansion, the manufacturing sector has been pretty strong,

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Speaker 3: up just under eight hundred thousand jobs. That's still a

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Speaker 3: very strong expansion. Now in recent months that's settled down

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Speaker 3: some and we'll continue to watch that. You know, Autos

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Speaker 3: has started to perk up a bit. We've seen some

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Speaker 3: good results on auto sales, on auto production. So we're

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Speaker 3: actually seeing good construction results, by the way, including today.

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Speaker 3: So I think if we look sector by sector, we

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Speaker 3: still see a thoroughly robust job market.

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Speaker 1: Well, what about some of the demographics. Our international economics

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Speaker 1: correspondent Michael McKee wanted this out to me that when

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Speaker 1: you look at the unemployment rates in terms of demographics,

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Speaker 1: year went down for white men, went down for white women,

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Speaker 1: but it went up for blacks, it went up for Hispanics,

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Speaker 1: and it went up for those who only have a

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Speaker 1: high school education or less.

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Speaker 3: Well, if you look at some of those demographic categories,

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Speaker 3: as you should, and I applaud Michael for doing that,

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Speaker 3: you really do have to take account of the fact

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Speaker 3: that these are some very noisy indicators. They jump around

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Speaker 3: a lot from month to month, and in fact, the

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Speaker 3: increase in black unemployment BLS will tell you that was

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Speaker 3: statistically insignificant in June, but that wasn't the case in May,

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Speaker 3: where it did grow. But that's off a four point

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Speaker 3: seven percent trough, I think, among the lowest black unemployment

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Speaker 3: rate on records. So the smart thing there to do

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Speaker 3: is to take the average for the quarter. The black

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Speaker 3: unemployment rate for Q two is five point four percent

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Speaker 3: we got June this morning. That's tied for the lowest

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Speaker 3: quarterly rate on record.

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Speaker 1: Okay, but it's still almost double what you find for whites,

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Speaker 1: and there.

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Speaker 3: Are so that is a very long term structural problem

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Speaker 3: and something that we care a lot about, and in

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Speaker 3: fact one of the pillars of Bidenomics is trying to

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Speaker 3: make sure that our public investments and our empowering of

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Speaker 3: the workforce reaches folks from all communities, not just those

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Speaker 3: on the coasts, not just those in rural areas, but

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Speaker 3: communities of color. That's a very important value of our.

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Speaker 2: How are you doing that right now?

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Speaker 1: More importantly, Jared, how do you communicate that to folks

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Speaker 1: who aren't economists, who don't understand all the sort of

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Speaker 1: machinations that go into these reports.

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Speaker 3: Great question. So one of the best ways I think

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Speaker 3: we're doing that is if you look at the scope

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Speaker 3: and space of the investments associated with Bidenomics, and of

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Speaker 3: course I'm talking about the Inflation Reduction Act, the Chips

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Speaker 3: and Science Act, and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Go to

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Speaker 3: invest dot gov. So this is not just handwaving. This

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Speaker 3: is data that you can click to in one click.

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Speaker 3: And I know you at Bloomberg are very good at

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Speaker 3: these graphics. So I suggest you go there and show

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Speaker 3: your viewers this and you will see these little bubbles

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Speaker 3: of investment all across the country. And your question about

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Speaker 3: how do we get the message out, well, invest dot

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Speaker 3: gov is one way to do it. But another very

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Speaker 3: powerful way to do that is to have our team,

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Speaker 3: from the President down to the Cabinet, getting out there

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Speaker 3: flooding the nation explaining to them what we do. And

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Speaker 3: then President was in South Carolina just the other day

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Speaker 3: talking precisely about these investments, and I think that's a

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Speaker 3: good way to break through on that important geographical dispersion

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Speaker 3: of these investments.

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Speaker 1: All right, Jared, we're going to have to leave it there.

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Speaker 1: Appreciate you rushing over and taking time for us. Jared

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Speaker 1: Bernstein there the chair of the White House Council of

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Speaker 1: Economic Advisors,