Why is employment & inflation after the shutdown more worthy of careful examination?
Employment and inflation after the shutdown have long transcended the traditional logic of 'one rises, the other falls,' hiding the core code of economic recovery. After a record 43-day shutdown in the United States, the contradictions under the fog of data are particularly glaring: the unemployment rate has risen to 4.4%, a nearly four-year high, non-farm employment has been revised down multiple times, even showing negative growth, and there are clear signals of a cooling labor market. But on the other hand, inflation remains sticky around 3%, far exceeding the 2% target, and the growth rate of real wages is lagging behind prices, forcing ordinary families to work multiple jobs to make ends meet.
More critically, there is a structural distortion: new jobs are concentrated in low-wage part-time fields, companies' willingness to hire is declining but they face cost pressures, and the Federal Reserve is caught in a dilemma between 'cutting interest rates to save jobs' and 'controlling inflation,' with internal decision-making differences reaching a recent high. This is not a simple cyclical fluctuation, but a concentrated manifestation of damaged data credibility, ineffective policy transmission, and the disconnection between people's livelihoods and macro data.
Understanding this set of divergences between 'cold employment + hot inflation' is key to seeing the true quality of economic recovery—it concerns everyone's income strength and will determine the next step in global policy direction. $BTC
