July Jobs Report

**SPEAKER_1** (0:02)
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**Tom Keene** (0:27)
People are like, who's Claudia Sahm?
Who is she? Who is that woman? Denison University was in time in Dresden and then the clouds parted. What was it like Claudia Sahm in 2001 to walk into the inflation analysis combine at Michigan of Shapiro and Kimball? They were at the top of their game at that time, weren't they?

**Claudia Sahm** (0:53)
It was really great to be a student at Michigan. It was great to have Matthew as my advisor. Miles was on my committee. That really was a great education in macro. For academics, they're really interested in the real world.

**Paul Sweeney** (1:05)
Exactly.

**Tom Keene** (1:07)
Exactly. You knew right where I wanted to go. These were real world academics trying to study real world people. Off this jobs report, you say the newly minted chairman, way different than Claudia Sahm, needs to listen to normal people, discuss.

**Claudia Sahm** (1:25)
Right. Well, also part of my education at Michigan, even doing macro was if the data aren't there, you need go collect some data, run surveys, design survey. I mean, that's a big part of my education and my research. I think that one thing that the Fed has is just a wealth of qualitative data, talking to business leaders, talking to people, workers, and putting together in terms of analysis. We spend a lot of times on the aggregate numbers. We're going to do that here in just a few minutes, and it is super important. But those kind of more qualitative, the structured interviews, it can help you get a sense of the mechanisms, a sense of what's happening beneath the numbers.
Those voices are missing on the task forces. There's no Fed listens like the last framework reviews. But the information is there. My Bloomberg opinion piece this week showcased a lot of that data the Fed does collect and also showed how it can really help inform, what are we thinking about the economy?

**Damien Sassauer** (2:20)
Claudia, we have payrolls in three minutes from now, but I just have to bring this up. You highlighted the Fed's worker perspective report as workers describing their work lives as survival rather than stable.
So does that mean that today's report is a nothing burger and we should be looking through the next week's inflation plan? Is that what matters most here?

**Claudia Sahm** (2:39)
The data we get today are important.
Whatever they tell us, there's going to be some lessons for us. The thing that I was really trying to draw out with the worker perspective is we're going to talk a lot about the labor market looks pretty stable or it's balanced. And I think with the aggregate data, we might get some surprises. But in general, that's been a good description of it. But stable doesn't always feel good in a lived experience because stable can mean, yeah, you got a job. You're thankful for that, but you need a better job.

**Tom Keene** (3:04)
So what Damien brought up and what you're mentioning right now, I can't emphasize enough folks. That's what my touch with people is. Emails, anecdotes, people in restaurants. There's a whole part of America out there struggling Claudia, paycheck to paycheck. Does the Fed know that?

**Claudia Sahm** (3:25)
I think the Reserve Bank Presidents are a lot more in touch with this, right? Very much a part of their day job is out in their districts, and the community development function out in the Reserve Banks is really strong. They're the ones that collect the beige book. They do a lot. That work is being done at the board, too, and I don't want to discount what they're doing, but it's so in the fiber of what the Reserve Banks are doing. And so then I think it makes a lot of sense.
with the pandemic, but it's not surprising that we're hearing some of the dissent, some of the distinctive voices coming out of the Reserve Banks because they really are at the pulse of what's going on.

**Tom Keene** (3:58)
We're going to pick up this theme here with Claudia Sahm. We are just so honored that she attends to us at 8.3 each and every jobs day. Dr. Sahm with us and then Constance Hunter will join us and Kristina Campmany as well will be with us here. We're commercial free across America for this next half hour. On the data front, it is a continued lift to the equity markets and the VIX, as I said, finally broke down yesterday, 16-17 for days, closing up to 15 level. We may get to a 14 year with any kind of green on the screen. That's a bull market 15.13 right now on the VIX. I really need to mention Brent, 8229, full circle in the quiet of the Eastern Mediterranean. Don't forget gold. For America, it is jobs day.