Senior Advisor on Labor Markets at Access/Macro; Workforce Economist in Residence at Guild; Senior Fellow at the Burning Glass Institute. I tweet a lot about labor markets, macro, and (sorry) music! Tweets represent my own views.
Guy Berger
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I think there are plenty of options between "we don't need economic growth to 'lift all boats' " and "economic growth is all we need to 'lift all boats' "
In another sign of slow but real labor market improvement, unemployment insurance exhaustion rates have peaked and are falling (extremely slowly).
3/ The relevant BLS series has not fallen like its claims counterpart, but its increase has ground to a halt.
Claims:
1/ Initial claims continue to climb but it looks like residual seasonality to me - happened in each of the prior 3 years, and 2026 remains below each of them.
Re the Guardian op-ed, I think fully-automated luxurious living for every human on the planet is a worthy goal and economic growth is a precondition for that
I don’t think this is a left wing or right wing view
2/ Continuing claims also climbing a little for the same reason, but remain well below 2025 levels and a little below 2024 levels.
The increase should stop in a few weeks (and will remain small).
"Oh, who would think a boy and bear
Could be well accepted everywhere
It's just amazing how fair people can be"
youtu.be/hIFXEnkDxak?...
Periods of negative wage *growth* caused by commodity price spikes tend to be brief
(Level effects can be more persistent)
