In his Jackson Hole speech Chair Powell presented his views on the outlook for tariff inflation, the labor market, and the conflicting signals coming from the data. “The labor market is a case in point. The July employment report released earlier this month showed that payroll job growth slowed to an average pace of only 35,000 per month over the past three months, down from 168,000 per month during 2024. This slowdown is much larger than assessed just a month ago, as the earlier figures for May and June were revised down substantially. But it does not appear that the slowdown in job...
