Aaron Sojourner
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Aaron Sojourner
@aaronsojourner.org

Labor econ @upjohninstitute.bsky.social & @IZA.org. Formerly senior economist for labor at White House CEA, UMinn prof, union organizer, bike courier, house painter, dishwasher... Minneapolis. Views mine.

aaronsojourner.org

Be kind • Work hard • Have fun .. more

Aaron Sojourner is an American economist and senior researcher at the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. He was formerly an associate professor of economics at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management and senior economist for the Council of Economic Advisers. His work has been widely covered by the media, particularly on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the labor market in the United States. .. more

Economics 31%
Education 27%
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For Bluesky-Curious Econ Lovers, a Quick Start guide to plugging into the economics community here.

It aims to lower the costs & boost the benefits for folks to engage here.

If it seems useful, please share it here & especially on X.
📉📈 #️⃣#️⃣
aaronsojourner.org/for-bluesky-...
For Bluesky-Curious Econ Lovers - Aaron Sojourner
This Quick Start guide aims to help econ lovers easily join Bluesky’s growing economics community. The Bluesky User FAQ covers generic basics, like how to start an account. This guide orients you to e...
aaronsojourner.org

Terrific Cuban place in Minneapolis asking for support.
squareup.com/gift/GN84FEJ...

The estimates produced by the federal economic statistical system remain independent, world-class information.

The people doing the work are devoted public servants and deserve our support, not to have their work impugned.
bsky.app/profile/aaro...
🔥BLS Staff: "We will publish reliable data, no matter how inconvenient the results... Acting Commissioner is a respected career professional. There are no other political appointees at BLS... will remain accurate & nonpartisan... if that ever changes, the professionals will tell you." #StandWithBLS

Absolutely. The U.S. Confidentiality Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency (CIPSEA) Law, Section 3572.f for starters.
www.bls.gov/bls/cipsea.pdf

RIP staffer who:

- left top-secret documents in a public bathroom

- shared top-secret military attack plans publicly as they start to go into motion

I disagree
Any staffer who did this would face up to 5 years in prison.
Last night, Donald Trump appeared to release confidential details of the BLS's upcoming December 2025 jobs report on social media. These are inputs that absolutely could have affect markets and impacted trading behavior... which is precisely why they're so closely guarded and NEVER leaked.

Reposted by Aaron Sojourner

Last night, Donald Trump appeared to release confidential details of the BLS's upcoming December 2025 jobs report on social media. These are inputs that absolutely could have affect markets and impacted trading behavior... which is precisely why they're so closely guarded and NEVER leaked.

Yeah, the same people using the same processes are producing the estimates now as before.

These public servants deserve our support, not to have their work impugned.

We will know if there are attempts at political interference bcz they would tell us.
bsky.app/profile/aaro...
🔥BLS Staff: "We will publish reliable data, no matter how inconvenient the results... Acting Commissioner is a respected career professional. There are no other political appointees at BLS... will remain accurate & nonpartisan... if that ever changes, the professionals will tell you." #StandWithBLS

We would see BLS staff blowing whistles to call attention to attempted interference. They haven't.
bsky.app/profile/aaro...
🔥BLS Staff: "We will publish reliable data, no matter how inconvenient the results... Acting Commissioner is a respected career professional. There are no other political appointees at BLS... will remain accurate & nonpartisan... if that ever changes, the professionals will tell you." #StandWithBLS

Reposted by Aaron Sojourner

TLDR: In November, the Black unemployment rate jumped to 8.2%. In December, it dropped to 7.5%.

In one year, Black unemployment has increased by MORE THAN A FULL percentage point. 🚩🚩🚩

#blackjobsday #jobsday #blacksky

Last thing. @usbls.bsky.social does amazing work to create timely, accurate info about America's working families, a huge public good.

They're there for us & we need to show up for them.

If you care about workers & employment, follow & join Friends of BLS.
www.friendsofbls.org/join

BLS will soon do a handful of standard annual revisions to incorporate slower-to-arrive but more-accurate info into estimates.

These are discussed at the bottom of the report & linked resources.

Expect propagandists will try to spin this into disinformation.
www.bls.gov/news.release...
Employment Situation Summary - 2025 M13 Results
www.bls.gov

In sum,

1. Labor market looks strong & stable to now. Signs of weakening but some new signs of strengthening today, net to stablish

2. Job growth has basically stopped & it's very hard to get a job if you don't have one. But, if you have one, this report should make it feel slightly more secure.

Wage growth by sector
Economists are facing a recession

(My column this week)

1st 300 clicks free to read...
as.ft.com/r/6d67877e-4...
Economists are facing a recession
[FREE TO READ] Demand for their work is down as a hiring crunch hits
as.ft.com

Looking at change rates in wages versus consumer prices 3-month annualized, in the most recent data...

Wages (red) up at a 4.1% rate to Dec and prices up at only a 2.1% rate to Nov (blue) seems great, but price data messy w/govt shutdown.

Wait a bit longer before reading much into this one.

If employer demand for labor rises or fewer workers enter to supply, price (wage) rise.

Private-sector wage growth steady, deceleration stopped?

Annualized rates:
over-the-month 4.0% (red)
over-3-months 4.1% (blue)
over-year 3.8% (grey).

Bizs & retirees want to push 🔽. Working families, 🔼.

That’s the extensive quantity (Q) margin.

Intensive Q margin = average hours.

Average workweek hours for private-sector ticks down to 34.2 hrs. Been bouncing around this low level.

EPOP for 25-54 years olds measures core labor market strength, omits people on fringes of work, at 80.7%.

Strong, just 0.2 pp off July-Sept 2024 recent-record high

Was lower than now thru 2002-2022 (80.6% high)

Constrains ability to add jobs without immigration = working age folks mostly working

Both the labor force participation rate (LFPR) at 62.4% and the employment-population ratio (EPOP, figure) at 59.7% changed little in Dec and little over the year.

The Baby Boomer bulge moving into retirement ages puts some downward demographic pressure on these.

yes

The number of Americans stuck in unemployment searching unsuccessfully for a job for over 6 months is rising.

While the unemployment rate remains moderate, it's a tough time to need to find a job cuz hiring rates are "jobless recovery" low

Long term unemployment means repeated failure & loss of UI

On the other hand, last month's rise in the share of job holders working multiple jobs largely reverted.

That provides some comfort and contradiction.

The number of Americans stuck working part time who'd prefer to work full time spiked up last month.

This month, it reverted down only a small amount, adding credibility that the apparent rise wasn't just noise.

Elevation is a 🚩 for weakening labor demand.

Unemployment can ⬇️ for:

- good reasons: e.g. share of unemployed people finding jobs ⬆️, or

- bad reasons: share of unemployed people giving up searching after lack of success finding job ⬆️

I went to check labor flows table to see which but govt shutdown messed up our ability to understand this!

The unemployment rate fell edged down to 4.4%. It's up 0.3 percentage points (pp) over the year but down 0.1 pp over the month.

I don't usually show the monthly numbers because they can be noisy but here's the month-by-month trend recently.

Decelerated hard after tariffs introduced & down since.

Job growth has been weak all year:

+48K/mo over most-recent 12 months
+14K/mo over most-recent 6 months
-22K/mo over most-recent 3 months
+50K this past month

Reposted by Michael A. Clemens

How does recent growth compare to recent years?

The U.S. economy added just 0.58 million jobs over 12 months to Dec 2025, the fewest jobs added outside of the recession in years.