CES based employment indicators (NFP, private NFP, hourly wages, hours) essentially at consensus. Here’s the roundup of key NBER indicators (of which employment and personal income ex-transfers are central).

Figure 1: Nonfarm Payroll incl benchmark revision employment from CES (bold blue), implied NFP from preliminary benchmark through December (thin blue), civilian employment as reported (orange), industrial production (red), personal income excluding current transfers in Ch.2017$ (bold light green), manufacturing and trade sales in Ch.2017$ (black), consumption in Ch.2017$ (light blue), and monthly GDP in Ch.2017$ (pink), GDP (blue bars), all log normalized to 2021M11=0. Source: BLS via FRED, Federal Reserve, BEA 2024Q4 advance release, S&P Global Market Insights (nee Macroeconomic Advisers, IHS Markit) (3/3/2025 release), and author’s calculations. 

Recall, the February employment figures relate to roughly the second week of the month, which predates most of the DOGE-imposed government firings, and the cuts in private sector employment associated with

Keep reading this article on Econbrowser Blog - James Hamilton & Menzie Chinn.

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