Powell on the April PPI: 'I wouldn’t call it hot. I would call it sort of mixed.'

(The main readthroughs to PCE from the PPI likely offset as lower airfares and health care costs likely offset the hotter financial services subcomponent.)

Robert Lighthizer, a top Trump adviser, tells Greg Ip: “No policy adviser that I know of is working on a plan to weaken the dollar.”

Also, regarding an independent Fed: “The last thing I’d suggest is to do anything to change it.”

wsj.com/economy/trade/…

Housing is a big part of the Fed’s confidence that inflation will move lower soon.

Housing “has not behaved the way we thought it would,” said Austan Goolsbee. “I still think it will, but if it doesn’t, we’re going to have a hard time.”

wsj.com/economy/housin…

West Virginia’s dilemma: The state is desperate for workers but dead set against migrant labor wsj.com/politics/polic…

75.5% of U.S. women between the ages 25 and 54 were employed in April, the highest on record

The overall employment-population ratio for prime-age workers, at 80.8%, is close to its highest level since 2001

The index of aggregate weekly payrolls for private-sector workers—which combines hiring, wages, and hours—was up 5.6% over the last 12 months.

Jan 2023: 8.4%
Apr 2023: 6.1%
Jul 2023: 5.9%
Oct 2023: 5.1%
Jan 2024: 4.8%
Apr 2024: 5.6%

Permanent job losers as a share of the U.S. labor force have been rising since September 2022 and ticked up again in April to the highest rate since 2021

The unemployment rate rose to 3.9% in April and the economy added 175,000 jobs last month (revisions subtracted a net 22,000 jobs from February and March)

Average hourly earnings rose 0.2% and were up 3.9% from a year earlier

“If they just don’t make further progress on inflation, it will be right at some point to say, ‘We don’t know what direction rates are going to go.’”

The Fed is 'still a ways from that,” said Bill English, a former senior Fed adviser wsj.com/economy/centra…

Takeaways from the Powell presser:

-There's a high bar right now for the Fed to cut rates, but there's an even higher bar for the Fed to resume rate hikes

-He's still expecting inflation to come down, in large part because of the shelter disinflation everyone has expected

Powell: 'A couple tenths' of an increase in the unemployment rate doesn't count as an 'unexpected weakening' in the labor market that would justify cuts.

Powell on taking politics into account when setting interest rates: 'We just don't do that .... If you go down that road, where do you stop?'

Q for Powell: Are you satisfied with 3% inflation?

Powell: '3% can't be in a sentence with satisfied'

Powell: 'I think it’s unlikely that the next policy rate move will be a hike.'