Analysts’ favourite gauge of the U.S. economy’s health comes from data. And at the moment, the numbers look OK … ish. Hiring is down, but unemployment hasn’t spiked, inflation isn’t ballooning (as feared) because of tariffs, and consumer spending is holding up remarkably well.
Economist Claudia Sahm is an expert (if not the expert) on the conditions that presage a recession and how policymakers should react as a result. She is the creator of “the Sahm Rule,” an employment indicator monitored by everyone from central banks to the global financial giants. The Sahm Rule says that a recession is likely when the three-month moving average of the national unemployment rate rises by 0.5 percentage points or more, relative to the minimum of the three-month averages from the previous year.
Sahm’s equation has proved invaluable. As JP Morgan observed, it “was 100% accurate…
