As the job market slows, inflation speeds up
Marketplace
American Public Media
4.6 • 8K Ratings
🗓️ 11 September 2025
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The labor market has been cooling for a bit, and in some sectors is virtually frozen. That could push the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates. But the Fed’s other mandate, besides maximum employment, is price stability. And inflation is picking up. What to do, what to do…. Later in this episode: Why are utilities costs up? Are restaurants hiring when no one else is? And, should retirement accounts have access to private equity funds?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Today's program brought to you by the rock and the hard place between which the Federal Reserve |
| 0:07.2 | now finds itself. From American Public Media, this is Marketplace. In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Rizdahl. |
| 0:25.6 | It is Thursday, today the 11th of September. |
| 0:28.4 | It is always to have you along, everybody. |
| 0:30.8 | That rock and the hard place betwixt which the central bank now is, is actually codified. |
| 0:36.7 | In law, the full employment and balanced |
| 0:39.0 | growth act of 1978 by name. It says in relevant part that it shall be the economic policy |
| 0:45.1 | of the United States to have, among other things, price stability, and full employment. |
| 0:51.1 | That, as you know, has come through the years to be known as the Federal |
| 0:54.4 | Reserve's dual mandate. They've got to do both things. And here we find ourselves, |
| 1:00.7 | mid to late 2025, with the opposing sides of that mandate in some degree of tension. The |
| 1:06.8 | labor market, as we know, is slowing. And inflation, the latest read of which we got this morning with the August consumer price index is nudging higher 2.9% over this time last year. So, Marketplace of Samantha Fields reports now on what the Fed is seeing as it settles in between that rock and that hard place. |
| 1:26.5 | Nothing about the latest inflation or jobs numbers is all that bad. |
| 1:30.8 | Inflation is right around 3% and the unemployment rate is a little over 4%. |
| 1:35.1 | But here's the problem. |
| 1:37.3 | It's not the level of these variables. |
| 1:40.5 | It's the trend. |
| 1:42.4 | They are moving in the wrong direction. |
| 1:45.5 | And Kevin Jake, a former economist at the Treasury Department, says the Fed has one tool to try to fix that problem, interest rates. |
| 1:52.8 | If they decide to cut rates... |
| 1:55.0 | Inflation would go up, but unemployment would go down. |
| 1:59.7 | And if they decide to leave rates high, |
... |
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