I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Thursday, September 9th.

You know, on this week that began with Labor Day, we have a scrambled unemployment and

unemployment picture that on first blush

might look like it makes no sense, but actually makes total sense in the context of people's

real lives. One headline you may have heard this week is that there are now more job openings

in the United States than there are job seekers. Sounds nonsensical, right? But it actually makes total sense

when you look closely enough. Also, overall unemployment is down compared to the pandemic

lockdown era of not that long ago. But unemployment among black Americans, especially black

women, is up. Unemployment among mothers as a group also up.

That is, fewer moms had jobs outside the home in August than have them in July, according to the

Bureau of Labor Statistics. By contrast, employment for women and men without kids at home, and yes, for men with kids, their employment

numbers went up last month. For mothers with kids at home, not up. And at the same time,

millions of Americans lost extended federal unemployment benefits that expired, weirdly or by design,

on Labor Day. What does it all mean? With us now are Washington Post economics and political

columnist Catherine Rampel. She's also a CNN commentator and PBS News Hour special correspondent

and has a Washington Post column called

the August Jobs Report shows Delta is claiming livelihoods. Here's how the government must respond.

And we have Dr. C. Nicole Mason, President and CEO of the Institute for Women's Policy Research,

the prominent Washington think tank.

Catherine, welcome back. Dr. Mason, welcome to WNYC.

Great to be here.

Yes, great.

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