Tangle - The latest mixed signals on the economy.

Episode Date: April 11, 2024

The economy. In the last week, the government made two big announcements on the economy. First, on Friday, the Department of Labor reported that the economy added 303,000 jobs in March, though full-time unemployment decreased slightly. The total jobs added far surpassed economists' predictions that roughly 200,000 jobs would be added. Additionally, unemployment held steady at 3.8%, continuing the labor market’s hot hiring streak. You can read today's podcast⁠ ⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠, our “Under the Radar” story ⁠here and today’s “Have a nice day” story ⁠here⁠.Watch our latest YouTube video, an interview with Edwin Raymond. He is a recently retired NYPD lieutenant, civil-rights activist and author of the riveting new memoir An Inconvenient Cop: My Fight to Change Policing in America. You can view it here.Catch up on Episode 1 of our first ever limited podcast series, The Undecideds, before the next one comes out. We're following five voters — all Tangle readers — who are undecided about who they are going to vote for in the 2024 election. In Episode 1, we introduce you to those voters. Today’s clickables: Correction and notes (0:50), Quick hits (6:54), Today’s story (8:45), Left’s take (11:19), Right’s take (15:03), Isaac’s take (18:37), Listener question (22:50), Under the Radar (25:47), Numbers (26:39), Have a nice day (27:45)You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Our general admission tickets are sold out; but we still have some VIP seats left for purchase for our New York City event on April 17th. Get them here. Tangle is looking for a part-time intern to work as an assistant to our YouTube and podcast producer. This is a part-time, paid position that would be ideal for a college student or recent college graduate looking to get real-world deadline experience in the industry. Applicants should have: Proficiency in Adobe Premiere — After Effects a plus. Minimum of one year of video editing (Adobe Premiere) Minimum of one year of audio editing and mixing (Any DAW) Good organizational and communication skills Understanding of composition and aesthetic choices Self-sufficiency in solving technical problems Proficiency in color grading and vertical video formatting (preferred, not required)To apply, email your resume and a few paragraphs about why you are applying to [e-mail] and [e-mail] with the subject line "Editor opening"The job listing is posted here. Preference will be given to candidates in the greater Philadelphia area. What do you think of the latest news on the economy? Let us know!Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Jon Lall. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, the place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we're going to be talking about the economy. We got two bits of pretty big news this week. We got a new jobs report, and we also got some new inflation numbers a few days apart. So we're going to dive into what we learned from those new reports and some of the reactions to them. Got a couple things to tackle at the top of the show, though, before we jump in.

First of all, we have a correction, a rather silly one, but a correction nonetheless. Yesterday in our quick hit section, and I wrote this, so sometimes I can blame this on editors or people on the staff, and sometimes it's my fault. This one was definitely my fault, though no editors caught it, but it was my fault. We referred to the European Union Court of Human Rights in a quick hit about this climate change ruling. No court exists that is called the European Union Court of Human Rights. The court is called the European Court of Human Rights, not the European Union Court of Human Rights. The court is called the European Court of Human Rights, not the European Union Court of Human Rights. There's a separate court called the Court of Justice of the European Union, which does exist. But yeah, Europe is confusing. This is why we cover U.S. politics and typically stick to U.S. politics. So I apologize for the error. It is our

105th correction in Tangle's 244-week history and our first correction since Friday, April 5th. That was last week. Typically don't love it when we have two corrections in a week. It's not that common, but it happens. We track these corrections and place them at the top of our podcasts in an effort to maximize transparency with our listeners. So that is our correction. We also have a couple big announcements. First of all, we are publishing a members-only Friday edition tomorrow in the newsletter where I'm going to talk about some of the recent claims from Elon Musk about immigration. Elon Musk has been tweeting a lot about immigration and this idea that Democrats are basically importing voters into the country.

I think there are really important elements of this conversation. I think Elon is wrong about a lot of it and he's spreading bad information about a lot of it. And I'm going to talk about why tomorrow. I'll just say immigration and voter fraud and voting in general are two things that I consider to be just in my wheelhouse. They're issues that I cover a lot and talk about a lot. So I think this should be a good piece. I'm hoping it's informative and helpful. It's not meant to be super adversarial or anti-Elon or whatever. I know there's a lot of that stuff out there, but I just think he's wrong. So I'm going to write about why. If you aren't yet a member,

this is for the newsletter. It'll only come out in the newsletter. There won't be a podcast version of it, but I think it'll be worth it. So you can subscribe and become a member by going to readtangle.com forward slash membership. Second, we have our live event now less than a week away, Wednesday, April 17th in New York City. Our guest lineup has changed a little bit, fortunately or unfortunately, whatever. We ended up with an awesome guest lineup, but it wasn't the original group of people. We had some people at conflicts come up, various things happened. And the upshot is that we have Catherine Rample, the columnist from the Washington Post, Josh Hammer, the columnist from Newsweek, and Michael Moynihan, who is formerly

of Vice News, which is how a lot of people probably know him, but is now the host of the Fifth Column podcast, all coming, all going to be on stage. This is going to be awesome. This is going to be electric, I think. These people do not agree with each other on a lot of stuff. They're all super smart. They're all people who I read pretty religiously and very interested in their opinions on a lot of different things.

And they cover a wide spectrum of political views. So general admission tickets for this are sold out. I'm giving you a little heads up on this. We have a few VIP tickets left. If those VIP tickets don't sell out over the weekend, we're probably gonna release them as general admission tickets. It's going to be like less than 10 tickets. So if you want to come to the show,

which you should, you should go buy a VIP ticket right now. There's a link in our podcast description. They're less than $100 or maybe after fees, I guess they're a little over 100 bucks. They get you front row seats. You get a piece of merch. You get a little meet and greet photo opportunity, whatever, after the show. It'll be sweet. I think this is going to be a great show and I think you should do that. That being said, if you can't afford a VIP ticket

or you don't want one and you're not sure if you can go, I would just say keep an eye out on our channels for a potential last minute ticket release with like less than a dozen tickets coming out. I think it's possible that happens. I would just say keep an eye out on our channels for a potential last minute ticket release with less than a dozen tickets coming out. I think it's possible that happens. I'm hoping we sell out the VIP tickets. I'm hoping all of you guys just give us a full total sellout. That would be radical, but I know it's possible that doesn't happen. So that's that event next week, April 17th, tickets still on sale. Finally, last thing, we have a new YouTube video up.

A few weeks ago, I was in an Uber with my wife, Phoebe, and I was listening to this interview on NPR. The Uber driver had NPR on, there's an interview on, and the guy in the interview was totally captivating. Like the moment we sat down in the car, his voice just sort of captured me. And then I was listening to his story and it was fascinating. His name was Edwin Raymond. He's the author of a book called An Inconvenient Cop. And he is basically a guy who grew up in New York City.

He's Black. He was the victim of some police misconduct as a young man and decided to join the police force in an effort to change it from the inside out. And it went south. And he wrote a book about it. And he does interviews about his experience and talks about the ways he thinks policing should change. He's super duper compelling and really interesting and speaks with a lot of nuance about this issue.

And I think he's a really fascinating dude and his voice should be heard and elevated. So if you're interested, we have a new YouTube video up. It's an interview with Edwin Raymond. By the time you're hearing this, it'll be up on our YouTube channel. And before or after you listen to this podcast, I encourage you to go check it out. We are Tangle News on YouTube. All right, that's a lot at the top of the show. So without further ado, we'll jump in with some quick hits. First up, former President Trump said that if he were elected, he would not sign a national abortion ban, even if Congress passes one. Number two,

Hamas's political leader, Ismail Haniyeyeh said three of his adult sons were killed in an Israeli airstrike in central Gaza. Separately, the United States is once again warning that Iran or its proxies are preparing a strike against Israel. Number three, the Environmental Protection Agency released new rules requiring public water companies to remove six substances commonly known as PFAS or forever chemicals. Number four, Democrats in Arizona's state legislature attempted to repeal an 1864 law banning nearly all abortions that the state Supreme Court said was enforceable, but were blocked in both chambers by Republicans. And number five, Republicans in the House of

Representatives blocked a procedural vote on a bill renewing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, also known as FISA. We are back with some breaking economic data. Yeah, and some big numbers. The U.S. economy added a more than expected 303,000 jobs in March. New data from the Labor Department. The U.S. added 303,000 jobs in the month of March. Dow Jones estimated a gain of around 200,000 jobs for the month. The unemployment rate came in at 3.8%. So I know it's one report, but this is once again an instance where the

analysts got it wrong. Three hundred three thousand. It's so much more than anyone had expected at around two hundred thousand. It belies all of this theory that, well, interest rates are high. Companies are going to slow down their hiring. Well, evidently not. In the last week, the government made two big announcements on the economy. First, on Friday, the Department of Labor reported that the economy added 303,000 jobs in March, though full-time unemployment actually came down slightly. That number far surpassed economists' predictions that roughly 200,000 jobs would be added. Additionally, unemployment held steady at 3.8 percent,

continuing the labor market's hot hiring streak. Then, on Wednesday, the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the Consumer Price Index, or CPI, rose faster than expected in March. A quick reminder, inflation is measured by the Consumer Price Index, or CPI, which is designed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to track price fluctuations for urban buyers who represent the vast majority of Americans. The CPI tracks 80,000 items in a fixed basket of goods and services, representing everything from gasoline to apples to the cost of a doctor's visit. According to the latest data, the CPI rose 0.4% for the month month and the 12-month inflation rate

came in at 3.5%, which was 0.3 percentage points higher than in February. The core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy components, also rose 0.4% on a monthly basis and 3.8% year-over-year. Shelter costs drove much of the increase in inflation. Officials for the Federal Reserve indicated that geopolitical turmoil and rising energy prices remain risks that could push inflation higher. Participants generally noted their uncertainty about the persistence of high inflation and expressed the view that recent data had not increased their confidence that inflation was moving sustainably down to 2 percent% minutes of the Fed's meeting said.

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell also commented on the data, saying the recent data do not materially change the overall picture, which continues to be one of solid growth, a strong but rebalancing labor market, and inflation moving down toward 2% on a sometimes bumpy path. On inflation, it is too soon to say whether the recent readings represent more than just a bump. We do not expect that it will be appropriate to lower our policy rate until we have greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably down toward 2%. Today, we're going to explore the mixed news on the economy and some of the reactions to it with views from the left and the right, and then my take. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. First up, we'll start with what the left is saying. The left is concerned by the

latest inflation report, arguing the Fed may need to rethink its target inflation rate. Some are heartened by the latest jobs numbers and credit Biden for overseeing a strong economy. Others blame corporate greed for ongoing inflation. In Bloomberg, Mohamed El-Erian said the Fed faces a big risk, but it's not the one many think. I've been arguing for almost a year now, here and elsewhere, that U.S. consumer price inflation would become sticky after a period of favorable disinflation going into the end of 2023. Wednesday's hotter-than-expected data release, the third in a row, is evidence that this scenario is indeed unfolding, El-Erian wrote. At its simplified level, the continuation of favorable U.S. disinflation required that price

increases in the services sector moderate at a significantly faster rate before the outright price declines that we've seen in goods reverse course. This is not happening, thus the turn higher in the inflation metrics. Rather than maintain a policy reaction function anchored by excessive dependence on backward-looking data, the Fed would be well-advised to take this opportunity to undertake a belated pivot to a more strategic view of secular prospects. Such a pivot would recognize that the optimal medium-term inflation level for the U.S. is closer to 3 percent, and as such give policymakers the flexibility to not overreact to the latest inflation prints, El-Erian said. In doing so, it earns important

policy optionality while minimizing the threat of both de-anchoring inflationary expectations and further damaging its credibility. In the New York Times, Paul Krugman wrote, Good Economy, Negative Vibes. The story continues. When it comes to economic news, we've had so much winning that we've gotten tired of winning, or at any rate, blasé about it. In economic news, we've had so much winning that we've gotten tired of winning, or at any rate, blasé about it. Last week, we got another terrific employment report, job growth for 39 straight months, and it feels as if hardly anyone noticed, Krugman said. Job creation under Biden has been truly amazing, especially when you recall all those confident but wrong predictions of recession. Four years ago, the economy was body slammed by the COVID-19 pandemic, but we have more than recovered. The elephant in the room, and it is mainly an elephant, although there's a bit of donkey too, is partisanship. These days, Americans' views of the economy tend to be determined by political affiliation rather than the other way around, Krugman wrote. If you ask me, more progressives should celebrate the current economy, not just to help Biden get re-elected, but because

economic success vindicates the progressive vision. The truth is that the U.S. economy is a remarkable success story. Don't let anyone tell you that it isn't. In his sub-stack, Robert Reich suggested monopoly power is behind inflation. Corporate profits reached a record high in the fourth quarter of last year, and they're keeping their prices sky high, Reich said. This is one of the biggest reasons the American public is not yet crediting Biden with a great economy. Most people still aren't feeling it. We're seeing this pattern across much of the economy, especially with groceries. At the end of 2023, Americans were paying at least 30% more for beef, pork, and poultry products than they were in 2020. First, antitrust laws must be enforced. Kudos to the Biden administration for enforcing antitrust more aggressively than any administration

in the last 40 years. But given how concentrated American industry has become, there's still a long way to go, Reich said. Second, big corporations must not be allowed to use their power to gouge consumers. Senator Elizabeth Warren's Price Gouging Prevention Act could help and is just as necessary as aggressive antitrust enforcement, an example of what could and will be done if Democrats sweep the 2024 elections. All right, that is it for The Leftist Saying, which brings us to what The Right is saying. The Right criticizes Biden's handling of the economy, pointing to the inflation report as evidence that his policies are hurting average Americans. Some question the value of the jobs

being added to the economy. Others say Biden needs to level with the country about how he plans to address inflation. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada,

which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at FluCellVax.ca. In National Review, Charles C.W. Cook said inflation should not be a surprise. That interest rates have been raised as precipitously as they have was sadly necessary.

But that's all it was, necessary. Day in, day out, our media class wonders why the public does not like this economy and why, as a result, it does not like this president, Cook wrote. The public does not like this economy because, far from being the transitory phenomenon that the White House promised, unexpectedly high inflation continues to be a problem, which has to be treated with unexpectedly higher interest rates. And the public does not like this president because it understands that, rather than retrench in the wake of the bipartisan COVID-era spending spree, he and his party made things worse. Americans, history shows us, will forgive a president who is obliged to fight inflation with higher interest rates, unless, of course, he is the same president who was blamed for the inflation in the first place,

Cook said. That this has not yet destroyed Biden's ersatz Grant and Joe image is a testament to the corruption of the press. It is not the rich who are suffering in this economy, it's everyone else. In The Federalist, Joseph LeBue argued that Biden is only adding jobs because Americans need extra side hustles to make ends meet. Democrats will tell you the jobs report is rosy and bright, that the economy is heading in the right direction, and that your negative instincts and impressions about the economy are wrong. In reality, the report is abysmal, Labue said. are wrong. In reality, the report is abysmal, LeBou said. Democrats claim the economy added 303,000 jobs in March, but it added no full-time jobs at all in March. The economy actually shed 6,000 full-time jobs that month. In fact, full-time employment in the United States has dropped in each of the past four months. The vast majority of these jobs, 75%, are second jobs. Under the

Biden economy, the number of people who have had to simultaneously work both a full-time job and a second part-time job just to make ends meet has hovered at historical highs, LeBue added. Perhaps Americans tolerate this situation because federal civil servants tell them times are good when they are not. Times are always good around Washington, D.C., even when they are bad everywhere else. In USA Today, Nicole Russell wrote, Inflation is still bad. It's both Trump and Biden's fault. Who will fix it? It started with former President Donald Trump, and it ends with President Joe Biden. Not the election, the economy. Specifically, inflation.

Something for which neither candidate wants to take responsibility, though both should, Russell said. Inflation began to surge as a result of the pandemic. Well-founded fears of a recession or worse drove the Trump administration to pour trillions of borrowed dollars, Trump's infamous stimulus, into the economy to keep things afloat. The Biden administration still fails to acknowledge the reality of what inflated prices on everyday goods for average Americans does to their finances. This is where he shoulders his share of the blame, Russell added. People don't know how the overall economy is doing because most folks aren't economists. They're just purchasing goods

their families need. So they know if they're spending more than normal, and they are. Biden would earn considerable political capital if he would be honest with Americans about inflation, where it came from, his role in perpetuating it, and propose a plan to lessen it. Alright, that is it for the right and the left are saying, which brings us to my take. So, I first saw the news about the jobs report in a CNBC article that popped up in my feed. CNBC described the labor market as bustling and resilient. I read the first few paragraphs of their story, and then I left feeling pretty good about things. Not until I started doing research for this piece and reading some of the commentary from the right did I realize the news wasn't quite

as good as I thought. Today provided a nice reminder of why reading news from multiple sources is important. The CNBC story did not note the fact that the number of full-time workers fell by 6,000, while part-time workers grew by 691,000 until its 11th paragraph. As Joseph LeBue noted under what the right is saying, multiple job holders also rose by over 200,000, which plenty of people could take as a negative sign instead of a positive one. Make no mistake, the economy is still relatively healthy by most traditional measures. It isn't some disastrous hellscape that some Republicans campaigning against Biden want people to think. Job growth has been consistent, wages are still growing, the stock

market is doing well, and unemployment is under 4%. We're outperforming almost every other country post-pandemic. But on the whole, the jobs report was genuinely a mixed bag. And then, the inflation news came. Big picture, the CPI figures were concerning. Yesterday, I wrote about the dangers of canceling billions of dollars in student debt when we are still fighting inflation, and that was before the CPI report, one of the most discouraging in the past year. The Fed has been doing a pretty good job of wrangling inflation, and one report doesn't undo that. A few months ago, most of the chatter was about how close we were to the much-desired soft landing, where the inflation recedes without a recession, and we even did a whole piece in January on the good economic news. As Byron York pointed out in the Washington Examiner,

inflation has risen slowly but steadily for the last six months. Inflation rose by just 0.1% last October. It rose 0.2% in November and December, 0.3% in January, and now 0.4% in February and March, for an annual basis of 3.5%. It's been more than six months since inflation ticked downward. Economic reports are always noisy, and economic commentary is, for me, the hardest to parse. I understand the politics of the economy well, but I'm not an expert in economics, so I try to learn from the experts. Yet economists disagree on basically everything, and they seem to be perpetually wrong in all their predictions, so I never really know who or what to

believe. All this noise often complicates the narrative, and the commentary about why the vibes don't match the data over the past year has been endless. Right now, I'm starting to think that disconnect isn't that complicated after all. A lot of people are employed and they're making more money than they were a few years ago, but that doesn't have to mean they feel good. Think about it this way. Someone wants to live in an apartment that costs $2,500 a month in late 2023. So they go to work and they ask for a $5,000 raise. A few months later, they get the raise. Then they go back to rent the apartment. Now that same apartment is three thousand dollars a month, five hundred dollars more a month, and six thousand dollars more a year. So they still can't afford it. That person

isn't going to feel great about the economy or their raise. They're going to feel like they can't improve their circumstances even when they do well. I'm reminded of a theory in evolutionary biology that's always stuck with me. It's called the Red Queen Hypothesis, that constant evolution in a competitive system is only enough to subsist. The name comes from this quote from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place. For our economy, the job market is strong and wages are climbing, but prices for housing and gas and groceries keep going up. So all the good news be damned, the vibes are not just vibes. They are a product of the fact that things keep getting more expensive.

Everyone is running, but we're stuck in the same place. We'll be right back after this quick break. All right, that is it for my take, which brings us to your questions answered. This one's from Alex in Toronto, Canada. Alex said, you mentioned in an article that a $15 minimum wage wouldn't make sense as a matter of overarching federal policy. Would you mind expanding on this a little bit? I live in Canada, where the federal minimum wage is $16.65, and where even the province with the lowest minimum wage stands at $14, and this is hardly a livable wage. I'm curious what your reasoning is behind this. Okay, so thank you for the question, Alex. It is a good one. In a very economic-focused edition

from a few weeks ago we did, we covered the argument over whether we should adopt a 32-hour work week. This question is in response to that issue where I said that a $15 minimum wage wouldn't make sense as a federal policy. First, I want to make a couple things clear. Number one, the minimum wage and living wage are different things. A living wage is defined as the amount a person needs to earn as a primary source of income to support their household above the poverty line, and it's calculated based on inflation, local economics, and a number of dependents in that household. A minimum wage is set by the government to be the minimum hourly amount that an employer must compensate an employee. Although the living wage is an older idea, it wasn't part of the rationale for setting a federal

minimum wage. The first minimum wage was set in 1938 at $0.25 per hour, or $4.28 in today's dollars. Second, the minimum wage absolutely should be raised. It was set in 2009 at $7.25 an hour, and lifting it is long overdue. For reference, $7.25 would be about $10.09 in today's dollars, and the minimum wage peaked in 1968 at $10.54 in today's dollars. Research published last year by economists at Stanford, Penn, and Chicago found that a moderate increase in the minimum wage had short-term and long-term benefits to employees and the labor market alike. But that doesn't mean that a large increase would be just as beneficial. The same paper found that a large increase in the minimum wage would have short-term benefits for employees, but would be detrimental to the labor market and employees in the long run. The Congressional Budget Office reminds us that

significant hikes in the minimum wage will come withional Budget Office reminds us that significant hikes in the minimum wage will come with a loss of available jobs, which hurts the labor force and the ability of workers to collectively bargain. So, long story short, raising the minimum wage makes sense, but it doesn't need to be the same level as a living wage. I don't think it makes sense to require all jobs, which aren't always full-time posts, going to work or supporting a family to be legally required to pay as if they were. Lastly, I'll also state that I have no problem with the cities or states making their minimum wages higher, but setting a federal minimum to be tied to what a

national average is, if it's defined as a living wage or something else, just categorically doesn't make sense. All right, that is it for our reader question today, which brings us to our under the radar section. This is a fascinating story. The trial of 27 people charged in connection with the worldwide Panama Papers began this week. In 2016, a massive document leak known as the Panama Papers revealed a wide ranging money laundering scheme that illustrated how some of the richest people in the world hide their money. I don't know if you guys remember this, but it was a huge, huge story. The leak included a collection of 11 million secret financial documents. Repercussions from the leak were immediate. The prime minister of Iceland resigned, and leaders in Ukraine, China, Russia, and Argentina were all facing additional scrutiny.

Well, the trial around those papers, which was long delayed, is finally underway. The Associated Press has a story about it, and there's a link in today's episode description. All right, next up is the numbers section. The 12-month percentage change in price for food at home, groceries, in May of 2021 was 0.7%. The 12-month percentage change in price for food at home in August of 2022 was 13.5%. That's the highest since the pandemic. The 12-month percentage change in price for food at home in March was 1.2%. The increase in hourly earnings for private sector employees in 2024 was 4.1%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The number of consecutive months that the

unemployment rate has been below 4% is now 26. Of the 303,000 non-farm jobs added in March, the number that were government jobs was 71,000. Of the 303,000 non-FARB jobs added in March, the number that were manufacturing and utilities jobs is zero. The percent increase in part-time employment between March 2023 and March 2024 is 7.1%, and the percent decrease in full-time employment between March 2023 and March 2024 is now 1%. All right, and last but not least, our Have a Nice Day section. When he first started teaching science, Patrick Moriarty passed out worksheets to his class showing the trajectories of upcoming eclipses. Since only one was expected to pass near their hometown in upstate New York, he wanted to

make it an occasion for his class to reunite. That was in 1978. 46 years later, Moriarty successfully brought his class together through Facebook and made the Eclipse reunion a reality. About 100 former classmates and some of their families attended his event. When teachers go into education, they hope that they can be that kind of teacher that would have an impact on people and make a difference for people, Moriarty, 68, said. And this event right here just firmed it up for me that I guess I did okay.

The Washington Post has the story and there's a link to it in today's episode description. All right, that is it for today's podcast. As always, if you want to support our work, you can go to readtangle.com forward slash membership. Don't forget new YouTube video up on the channel. Tickets for the Tangle Live event in six days are live. There's a link to them, citywinery.com. We have that link in our episode description and in today's newsletter. And if you want to get tomorrow's members-only Friday edition newsletter, you need to become a member. So same reason to go to readtangle.com and click become a member and become a member. Otherwise, we'll see you guys in the Sunday pod,

which is coming back this weekend. Me and Ari are going to chop it up later today. Looking forward to that. Have a good weekend. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited and engineered by John Wall. The script is edited by our managing editor, Ari Weitzman, Will Kabak, Bailey Saul, and edited and engineered by John Law. The script is edited by our managing editor, Ari Weitzman, Will Kabak, Bailey Saul, and Sean Brady. The logo for our podcast was designed by Magdalena Bokova, who is also our social media manager. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. And if you're looking for more from Tangle, please go to readtangle.com and check out our website. book. Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a

police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.