Since the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic, labor market indicators that traditionally move together have been sending different signals about the degree of slack in the U.S. labor market. While some indicators on the supply-side, such as the prime-age employment-to-population ratio, suggest that...

This paper uses historical labor market data to assess the plausibility that the Federal Reserve can engineer a soft landing for the economy. We first show that the labor market today is significantly tighter than implied by the unemployment rate: the vacancy and quit rates currently experienced...