Forecasting turning points is notoriously difficult (anecdotally, it is considered to be the most studied problem in human history, and it's still studied because no one can do it well).
Very complex rules don't show much improvement, so many people don't bother. Simple rules have the advantage that people can follow them.
Real time rules are also important. The NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee does just that — it dates peaks and troughs. But it does so many months after the fact, which isn't very useful for policy.
Claudia Sahm, who was formerly an economist with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, developed a simple rule (data from FRED) that's been popular over the last decade or so.
According to that rule, the U.S. economy just peaked.
Her rule has two parts. First calculate the average employment rate over the last 3 months. Second, find the lowest monthly unemployment rate in the last 12 months. If the first is higher than the second, we're in a recession.
In the current case, the average of the last 3 months (4.0%, 4.1%, and 4.3%) is 4.13%. The lowest rate in the last 12 months is 3.5% in July 2023. Do note that the last 12 months do not include the current month.
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Just for data awareness, I note for my principles students that the typical person can only "feel" a difference in the unemployment of 0.5%. Even though we measure it down to the 0.1%., you can't feel those small changes unless they accumulate.
The U.S. economy now has an unemployment rate that is 0.9% higher than it was in April 2023. And most people would agree that jobs are a bit harder to get than they were a year ago.
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