The FOMC And The BLS—Why Neither Are Fit For Purpose

This is getting damn monotonous. As we predicted recently, the BLS has come out with another huge rug-pull on its nonfarm payroll count. And also, predictably, this has triggered loud blathering from both Wall Street and the White House in behalf of exactly the wrong conclusion.

To wit, we don’t need any more Fed rate cuts! And we don’t need a new eruption of money-printing, either, because the real cost of debt is already dirt cheap.

For instance, here is the inflation-adjusted Fed funds rate over the last four decades. Since the turn of the century the geniuses on the FOMC have pegged the real Fed funds rate at negative levels nearly 80% of the time. And even as of July 2025—three years after allegedly pivoting to inflation-fighting—the real Fed funds rate is only positive by 110 basis points. That’s far below real rates of 250 t0 500 basis points which prevailed before Greenspan went all in on money-printing in response to the dot-com bust.