The Employment Situation; Employment Cost Index; average hourly earnings; Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), 2020-2024

Why this matters here

The Employment Situation and related BLS series (earnings, ECI, JOLTS) attempt to describe a moving labor market from multiple surveys, with sampling notes, revisions, and sector distinctions. The Economy We Don't Experience watches how that careful apparatus shrinks within minutes into a headline direction—so averages and nets leave out the distribution people inhabit even when the report never claimed to be a verdict.