We’ve received some questions about the so-called Phillips curve – the relationship between inflation and unemployment. While there are a number of ways to look at the Phillips curve, the services inflation measures are more suitable than the broader price indices in order to assess the relationship. That’s because goods inflation in the US can be driven by global trends, while services tend to be more US-specific.
Furthermore, rather than using the headline unemployment rate (“U-3”) it is more appropriate to use the “U-5” measure which captures a broader group of unemployed or marginally employed workers. U-5 is defined as “total unemployed, plus discouraged workers, plus all other persons marginally attached to the labor force, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force”.
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| 10 years of data (orange = current levels) |
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