Alberto Musalem

Mike, good morning.

Great to be here.

I see an economy that has been pretty resilient, where growth has been roughly around potential, around 1.8 for this year, in spite of a lot of uncertainty.

I see a labor market that has been around full employment, is around full employment, has been cooling.

Demand and supply have been cooling.

And I see inflation, which has been closer to the 3% level than to our 2% target.

More data is better than less data, so we will learn.

It always has additional value.

I do feel that we have a pretty good sense of where the economy is.

We have availed ourselves during this period of...

unofficial data dearth, let's call it that, with private sector data.

We have been in close contact with all of our constituents, businesses, households, community leaders in our district.

So I feel we have a pretty good sense of the economy.

But I'm very much looking forward to seeing the official data releases because they are the gold standard, and they'll provide additional information.

Well, what are companies in your district telling you?

You know, they are saying that consumption has been resilient.

They're saying that growth has been fine.

They're saying the labor market has softened a little bit.

They see many more applicants per vacancy.

They report compensation growth somewhere between 3.5% to 4%.