David Brancaccio

It's the Marketplace Morning Report from APM American Public Media.

The cruel math of unemployment is not about too few working, it's about too many.

I'm David Brancaccio in Los Angeles.

Good morning to you.

First, we'll get a key measure of inflation this morning, the one preferred by the guardians of interest rates at the Federal Reserve.

This is the one with the clumsy name, the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index.

It'll be for December, and it's out in about an hour and a half.

President Trump talked about prices yesterday in Georgia.

Marketplace's Nancy Marshall-Genzer has more.

Question.

Is unemployment able to work but unable to find work a liability or an asset?

It's not an asset to the worker in search of livelihood, of course, but mainstream economics acknowledges that some joblessness helps to keep prices down and from the corporate point of view.

It helps to keep profits up.

It's one of the reasons that to most economists, ideal unemployment is not zero unemployment.

This is one of the critiques of the economic system we live in.

Clara Mattei teaches economics at the University of Tulsa.

Her new book is called Escape from Capitalism and Intervention, where she calls some of this the, quote, cruel math of unemployment.

Dr. Mattei, welcome.

Thank you so much, David, for having me.

What's the cruel math?