Diane Swonk

We don't produce them in the United States.

We import almost all of them.

And as a result, in order to compete in the AI arms race, they had to give tariff waivers for the tech companies to build up their data centers, which is what we're seeing going on.

That underemployment rate where you get discouraged workers and those having to cut part-time, that fell to 8% from 8.4% in December.

What we're starting to see is some of the ice melt in the labor market now and things beginning to shift a bit.

We need to keep up that momentum.

Well, we are as much as we've been since the data started on corporate profit share versus wage share in the economy going back to the 1970s.

What we're seeing is a record break between the share of profits going to the to wealth holders versus the amount of going to wages.

And I think that's where

the bulk of this is.

You're seeing the productivity gains accrue to the owners of capital as opposed to workers, and that's why workers are not very happy about where things are.

Also, when you think about wages, I think it's very important to understand that we are seeing this labor market looks like it's now healing after getting cratered last year.

That's important, but it's healing at a pace, as Claudia and Eric pointed out, where we just don't need to generate many jobs to be able to

bring the unemployment rate down, which could push wages higher.

That's great if it does not also be accompanied by inflation.

And we know that much like stock returns compound, also inflation compounded over the last five years, leaving too many prices out of reach for too many.

Actually, it was even better under the hood.

What we saw was the U6 rate, which is that sort of underemployment rate where you get discouraged workers and those having to cut part-time for economic reasons.

That fell to 8% from 8.4% in December.

That's an important move.