Kai Risdahl

Today's is about trucking and how some of the biggies, Old Dominion Today reporting better than expected results, J.B.

Hunt the same a couple of weeks ago, they are saying their pricing power is improving because trucking capacity is declining.

Why is capacity down, you ask?

Well, here's where I remind you that immigration is a labor market story.

Marketplace's Nova Safo takes it from there.

There was, as you would expect, no small amount of conversation about the labor market in Chair Powell's press conference today.

We are not going to get an update, the April jobs report, until Friday next.

But it is not out of line to say that things are tepid right now.

Low hire, low fire, as you've heard.

And for some parts of the American job-seeking public, things are distinctly weak.

Exhibit A, the unemployment rate for black workers in this economy is 7.1 percent, double the rate for white workers and trending up the past couple of years.

Benga Adjolori is the chief economist at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, where he studies, among other things, how economic policy affects black households.

Benga, it's good to have you back on the program.

Thank you very much.

What do you make of the elevated and some months, depending on how things go, rising black unemployment rate?

So do me a favor and step back for a second and give me the canary in the coal mine here, what we can learn from this, what it'll tell us about everything.

This labor market, of course, has been called low hire, low fire.

We're going to get the next unemployment rate a week from this coming Friday.

What are you looking for?

What are the telltale signs that something might be amiss or stabilizing if you believe that to be the case?