When someone says "the economy is doing well"—what does that even mean? Like, for workers, for employers, for the country as a whole? According to what calculation? How do you put a number on it? The world of economics is filled with all sorts of "measuring sticks." GDP. Inflation. Unemployment. Consumer sentiment. Over time, all kinds of government agencies, universities and private companies have come up with different ways to measure facets of the economy. These measures factor into all kinds of huge decisions—things like government policy, business strategies, maybe even your personal career choices or investments. On today's show, we're going to lift the curtain on two of these yardsticks. We are going to meet the people tasked with sticking a number on two huge measures of our economic well being: the official U.S. government inflation report and the monthly unemployment and jobs numbers. Come along and see how the measures get made. This episode was hosted by Darian Woods, Stacey Vanek Smith, and Wailin Wong. It was produced by Julia Ritchey and Jess Kung with help from James Sneed. Engineering by Gilly Moon and James Willetts. It was fact-checked by Michael He and Corey Bridges, and edited by Kate Concannon and Viet Le. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer. Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
This is planet money from NPR.
When someone says the economy is doing well, what does that even mean?
Like for workers or for employers or an average of the country as a whole?
Is the objective here to tame inflation, or is it to lower unemployment or to have less inequality?
Is it some of these things?
None of these things are a mix of all of the above.
Hello, and welcome to planet money.
I'm Darian woods.
The world of economics is filled with all sorts of measuring sticks.
And over time, all kinds of government agencies and universities and even private companies have come up with different ways to measure slices of the economy.
And we pay attention to these measurements because they go into all kinds of huge decisions, things like government policies, but also personal investments.
So today on the show, were going to lift the curtain on two of these yardsticks.
Were going to meet the people behind the inflation and jobs numbers and see how the ruler gets made.
Our first metric for the economy comes from host Stacey Vanek Smith.
And this ones about inflation.
Big worry of the last few years.
Inflation is just a fancy name for prices going up.
And if prices start going up at a really fast pace, it can signal the beginning of a so called inflationary spiral.
That means prices going up out of control.
So, like, your latte goes from four dollars to ten dollars to fifty dollars.