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Preston Mui

Senior Economist preston@employamerica.org

About

Preston is a Senior Economist specializing in macroeconomics and labor economics. In his role at Employ America he reports extensively on the Federal Reserve and analyzes labor market and macroeconomic data to guide our Federal Reserve advocacy and identify key macroeconomic dynamics. Preston also collaborates closely with our policy team to develop legislative proposals and analyse the macroeconomic impact of policy changes, and has a growing body of work exploring the relationship between full employment and productivity.

Preston holds a PhD in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley. His academic work has been published in The Review of Economic Statistics and The Review of Economic Studies. He’s a trusted voice in economic policy media, and has been featured or cited in the New York Times, Washington Post, Marketplace, Barron’s, Axios, Reuters, AP News, and more.

Preston is based in Seattle, Washington, and enjoys birdwatching and racing criteriums.

Preston Mui's Work

184 Posts
Preston Mui

Make no mistake: this is good news. The Fed has made a commitment to not allowing the labor market to deteriorate further, and we’d rather not see that commitment tested.

With labor market risk rearing its head, Kashkari and Bostic sound dovish again.

A little bit of post-game analysis from Bowman and Waller. Waller defends 50 by pointing to the implications of the CPI and PPI data received during blackout period for core PCE.

“The time to support the labor market is when it’s strong, and not when you begin to see layoffs.”

We will be hoping for two things at the September meeting this week: a 50 bps cut and minimal upwards revisions to the unemployment rate projections in the Summary of Economic Projections (SEP).

Our new baseline is a 50 bps cut with a total of 75 bps of cuts in the SEP for 2024. It’s a close call but we think a 50 bps cut is more likely than a 25 bps cut. We think a 50 bps point cut is the right move.

It's the last week of Fedspeak before the blackout period for the September meeting. Everyone speaking this week is on board with Powell's assessment that the labor market is at least balanced.

Even though today’s report gave back some of the weakness in the July household survey, the reversion was slight. The August report meets the conditions we laid out yesterday for a 50 bps cut in September to play catch-up.

A quiet week after Jackson Hole. What we did hear this past week showed that Powell has some convincing to do on the Committee.

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