Yellen’s Labor Market Dashboard

By Michelle JamriskoMichelle Jamrisko, Chloe WhiteakerChloe Whiteaker and Jeremy Scott DiamondJeremy Scott Diamond
Updated: May 9, 2017

Federal Reserve officials signaled further interest-rate increases this year after their May 2-3 gathering, when they held rates constant but wrote off early-year growth weakness as temporary. To help inform her own view on the pace of rate increases, Fed Chair Janet Yellen has consulted what she called a "dashboard" of jobs data to gauge remaining slack in the labor market since the recession ended in mid-2009. Of the nine monthly employment-related indicators she's flagged, in addition to three gauges of wage growth, six are back to where they were in the four years leading up to the last economic downturn, according to calculations by Bloomberg.

Back to normal
More than halfway
Less than halfway