Remember when Heritage Foundation’s EJ Antoni posted on X this graph?
Well, I think a lot of the puzzle has been resolved with new population controls, and the benchmarked NFP, plus taking into account the fact that coverage differs, with civilian employment covering farm workers and self-employed. Note below I use the civilian employment (CPS) series adjusted to NFP concept for comparability.
Figure 1: NFP December 2024 release (blue), NFP January 2025 post-benchmark revision release (bold dark blue), household survey employment adjusted to NFP concept December 2024 release (tan), household survey employment adjusted to NFP concept incorporating smoothed population controls and reported January 2025 observation (bold dark red), all in thousands, s.a., on log scale. Source: BLS via FRED, BLS1, BLS2.
Hence the 12 month differential growth gap that EJ Antoni mentioned (for NFP vs. total civilian employment) for October 2024 of 2 million has shrunk to 0.9 million. The 12 month differential as of January 2025 is -0.063 million.
I tried to get this point to him repeatedly in the past, to no avail.
And yet, Dr. Antoni is still claiming that Biden bequeathed to Trump a terrible economy…