Daily briefing · August 1, 2026

Today's Economic Brief

The latest official readings show consumer-price growth at 3.7%, unemployment at 4.2%, annualized real GDP growth at 1.5%. New releases and revisions can change that picture.

What changed

BLS · Jul 31, 2026

Major Economic Indicators Latest Numbers

Consumer Price Index (CPI): -0.4% in Jun 2026 News Release Historical Data Unemployment Rate: 4.2% in Jun 2026 News Release Historical Data Payroll Employment: +57,000(p) in Jun 2026 News Release Historical Data Average Hourly...

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FRED Blog · Jul 30, 2026

The oldest US data series in FRED

FRED has not only current data series but also historic data series, some of which are very old. As we’ve mentioned on this blog, the oldest series in FRED is population data for the United Kingdom, dating back to 1086! … Conti...

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BEA · Jul 30, 2026

GDP (Advance Estimate), 2nd Quarter 2026

Real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 1.5 percent in the second quarter of 2026 (April, May, and June), according to the advance estimate released today by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)....

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Why it matters

Consumer-price growth is 3.7%, up 1.3 percentage points from May 2025.
Unemployment rate is 4.2%, down 0.1 percentage points from May 2025.
Federal funds rate is 3.63%, down 0.7 percentage points from Jul 2025.

These comparisons describe published observations; they do not assign causes.

What comes next

Tue, Aug 4 at 8:30 AM ETU.S. International Trade in Goods and Services, June 2026BEA
Tue, Aug 4 at 10:00 AM ETJob Openings and Labor Turnover SurveyBLS
Thu, Aug 6 at 8:30 AM ETProductivity and CostsBLS
Fri, Aug 7 at 8:30 AM ETEmployment SituationBLS
Wed, Aug 12 at 8:30 AM ETConsumer Price IndexBLS