Daily briefing · August 4, 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

FRED Blog · Aug 3, 2026

How does seasonal weather affect construction employment?

The FRED Blog has discussed why employment in retail and postal services peak around the Christmas holidays. Today we tap into a 2018 research piece from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago to discuss why construction employmen...

Read the primary source

Cleveland Fed · Aug 3, 2026

How do Consumers View Future Government Debt? A Primer on Debt-Growth Expectations

Consumers’ debt-growth expectations rose during the pandemic, are higher for low-income consumers, and correlate positively with inflation expectations in this period.

Read the primary source

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...

Read the primary source

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