February 16

2/16 – Two reports released last week have us cautiously optimistic. First, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said the U.S. economy added 130,000 net new jobs in Jan – after averaging just 59,000 per month for all of 2025. New jobs are still hard to come by. In Dec, there were just 6.5M open positions, down from 7.5M at the end of 2024. But initial claims for unemployment are low, averaging 211,200 per week for Jan 2026 – even lower than pre-pandemic levels of 217,700 initial claims per week (on average) in 2019. The other big news is the consumer price index for Jan - reported at 2.4% above a year ago, down from 2.7% in Dec. Gasoline was the big driver, down 7.5%, while utility costs are still killing consumers - with piped (natural) gas prices up 9.8% and electricity up 6.3%. The Jan CPI for “food away from home” remained a problem for restaurants, up 4.0% from a year ago, while “food at home” was up just 2.1%.