| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 10, 2024
CONTACT: John Neurohr, jneurohr@clearpointpa.com, 717-364-6452
HARRISBURG, PA – Upon the release of the national inflation number for September, Keystone Research Center economist and executive director Stephen Herzenberg issued the following statement:
“The steady stream of positive news on the economy continued today with the announcement that the average U.S. inflation rate over the last 12 months dipped to 2.4% in September. Keystone Research had predicted this continued improvement.
“A week ago, KRC highlighted the positive news on unemployment, pointing out that the unemployment rate in every one of Pennsylvania’s counties is below its level before the pandemic. We also released an online interactive map displaying that unemployment has fallen especially in rural and western Pennsylvania, overlapping the more conservative parts of the state.
“The sum of inflation and unemployment, which Ronald Reagan rechristened the ‘Misery Index,’ is now close to as low as it has been in Pennsylvania in 50 years. If you add the monthly Pennsylvania unemployment rate to the average inflation over the past 12 months, this index is now 5.9, compared to an average of 6.9 in the three months prior to the pandemic. (From January 1976 to August 2024, this index was lowest in several months of 2015, when the index equaled 5.3.)
“With misery in retreat, and the trends on all key indicators—wages and jobs as well as inflation and unemployment—Pennsylvanians should be feeling happier with the state of our economy. Sustaining positive momentum hinges on future public policies that support workers and shared prosperity, by, for example, raising the national or state minimum wage and strengthening workers’ freedom to form unions.”
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The Keystone Research Center is a nonpartisan economic think tank dedicated to conducting research and advancing policies that promote shared prosperity and economic opportunity for all Pennsylvanians.
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