Jobs, Water, and Land
A look at the economy, cool water news, and returning land.
Hi all, thank you for being so patient with the drop off of posts from me. In hindsight, I definitely should have sent a message letting you know it would be a few weeks without posts.
As an update, May is always a hectic time with my day job as a teacher. My first commitment is to my in-person family followed closely by my students. That meant when I had more to do than I had hours in the day, I had to pull back from Sowing Hope posts.
I am so thankful you are here with me still, and I'm looking forward to jumping back into some more posts.
Into the news
Jobs and Unemployment
It has been a while since I covered the economy, so I wanted to highlight a few high level take-aways. First, it continues to shock me the strength of the jobs market. Unemployment has remained at 4% or under for 2 years and a half years, going back to December of 2021 (link). On top of that, we've continued to see incredible growth from the investments in U.S. infrastructure and manufacturing from the bipartisan Infrastructure and Jobs Act and CHIPS Act.
Inflation and Wages
Grocery prices have stayed at 0% inflation for 4 months straight (link)...actually, grocery prices went down a hair in April. 😁 More broadly, inflation for consumer goods (officially called the CPI) was 0.0% in May (link). That continues the trend that wage growth has beaten inflation for months now. The most recent data I could find on wages is from April at 4.87% wage growth (link), significantly above the annual inflation of 3.3%.
Random interests
Water
You know that liquid we need to live, especially now because of the extreme heat? We just learned something new about this bizaare substance called water. The lead author of the new in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Yang Zhang PhD, described it as "probably the most weird substance on Earth". The team found a new phase change for water around minus 45 degrees Celsius (roughly -49 Fahrenheit) (link). In a nutshell, water molecules rearrange so we sort of have a different kind of ice at -30 degrees Celsius and -50 degrees Celsius.
Apparently, understanding this change may help us better prepare or recover plants and concrete buildings in extreme cold. Cool stuff 🧊
Banks
It looks like there will be an appointment of a new FDIC chair to address the toxic climate that lead to repeated instances of sexual harassment (link). While they still need to be confirmed, I'm hopeful this will give some relief to the people who work there and show that the banking sector has to treat people with kindness and respect, too.
Land return
Wait...you're still here after a banking section?! Thank you all for being so awesome. I really am blown away by all your support. 😁
Back to the actual news. 📰 🗞️
The state of Minnesota's legislature just passed a law to return land to the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe (link). Kelly Applegate, the commissioner of natural resources for the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, emphasized "This is a great opportunity for us as the Mille Lacs Band to preserve that land in a way that is respectful of nature."
Heads up
Thank you so much for being here for my first post back. I know I usually only post once per week, but I do have a topic that's been on my mind and heart for a while. I've got it started and plan to post it by the end of this week.
Until then, have a great week and don't forget to be awesome. 😁 🌱
P.S. You catch the dad joke? Let me know in the comments. Or don’t…that’s also fine 😄
This is good data! The economy is showing great signs of the strength we've had the past few years under Biden's leadership. I do hope we can keep this momentum that he has created.