recession has essentially always followed when inflation has been high and unemployment has been low. soft landings represent a kind of triumph of hope over experience, i think we re very unlikely to see one. to be clear forecasting recessions is tricky stuff, but one thing, the data might not point to it until several months after the fact. in fact, you really don t know you are in a recession until you re basically out of it. and as yellen points out, the labor market remains strong. the jobless rate just 3.6%. how cuff a recession with such a strong jobs market? and there are signs that inflation may be peaking, gas prices still falling, now down to $4.36 a gallon this morning, a sign potentially that inflation could be easing. we will get more insight on friday when the fed s favorite measure on inflation is released, the pce index.
not always successfully so. again, rana, it is incredibly complicated. we re coming out of the covid pandemic. there are global factors on this t . a lot of data says, oh, that s great, and others say, oh, that s terrible. the price of gas, something the american commuter deals with every day. a year ago, $3.16. $4.91 a month ago. now down to $4.36. it is good for the consumer and the americanpolitics. but milk up 16%. coffee up 16%. shelter up nearly 6%. it is what are we going to learn this week? what are the american people going to learn this week from all the new data points we re going to get about tomorrow, next week, and next month? yeah. well, i hope they would learn two things. one, these are not trends that are the fault really of this white house. these are trends that have been building for some time.
$4.36 a gallon, you know, they put the blame out there for it and the president has to suffer through. i do think, don, we learned in the past with the federal reserve, if you stick as head of the federal reserve, he stayed on and served both parties. he took on the inflationary bear. he went after it, reagan to his great credit supported volker and raised the interest rates. the misery index was very high. so there is times when presidential decisions do matter. so speaking of that, catherine talked about the rhetoric. this is rhetoric about something different. but president biden escalating his attack on republicans and going after the former president, n what he calls the maga agenda. listen to this. under my predecessor, the great maga camp, the deficit increased every single year he
supply of crude oil are becoming unclogged, we certainly hope we re going to keep on dropping in price. mandy drury, thank you so much. gas prices may be down, but they are still up over $4 in some areas. here are the states with the highest prices. take a look at this. connecticut, number five. $4.05. washington state residents paying $4.08. californians paying about four bucks. in alaska, $4.36. and in hawaii, $4.55, top of the list. [ donovan ] i hit a wall. and i thought i can t do this, it s just too hard. then there was a moment. when i decided to find a way to keep going. go for olympic gold and go to college too. [ male announcer ] every day we help students earn