Data doesn’t always show a full picture. Example: Functional unemployment was 23.3% in January — very different than the 4% headline figure.

The two groups, which existed for decades, gave expert advice to federal data scientists and played a role in government transparency.

Tariffs, major weather events and even political bias have obscured trends and challenged experts to figure out the takeaways.

Economic researcher Ruveyda Nur Gozen analyzed 3,589 women-owned manufacturing businesses from the 1800s.

Real wages also grew. To some extent, productivity growth offsets the inflationary effect of pay gains.

Unemployment is near record lows, GDP is growing, inflation has been trending down, wages are up. But in spite of it all, people are feeling bad.

This year, bigger-than-expected inflation reports are playing a role in determining when companies decide to borrow money by issuing bonds.

CPI and PCE can both seem to be out of step with consumers’ experience.

The numbers are sending positive and negative signs, making the future of inflation, and the timing of Fed interest rate cuts, uncertain.

Beyond government reports on inflation and jobs, it examines bank and payment processor data along with factory output, credit and rents.