The Budget Lab

The Budget Lab is a non-partisan policy research center dedicated to providing in-depth analysis of federal proposals for the American economy.

[The Budget Lab @The_Budget_Lab]

One big question is simply why non-healthcare industries have experienced such weak employment growth in 2025 and 2026 (so far). The most likely answer would seem to be the reduction in net immigration. Perhaps the lower average healthcare demand by immigrants has made that sector less sensitive to the sudden population growth downshift.

[The Budget Lab @The_Budget_Lab]

Jobs Day is Friday! Looking at the industry breakdown of payroll employment growth over the last year or so, we were struck by the size of the health care share. There are plenty of months in which health care chugs along while all the other industries contribute negatively. How big a deal is this? Has healthcare eaten the labor market?

[The Budget Lab @The_Budget_Lab]

Switching to the share of healthcare in total employment, rather than hires/separations, we see that in early 2026 it just slightly exceeded its BLS-forecasted level from ten years ago. The long-run growth wasn't a surprise: we all knew that the population was aging and would require more health care.

[The Budget Lab @The_Budget_Lab]

Similarly, our ongoing AI tracking analysis doesn't show unusual increases in occupational churn within the Information sector. We will keep watching, but for now the data isn't screaming about AI effects.

[The Budget Lab @The_Budget_Lab]

Tomorrow, June 2, we will get estimates of layoffs and hires for April. One recent trend we'll be watching closely is the increase in Information-sector layoffs since the end of 2025. On its face, this seems like the kind of thing you might see if AI adoption were affecting labor demand.

[The Budget Lab @The_Budget_Lab]

While certainly worth continuing to monitor, the layoff rise isn't mirrored (in other datasets) by increases in UI claims or unemployment. This is what we would have expected if the sector were experiencing a big weakening in labor demand.

[Abhi Gupta @abhiecon]

"At a time when policymakers are hoping for a boom from increased productivity growth, decreased immigration undermines that goal by removing entrepreneurs (and their children) who would have started new businesses". Read more in my new report from @The_Budget_Lab !

[Martha Gimbel @marthagimbel]

New from @abhiecon and @The_Budget_Lab: immigration policies affect entrepreneurship and productivity growth. Even assuming a return to baseline immigration in 2029, the current slowdown in immigration will likely have long-run impacts on business formation and productivity. 1/

[Abhi Gupta @abhiecon]

In a new report by @The_Budget_Lab, we show that this administration's restrictive immigration policies--even if undone after 2028--will make America less dynamic and productive for decades to come. (1/4) https://t.co/lLa6vqD0Z7

[Natasha Sarin @NatashaRSarin]

Per @dealbook, we at @The_Budget_Lab have a "bombshell" report out on the revenue potential of closing the carried interest loophole.

Here's the report: https://t.co/vgfNH25N2x

The existence of carried interest is *WILD* -- $ fund managers get lower tax rates than wage-earners

[John Iselin @john_iselin]

Today we at @The_Budget_Lab just updated our blog on the Tariff Rate Tracker, our open-source tool for estimating daily effective tariff rates. https://t.co/Va4a0HUyOW

[Natasha Sarin @NatashaRSarin]

Great to be back with @SquawkCNBC for jobs day this morning. Watch here:

https://t.co/Wy4uryUvDy

[The Budget Lab @The_Budget_Lab]

This new approach can and will be regularly updated as new jobs data come in, which gives us another tool in the toolkit for AI and the labor market monitoring. We use the new analysis for a Jobs Day Preview.  Read here:  https://t.co/lxuUqR1t6U

[The Budget Lab @The_Budget_Lab]

The introduction and adoption of powerful new AI tools has many wondering if the labor market has already - or will soon - be affected in a big way. Prior Budget Lab analysis + a regularly updated tracker haven't yet found such effects. But these are early days and it's important to explore new methods for monitoring the labor market.

Today the @The_Budget_Lab has a new analysis of AI effects on the labor market that does exactly this. Read full report here: https://t.co/qkQO0NZ8DJ

[The Budget Lab @The_Budget_Lab]

Exposed and unexposed occupations (and their workers) are quite different, making it important to account for that when making any comparisons. One interesting fact about AI-exposed occupations (vs unexposed) is that their employment varies less with the business cycle in pre-pandemic data. Our method can adjust for this and other differences.