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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Last month, we did a segment on the historically bad job market for new college graduates this spring and mentioned the alarming decline in the number of total jobs in the United States in the February jobs report from the Labor Department. We said we would do another segment today when the March numbers came out.

Well, they did at 8:30 this morning, as usual, on the first Friday of the month for the month before. Even on Good Friday, they came out for the month before. The news was pretty good. The going predictions had been for about 60,000 new jobs. The actual number was more like 170. 170 to emphasize that or 180,000 new jobs compared to the 60,000 predicted. Not everything was good. I'm seeing that the national picture for February, we learned this morning, was actually worse than first reported. That's true of the job numbers for New York City in 2025 as a whole. We'll get into the national and the local picture.

With us to get further into the weeds, then that top number, what sectors, what parts of the country, do things look any better for college seniors, the effect of tariffs and the Iran war, and questions I'm not even thinking to ask because he knows this field a lot better than I do is Greg David, contributor to the news organization THE CITY and director of the Business and Economics Reporting Program at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. Hi, Greg. Thanks for coming on with us for some first blush takes on the jobs report. Welcome back to WNYC.

Greg David: Well, thank you, Brian. I'm really immersed in this because my fall class at the J School is called "Covering the Economy." We're training our students to write this very story, the first Friday in May, so this is very exciting for me, too. I hope some of them are listening.

Brian Lehrer: All right. If any of Greg's students are listening right now, you can consider this a kind of way to cheat without using AI. How would you begin to describe the new jobs report?

Greg David: I would say that it's mostly a bounce back. February was bad. There were lots of unusual factors in February, bad weather. There was a nurses' strike in California that affected the numbers a lot. It's better than expected. I would say that the economic forecasts so far this year have been way off each month. Some of that has to do with the government shutdown, which caused some trouble in getting the data. There are different takes on this. The Trump administration will say, "This is really good news."

The progressive groups, I was just reading their commentary, say, "Well, if you average the three months, it's still pretty weak." The bottom line on this economy, and it affects many of the things you just talked about, is that we have a "no fire, no hire" economy. There's another part of the report, which shows very few jobs were filled in the month. Employers are just paralyzed. They're paralyzed because of Trump administration policies, because it's very unclear what the economy will do now because of the war, and, of course, the great question of whether AI will affect how many people they need. I think we're just in a very stalled economy.

Brian Lehrer: Well, let's back out and drill back in a little further on some of the things that you just mentioned. First of all, the February jobs report was so newsworthy because it showed a net loss of 50,000 jobs, not the net increase that economists were expecting. This March report overperformed expectations. Can you tell what aspects people were too pessimistic about going into today?

Greg David: Well, my class had four economists talk to us a week ago Thursday. They all thought there was going to be a bounce back. Maybe not this large, but they all thought that the basic takeaway was that we would see a gain in jobs. Now, they were more like in the 57,000 range. It's very hard to see. What the good news in this report is that there were some gains in manufacturing, construction. Manufacturing has been very weak despite the Trump tariffs, which are supposed to bring all those jobs back.

Construction is always greatly affected by the weather. Construction is being affected in many parts of the country because of the deportations and the immigration crackdown. Yes, it's better than we thought. We might want to look at the unemployment rate some. It ticked down, but as the Economic Policy Institute just said, it ticked down for the wrong reasons. People are leaving the workforce. The employment-population ratio declined a bit. This is, in large part, a factor of immigration.

In fact, one of the points the economists made to my class, which is really important, is that the unemployment rate is stable for the wrong reasons. It's because we've basically shut the door on immigration, so we don't have any new entrants into the labor force from that. We are deporting X number of people, and other people who are too afraid to go to work. The unemployment rate isn't stable because people are getting jobs. The unemployment rate is stable because the workforce is declining.

Brian Lehrer: Well, wouldn't the theory of the Trump administration be that the unemployment rate should go down after a lot of deportations because there would be more job openings for Americans who were looking for work?

Greg David: That's what they would say. However, most economists would say it's the opposite. Immigration increases economic activity and increases employment. Yes, you have this great divide between the economics of the Trump administration and the economics of virtually everyone else.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, help us report the job market story, or ask Greg David a question at 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Call or text, 212-433-WNYC. Is the company you own or work for creating jobs? Is the company you own or work for being affected by fuel prices because of the war? Is the company you own or work for hiring entry-level, new college grads any less than in the past? Are the Trump tariffs affecting hiring decisions at your company for better or worse?

Is anyone listening, creating jobs here to make things you used to import, or conversely laying off people because your costs for imported materials are going up, or anything else relevant to any question or any question you want to ask for Greg David with the March jobs report out this morning, exceeding expectations by a bit? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. You can call, or you can text.

I want to ask you about the manufacturing number that you mentioned. I saw it was up last month in this new report by about 15,000 jobs. I saw them say on CNBC that that was the best month for manufacturing job increases since 2023. Do you make anything of that? Could it be that the tariffs are working to encourage manufacturing in the United States and sectors where we've been importing things?

Greg David: Well, I think the rule here is one month's number; numbers do not make a trend. Manufacturing employment is actually down during the Trump administration. I think we have to wait and see if this continues. Look, there is some movement back to the United States, but most of it is long-term. It requires people to build factories, and that's going to take a while. Trump himself even says that, that we won't see the big benefits for a couple of years. Let's see what happens in the next couple of months. If you have three or four months of continued gains, I think that would be an important sign.

Brian Lehrer: That's still only 15,000 jobs out of the 170,000-plus that the Labor Department says were created or added last month. I heard that almost all the growth was in health care and other care economy services like that. You've reported on that trend for New York City, too, for all of 2025. Can you break that down for us in a little more detail?

Greg David: Well, here's a stat for you. In 2025, nationally, all the gains in employment were in health care. That's how much health care matters. Now, it matters for two particular points. One of which is the population is aging, people like me, and we need a lot more health care. There is a long-term trend here. You mentioned manufacturing. Of course, the theory of the Trump administration is that manufacturing will restore the good kind of jobs that this country needs.

I think some people in this administration would say, "Well, it restores the manly jobs that we want to get back." There's a really interesting story. I forgot whether it was in The Times of The Journal yesterday that it's actually health care and nursing that's a road to the middle class. I thought the nurses' strike in New York gave me a number. I didn't realize that the average nurse's salary at the hospitals in New York City is $120,000. Clearly, health care is really important in the economy and is one of the really good paths we have to really good middle-class jobs.

Brian Lehrer: Here's Jacob in Jersey City, who I think wants to help us report this story. Jacob, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Jacob: Hi. How are you doing, guys? Yes, I live in Jersey City, but I work for a family business. We're manufacturing roof coatings and roof cements. We're 93 years old. We've been located in that location for that time. A lot of our raw materials are oil-based, asphalt-based roof coatings, and roof cements. Typically, over the years, we don't do price hikes. It's very stable.

Over the past few years, we've had to raise our prices. Even yesterday, we were talking about how ourselves and our competitors are looking at potentially even double-digit price increases. It's been a major concern. We're hoping to see that go down over the next 8 to 10 months, and maybe pass those savings if they come on to our customers, but there does not seem to be much of an end in sight.

Brian Lehrer: Is this affecting employment at your company? You can raise prices, or you can try to make things cheaper with less labor. How are you balancing that?

Jacob: We haven't had to cut jobs yet. We can typically reallocate folks throughout the factory in different jobs, but only for so long. In the past year, we have about 30 factory workers in our local factory here in New Jersey. We have had to do one layoff, which is difficult because we are unionized, or they are unionized in the factory.

Brian Lehrer: Jacob, thank you very much for your call. Anything from you, Greg, to put that in a larger context, that story from one company?

Greg David: Yes. Well, that's what we haven't mentioned so far. That is the biggest issue for the remaining few months of the year. That is, what will the impact of the war with Iran be? Clearly, that's another factor that's causing distress. What he's talking about is the very big increase in oil prices as a result of the war in Iran. What are we going to expect to see? Well, we're certainly going to expect to see higher inflation in the near term because gasoline prices, as anyone who's had to fill up lately knows, have increased dramatically. The point he makes, which is really important, is that oil will affect an extraordinary number of products.

There's another thing we should mention that fertilizer is heavily dependent on natural gas from the Middle East. The components they need are not getting out because of the war. Fertilizer prices are expected to rise sharply. That's going to be really bad news for farmers, may lead them to plant fewer crops. Yes, the war with Iran, how long it will last, whether the straits will be reopened and free flows of oil and natural gas will resume, or whether these price hikes will be more permanent, remain a huge economic question that will determine so much for the rest of the year.

Brian Lehrer: The Iran war started February 28th, so it covered the whole month of March with the oil shocks. Therefore, higher fuel prices, as the caller from that company was describing, the secondary price increases as well, and pressure on profits that flow from that. Do we conclude with plus 170,000 jobs, 178,000 jobs, that, so far, at least the war is not causing companies to lay off many people?

Greg David: That's true, and nobody should expect that to happen right away. What's going to happen, the way this will play out, and those economists talked about it with my class, is that what you're going to see is, does the war raise prices so much that consumers cut back? When consumers cut back, then you will see a bigger impact on the economy. In every war, there are some winners. Some defense companies are doing really well here for the near term. It's going to be, I think, well into the summer before we would see any employment impact from the war.

Brian Lehrer: We're getting a few texts that are along these lines. Now, let's see. Now, it flipped off my screen as more texts come in. I'll just paraphrase, basically. Oh, here's one. "Can you ask your guest if we can even trust the jobs report from this administration?"

Greg David: [laughs] Well, that's been a big question, especially when Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics early in the administration because he didn't like the numbers. My co-teacher at my class is Ben Casselman, the lead economics reporter for The New York Times. He is all over this story. The answer at the moment is, yes, we can still trust the numbers. Whether that will continue, we will have to see. Yes, we can still trust the numbers. There's one small asterisk here, and that is the government shutdown caused some difficulties with the collection, but that wasn't the result of manipulation. Yes, all economists still say we can trust the numbers for now.

Brian Lehrer: We did see them report that decline in jobs in February by 50,000-plus, which was under the same Trump administration people as this month. That, I guess, would be an indication that the numbers are trustworthy. Even in this report, I see it included a stat that the national jobs picture in February was even worse than they had reported initially last month. Did you see that?

Greg David: Yes, the professionals are still doing this. The first person Trump wanted to name to take the BLS job, Congress rejected, because he was likely to be incompetent. Should we watch this issue very closely? Yes. For now, we can trust the stats.

Brian Lehrer: With them underestimating the losses last month and underestimating the gains this month, what would you say to listeners who might dismiss economic expertise generally? Not on the basis of political bias, just like, what do they really know, hearing that they got it this wrong in one direction last month and got it so wrong in the opposite direction this month?

Greg David: Brian, I get this question all the time, so let me answer it this way. The employment number is based on a survey of 600,000 employers in this country. The unemployment rate is based on a telephone survey of 60,000 households. Do you think that's a lot or a little?

Brian Lehrer: Give me the number again.

Greg David: 600,000 employers, 60,000 households.

Brian Lehrer: I'd say that's a lot. We see public opinion polls all the time that give national statistics on things that are supposed to be reliable, with only 1,500 sample size, but am I wrong?

Greg David: No, you get an A+ in my class. You answered the question correctly. Mostly, my students, the first time I ask, it don't. Absolutely. It's the gold standard of any survey. Look, it's a survey. By the way, not all the employers send the information in on time. That's why we have revisions. Look, life is a little messy, but you're right. This is so much better than a political poll. You have to take the slightly longer view. Yes, we care about what happened in the month, but we're using this data over a longer period of time to track the economy.

Brian Lehrer: On the growth in healthcare jobs, which led the way in terms of sectors and has been for a while now, listener writes, "Healthcare jobs will decline due to cuts in Medicare and Medicaid." Do you agree with that?

Greg David: I agree that healthcare jobs are endangered by the cuts in Medicare and Medicaid, but we're not exactly sure how it's going to play out. It's not exactly clear who does it, how it happens. In New York State, for example, 450,000 people are going to lose their coverage under what we know is the essential plan on July 1st. Will they be without health care? Will they find other means?

Will they go into the Affordable Care Act and get health care that way, although that will be much more expensive? Will they wind up showing up at safety-net hospitals to get care? If we really take billions and billions of dollars out of the healthcare system, there will be a huge problem. Maybe the state can, will fill some of the gap. I agree that it's a threat. I don't think we know yet exactly how it will play out.

Brian Lehrer: Here's a stat from a listener who writes this question, "How does the incredible number of terminations at Oracle," the company Oracle, "30,000, figure into this employment equation?" First of all, do you know that stat to be true? Did Oracle lay off 30,000 people?

Greg David: They're laying off a lot of people. I don't know the stat per se.

Brian Lehrer: That's a lot of layoffs at one company. We see this overall job growth. I don't know if you can take anything from that stat divided by the overall job growth number. Is there something going on in the tech sector, or anything to read from that?

Greg David: Well, I think you get another A in my class.

Brian Lehrer: [chuckles]

Greg David: 30,000 is not a big number in terms of the entire economy. Yes, there have been a few numbers like that, many of them AI-based. When you look at the size of this enormous economy, even if you took that, even if some company laid off 30,000 people in New York, there are 4.8 million jobs here. It's not an enormous number. That's one of the things I have to teach, and that is, is the number big or small? 30,000 at one company in the scope of employment is small.

Brian Lehrer: Here's a report from a listener about one particular sector of the economy that's fairly new as a legal business. Listener writes, "This may be niche, but I own a small cannabis adjacent accessory business in Brooklyn. Started in 2020. Everything was great. It paid my bills. I was hoping to hire someone part-time to keep up. In 2024, with concerns over the economy, I saw our numbers going down. Couple of tariffs with increases in cost to ship to customers, UPS and USPS rates going up, as well as private equity buying up small head shops, streamlining what they buy, and dropping small brands, plus the added financial burdens on 'a risky industry,' plus increases in rent. I'm feeling super squeezed. I now work at Macy's." That's very specific, but what do you think listening to that story?

Greg David: There's no doubt that this uncertainty and the tariffs are hardest on smallest companies. Big companies have much more ability to deal with them, to increase prices, et cetera. The cannabis industry, to be specific, was started with enormous hopes. It's incredibly mired and difficult regulation and has clearly not been the business anybody thought it was going to be. Absolutely, if you read the reports that the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce is putting out, there's just no doubt that small firms are having the biggest trouble with Trump policies, especially the tariffs.

Brian Lehrer: Now, I will add that after telling that story, that listener concluded their text with these words, "Hey, Kathy, tax the rich." Do you think that this jobs report will have any impact on the debate that needs to get resolved in Albany soon, because the new fiscal year started on Wednesday over whether the state will raise taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers and corporations?

Greg David: Well, that allow me to segue to New York statistics because the statistics are worse for the city. We got a revision to the 2025 numbers. This is a normal thing we do. People had been expecting New York City to gain 40,000 jobs last year, but we actually lost 20,000. The New York City economy, with the exception of Wall Street, is exceptionally weak. Now, how will that play out in Albany? These are the last four paragraphs of my story that published this morning.

Business groups and the people who oppose taxes say, "Well, look how fragile the economy is. We can't raise taxes. People might leave." Progressive groups say, "All these terrible cuts are coming from the federal government. New York City has a big budget deficit. We have to raise taxes to fill the gap." That's where job numbers, especially the local job numbers, will play into this debate over probably the next month.

Brian Lehrer: When we come back from a break, we'll continue with Greg David. We're going to get into the stock market's early reaction, how the futures markets were reacting to the new jobs reports. I mentioned in the intro, the issue of this year's college grads entering the worst market for entry-level, bachelor's degree-level jobs in many years. Do we get more encouragement from that, and anything else that you have to add? 212-433-WNYC.

Again, we invite you to either help us report this story. Is the company you own or work for creating jobs, being affected by fuel prices because of the war, being affected by the tariffs one way or another? Are you hiring entry-level, new college grads any more or less than in the past, or any question you have for Greg David from the news organization THE CITY and the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Stay with us.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We're talking about the March job numbers that came out this morning. The news was pretty good. The going predictions had been for about 60,000 new jobs. The actual number is more than 170,000 jobs, so exceeding expectations. However, last month's decline in jobs, which was some of the context that people were looking to this month for, turned out to be even worse than originally reported for February, according to the revised numbers.

We're trying to out figure out what it all means, and also take into account the war, the tariffs, AI, and other things with Greg David, who contributes business and economics articles for the news organization THE CITY and directs the business and economic reporting program at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, and with you with your stories and questions at 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Call or text. Here's a text, Greg. "Do the jobs reports reflect the freelance and gig economy workers? It seems so many jobs are pushed out of companies to be shifted to gig workers."

Greg David: We get those through the household survey, and it affects the unemployment rate, so we do. No, to some extent. The job numbers, per se, reflect people who are employed at companies, yes.

Brian Lehrer: Another text says, "I've been, for 45 years, an independent, self-employed courier driver. I've never seen business this slow in 45 years. I cannot pay my bills." Do you know what sector of the economy that would actually reflect if there's a there, there?

Greg David: There is a there, there. I was talking to an economist. There's a big decline in that category in New York City in the revisions for 2025. It's something to watch and to see what's happening about. We couldn't figure out yesterday what exactly it meant, but it's definitely something to watch.

Brian Lehrer: What does that mean, "courier driver," as opposed to taxi driver or Uber driver?

Greg David: No, so there's an actual line in the employment report for messengers and couriers.

Brian Lehrer: Huh. Now, I mentioned the issue of college grads entering a really bad job market for entry-level, bachelor's degree-level jobs. How much encouragement do you think they can take from this jobs report that things might be easing up a little bit for today's college seniors?

Greg David: I don't think they should take any. As I write about in my story, for the first time in anyone's memory, the unemployment rate for college grads in New York City between the ages of 22 and 27 is virtually the same as for people in that age group who do not have college degrees. If you want to know the difference that that makes, during the pandemic, young people 22 to 27 without college degrees had a 25% unemployment rate. Those with college degrees has a 10% unemployment rate.

There's no doubt that college grads face the worst job market in a long time. The two reasons for this are some things that we've been discussing. One of which is companies are just in a no-hire situation because they don't know the future of the economy, and they're in a no-hire situation because they're all wondering how many people that they'll need because of AI. This particularly might affect consulting and all these jobs that college graduates go into. I'm not optimistic. We'd have to see something fundamentally change about the economic prospects.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, another person chimes in on the layoffs at Oracle, noting that these 30,000 laid-off employees, 18% of the company, says one text, only happened yesterday, so they would be reflected in next month's job numbers. Kylie in Northern Virginia on the prospect for graduates. Kylie, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Kylie: Hello. Good morning. I wanted to ask a question. Just about what I have seen as some inefficiencies. Last year, my niece graduated from a top 50 private college. I won't say the name of the college, but I was amazed when I was helping her look for jobs, how many entry-level openings, like coordinator positions, the actual university had. Not through the career services department, but just posted on their website.

I thought, "Isn't this weird?" This university just graduated a class of people with bachelor's degrees, and they're hiring a ton of people who need a bachelor's degree, but they're posting them on their public website. I thought that was really inefficient. I wonder if you've seen that. Is that the norm? How do we get underneath that? That seems like a really wasted opportunity for a university to be just listing random job postings when they just graduated a class of students.

Brian Lehrer: That's interesting. Greg, is there a legal requirement for that or something, or what are you thinking?

Greg David: Well, I know at CUNY, we wouldn't be able to just hire a graduate. We have to post the job publicly. If you're trying to diversify your workforce, you have to post the job publicly. You just can't give it to someone you know.

Brian Lehrer: Kylie, thank you for that question, though. Do you have a take on how much AI is replacing entry-level, white-collar jobs versus how much people are just anticipating that, but it isn't really happening much yet?

Greg David: I have no take on it, Brian, and I don't think anyone else does. There have been major reports here in New York City. The city comptroller did one. The New York Fed has done one. We don't actually know. I think the best take is that people are not hiring. An expectation that AI will make a difference, but it is so far not the cause of big layoffs. It is the cause of not hiring.

Brian Lehrer: How about AI and the New York economy specifically? We have lots of tech companies here, which I guess could either be creating jobs because they're developing AI tools or be losing jobs because AI is replacing workers. Any take on that?

Greg David: As I've written about in the past, New York has emerged as a very important AI center, just the way we did as a major important tech center. We've emerged for the same reason. We became such a great tech place. For the most part, we're not doing the original AI research. If you want to apply AI to an industry, you come here because that's where industries are. That's where the expertise is to do that. The other thing that's really important to note about AI is the really good part of the New York economy is that Wall Street is booming. Record profits, record bonuses, and, therefore, record income taxes for the city and the state. The stock market's gains are heavily, almost entirely, based on the expectations for AI and AI companies.

Brian Lehrer: Let's talk more about your reporting on New York City's 2025 jobs numbers. The city specifically, and for all of last year, not just last month, economists for the city and the state expected to see a gain of 40,000 jobs last year. Now, the revised numbers show the city lost about 20,000 jobs. What do you make of it?

Greg David: I make that the New York City economy, with the exception of Wall Street, is very fragile. The context, a word you've used before in this show, is that for the last two years, more than two-thirds of all the job gains in the city were in one category, health care. Unlike the rest of the country, the gains in health care in New York City were home healthcare aids paid for almost entirely by Medicaid tax dollars. The growth was exponential. The cost was exponential. Governor Kathy Hochul, last year, tried to crack down on it.

The reason that our job numbers are a lot worse than people expected is that the numbers for home healthcare workers have been revised sharply downward. That's good for the state budget, not so good for the New York City economy. It basically means that we have no sector in the economy that's growing rapidly. Therefore, what's happening in New York City is we're now heavily dependent on Wall Street, which the revision showed is that record employment levels, record profits, record bonuses, record tax payments. For the near future, as Wall Street goes, so goes New York.

Brian Lehrer: Is there a throughline between what's happening locally now and the tariffs and federal funding uncertainty that we're seeing under the second Trump administration, or would New York have had a rough 2025 regardless?

Greg David: No, I think you're exactly right. That's the throughline. Trump policies have paralyzed much of our economy outside Wall Street. I've been writing about the World Cup. It doesn't appear to be the bonanza everybody expects. Part of that is Trump policies. People are finding it very hard to come from abroad to New York. Canadians aren't coming to the US. That hasn't helped our tourism numbers. I think that's actually the throughline. There are a couple of other really specific things that are happening.

Our once thriving film and TV business is faltering badly. It's faltering all over the country because of consolidation. The overall tech numbers, despite the growth in AI, are practically stable. Not growing at the numbers we used to see. As you know, there's lots of consolidation in the media business. Retail has never made it back from the pandemic. Probably won't. Construction in New York City has not made it back to the levels of the pandemic. All these are problems.

Brian Lehrer: You also have a piece I see on New York's bond rating. Three of the four major agencies have put New York City on a negative outlook because they say Mayor Mamdani's budget proposal dips into reserves, but a negative outlook doesn't, at this point, mean an actual downgrade, right? People hear these headlines and maybe get alarmed. How alarmed should they be if we hear that Moody's or one of the others is downgrading New York's bond rating from A-something to A-something else or to B-something?

Greg David: I have another question for you, Brian. Does your credit score show whether you're a good parent or not?

Brian Lehrer: No.

Greg David: No, it doesn't. If you kept your credit score up and it didn't help your kids go to college, you wouldn't be a good parent. Well, that's the same thing about a bond rating. The bond rating coverage has been so terrible, especially in the New York Post. Let's say two things about it. The rating agencies are worried because the mayor is dipping into reserves at a time when the economy is not plunging. They're absolutely right about that. No one, underline, no one thinks it's good policy to dip into reserves.

That said, a downgrading will be insignificant for New York City. It will be insignificant. The numbers that the city council put out were completely ridiculous. If we are downgraded and if the interest rates the city had to pay on its bonds went up by a quarter, it would only affect the new issues that we have. I figured that amount at $12 million a year, if we issued $5 billion worth of bonds in a year. Beyond that, we're not going to see interest rate hike anywhere near that. That's because of two factors.

One, New York is an enormously diversified economy. Everyone thinks that we will repay our debts. We're such a big issuer in the marketplace that there's enormous demand for our bonds. Lastly, state and local bonds are attractive because you don't pay federal tax on the interest. If you buy New York City or New York State bonds, you don't pay interest on your state and local taxes. That means they are incredibly attractive to people in New York City with high-income tax brackets. No, the bond-rating decline is completely insignificant.

Brian Lehrer: That's really interesting. You threw another denominator question into that equation. If I heard your number right, even if they do force the city to raise interest rates on its bonds by a quarter of a point, which you don't expect, but even if they do, that would be $12 million extra per year in interest payments by the city government. I know that the city budget is about $110 billion, so $12 million on $110 billion is not much of an extra economic burden on the city. Am I describing that right?

Greg David: Yes, absolutely. It's not even the cost of a snowstorm.

Brian Lehrer: Darren in Weehawken, you're on WNYC with Greg David. Hi, Darren.

Darren: Hi, Brian. Hi, David. Thanks for taking my call. I'm a New York City tech worker. I work in software development. I strongly feel that my own job and the future of knowledge work in general is about to experience a sea change due to AI. The legal AI, especially, I think, is an interesting use case. I think there's going to be a huge disparity between elite knowledge workers like lawyers and then all the supporting staff.

There's a software project that's gaining popularity now called Paperclip that allows people to run companies with no human workers, all agents coordinating and taking the roles of client communications and prep, and all these other things. I'm worried about it, but I don't know what to do other than try to get ahead of it for what other edge I have at the moment.

Brian Lehrer: Greg?

Greg David: Well, obviously, people think software is the first place this might show up. Software companies' stocks are way down. People are worried about it. Look, this could happen, but we don't know that it will happen. I'll just quote Paul Krugman at this point on it. These fears have been going on for hundreds of years that technology would wipe out so many jobs that there wouldn't be any work.

They've never turned out to be true. All new technologies have actually led to higher employment. Different employment, but higher employment. Could it be different this time? Yes. Are people affected, displaced, and have to do new things? Yes, but we've never seen a technology wipe out employment to the extent that it changed the nature of people working. We will have to see.

Brian Lehrer: Last question, "I saw that S&P futures--" and by the way, I hope you're right. Everybody hopes you're right about that last answer, but we will see, as you say. "I saw that S&P futures were slightly down after these good job numbers came out this morning, possibly because the strong labor market argues against cutting interest rates. Does that make sense to you, that this jobs report makes more interest rate cuts less likely in the near future?"

Greg David: Yes, that's true, and that's what the traders are reacting to today. Now, look, the issue, though, is the job support isn't very important at the moment for what the Fed does. Inflation is, oil prices is. The Fed chairman says that the Fed doesn't have to act because of higher oil prices for the next few months, unless we're sure that they become permanent, not temporary. That's what the real issue is on that. The stock market these days is all about the war. If the war is going to continue, the stock market thinks that's terrible. If the war is going to end, the stock market think that's great. We are down 6% for the year, and that's the number to watch

Brian Lehrer: We will have to leave it there for now. Greg David, contributor on fiscal and economic issues for the news organization THE CITY, and director of the Business and Economics Reporting Program and the Ravitch Fiscal Reporting Program at the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. Thanks as always, Greg. Appreciate it.

Greg David: Thank you.

 

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