Everyday Economics: Stable but weak under the surface

By Orphe Divounguy
The Center Square

The April jobs report looked fine. Payrolls rose, unemployment held at 4.3%, hours ticked up. Nothing broke. But look one layer down and the picture is different: the three-month average is just 48,000 jobs per month – just enough to keep the unemployment rate from rising. The labor force shrank. Involuntary part-time work jumped 445,000 – nearly half a million people who want full-time work and can’t get it. This cycle’s weakness isn’t appearing in the unemployment rate. It’s appearing in real wages, and underemployment. Those are harder to see in a headline, and easier to dismiss.

That pattern – stable on the surface, softer underneath – runs through everything this week.

Housing is not the mystery this week.

Zillow’s April housing market report already tells you what the NAR existing home sales release will approximate: the national market is moving sideways. Sales down 0.4% from a year ago. Active inventory up 3.7%. No recovery, but no collapse either.

Look past the national number and the cross-section tells a more useful story. In markets where supply improved and prices actually fell, buyers came back. In Austin, existing home sales are up 18% from a year ago. San Antonio up 10.4%. Raleigh 8.8%. Dallas 8%. Denver 7.3%. Every one of those markets posted year-over-year home value declines. The mechanism is consistent: inventory rises, prices adjust, transactions follow. The demand was always there – it was priced out. Where that changed, the market responded.

Most of the country hasn’t seen that adjustment. Prices remain sticky, sellers remain reluctant, and sales remain near the bottom. New construction keeps outperforming resale because builders can cut prices and offer incentives. Most existing homeowners won’t – or can’t.

The bigger question this week is inflation.

Two shocks are in play simultaneously: tariff pass-through into goods and services, and an oil price shock from the Middle East conflict. Tariffs don’t hit all at once – goods prices rise first, services inflation follows as businesses pass costs through. Add higher oil on top, and the next few months could look considerably worse than the underlying economy warrants.

Zillow projects OER inflation slowing to 2.39% and Rent of Primary Residence to 2.15% over 2026, driven by slower rent growth, more supply, and a weak job market. The underlying rental market is cooling. But this month’s Consumer Price Index may not show it.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics normally updates each rental unit in the CPI sample every six months. The October 2025 survey was cancelled entirely by the government shutdown – those values were carried forward from April 2025 instead. When those units update in April 2026, the CPI captures a full year’s worth of rent change compressed into one six-month window. Measured Operating Expense Ratio and Rent of Primary Residence could move sharply higher, not because rents accelerated but because the measurement caught up all at once. The surface will look hot. The underlying market won’t be.

Retail sales will close out the week, and the number to watch isn’t the headline.

Sales rising because prices are higher isn’t a stronger consumer – it’s the same basket of goods costing more. Real disposable income is no longer rising. Gasoline, food and insurance are taking an outsized share of household budgets. What spending remains looks increasingly supported by credit and savings drawdowns rather than income growth. Strong headline, weaker foundation.

That is the economy right now. The unemployment rate is low. Payrolls are positive. Sales are holding. Each of those statements is true – and each one flatters the picture. Underneath, job growth is barely replacement pace, household finances are thinning, and the next inflation print may overstate pressure that isn’t really there. Stable is not the same as strong. This economy is running on fumes that still look like fuel.