
Here's what she's watching right now, and what that means for your money.
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Stassi Schroeder
I am your host, Stassi Schroeder. Welcome to Tell Me Lies, the Official podcast. What's the most unhinged thing of season three?
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Steven because he's so evil, I do
Claudia Sahm
think he is misunderstood. You see everyone face consequences. It's intoxicating.
Stassi Schroeder
The writers just know how to trick. Yeah, there's always a twist in this show. Tell Me Lies the official podcast January 6th and stream the new season of Tell Me Lies January 13th on Hulu and Hulu on Disney.
Claudia Sahm
You think about going to the grocery store and getting your week's worth of groceries for many things, you know, the diesel is what transports it to the grocery store. A lot of our packaging has energy products in them and so these are smaller costs, right? It's not the bulk of the good or service we're buying, but if energy prices go up enough and they stay at that high level long enough to, businesses will have no choice but to pass that cost on to consumers. So it won't be as rapid, it won't be as pronounced as where we see it in the prices at the pump, but it can add up.
Jean Chatzky
Hey everyone, welcome to Her Money. I am Jean Chatsky and we decided we were going to drop this episode quickly because the economic news this week has been moving fast. And I know many of you are watching it and you're wondering, what does this mean for me? My life, my money, my future? So here's where we are right now. Oil prices have surged past $100 a barrel for the first time since 2022, driven by the US Israel war with Iran. The Strait of Hormuz, which carries roughly a feature fifth of the world's oil and seaborne gas, has been all but closed for over a week. Three more vessels were struck by unknown projectiles there just this morning. We're recording this on Wednesday, March 11. Stock markets in the US, UK and Europe are falling sharply and the word recession is creeping back into the conversation. And if you're feeling anxious after all of that, I get it. Which is exactly why I wanted to bring in one of the clearest most trustworthy voices in economics today. My guest today is Claudia Sahm, former Fed section chief, senior economist under President Obama and creator of the SAHM rule, which is a recession indicator that has been 100% accurate going all the way back to 1959. She also writes the Sub Stack Newsletter SAM rules, and in this case, SOM stands for Stay at Home Macro. It has over 40,000 subscribers, including me. Claudia, thank you so much for being here.
Claudia Sahm
Great. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
Jean Chatzky
Let's set the scene. Three ships hit near the Strait of Hormuz just this morning. Iran laying mines in the waterway. The Revolutionary Guard has warned that oil could hit $200 a barrel if strikes continue. The US has no dedicated minesweepers left in the Persian Gulf. They were decommissioned last September. How serious is this conflict and how long do you believe it will last?
Claudia Sahm
So the conflict is serious. I mean, we're in the very early days of this and it is impossible for me or anyone else to know where this is headed in terms of does the conflict get worse? Does the Strait of Hormuz open up or does it stay closed for a very long time? Like there, there's just so many unanswered questions. And I, you know, I completely understand if people are feeling anxious. It's part of my job to stay level headed. But you know, I, I get anxious too. Like this is very serious and yet it's important to kind of think through the scenarios, make some plans for it. I'm not on recession watch at this moment. I think there's still a lot of strength in the US Economy. But I am concerned. This is another what economists often has shock. This is another bad event. And frankly, we've had to buffer quite a bit in the last year with big policy changes, whether it's tariffs or reductions in immigration, a lot of uncertainty. And the US Economy really pushed through that largely last year pretty well. Not everybody, but I mean largely pretty well. And so now we're facing another big event, potentially a very big event. And just kind of thinking through where this could go.
Jean Chatzky
We're going to take a very quick break.
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Jean Chatzky
back when it comes to oil prices. One thing I think we understand is that it's not just the gas in our tank. There is a big trickle down effect. Everything from gas prices in our cars to flights on airlines to grocery bills to retirement accounts. We're seeing this hit gas prices first. That's to be expected. But can you explain the trickle and what's likely to happen in various stages of the things that we spend money on?
Claudia Sahm
Right. And what I'll say is what becomes so important in this discussion is how long does this last? Right. Like that. That's really important, particularly for this trickle piece. So see gas prices respond very quickly. We've already seen gas Prices rise over 50 cents like national average, and they're still rising. We've seen diesel prices which are really important for like transportation in the country. Those have risen notably. And yet as you said, energy fits into a lot of the goods and services that we buy. You think about going to the grocery store and getting your week's worth of groceries for many things, you know, it's the diesel is what transports it to the grocery store. A lot of our packaging has energy products in them and so these are smaller costs. Right? It's not the bulk of the good or service we're buying. But if energy prices go up enough and they stay at that high level long enough, businesses will have no choice but to pass that cost on to consumers. So it won't be as rapid, it won't be as pronounced as where we see it in the prices at the pump, but it can add up. Now, I will say as a, you know, kind of set things in context for. For anyone listening who remembers the 1970s and the oil embargoes and the price shocks the US economy, we are so much more energy efficient than we were back then. So the exact same rise in energy prices will do less damage in the economy now in terms of higher prices than it did then. It's not to sugarcoat like these are prices, they'll show up. Energy costs show up in a lot of different places. But it's important to kind of keep the context. We're not in the 1970s anymore. We have made some progress there.
Jean Chatzky
Well, and not just progress in energy efficiency. Correct. But progress in the fact that we're not as reliant for our oil on a single source.
Claudia Sahm
Right. We, the United States now is a net producer of oil. So we produce more oil as a country than we use as a country. And that means that what consumers will face are higher prices. Because even though we produce more oil, oil is still traded on a global market. The price is determined globally. Right. So, and global supply right now is. Has really been brought in by the fact that oil can't move through the Strait of Hormuz. Right. This is 20% of global oil moves through that small geographic area, and it's not moving right now. So that's a big hole. When you have less supply of something, the adjustment then ends up, the prices go up. And we've already seen some of that so far. So in the US Consumers, even though we produce a lot of oil, they're going to face higher prices at the pump, higher prices for any kind of energy product. What we should be largely spared from would be shortages. That was something in the 1970s. There was rationing of gas. There wasn't enough. That is not something we are likely to experience in the United States. There are other countries who could be facing that right now, where some Asian countries that are very dependent on their oil supply from the Middle east, they're already starting to work from home so many days trying to conserve energy because they could actually end up with shortages. That's not something that we should see in the United States.
Jean Chatzky
Yeah, I remember those I mean, I was a youngish teenager in the late 1970s, and I remember waiting in some of those lines. And as you said, we've seen prices in parts of asia already spike 50% since this began. So they're feeling it more than we are. The G7 is preparing to release emergency oil reserves up to 300 to 400 million barrels. That's the largest release in history. Can you explain oil reserves and what this move means and whether it actually will bring prices down?
Claudia Sahm
The fact that the United States, many other countries, hold some type of oil reserve, I mean, it very much stems back in large part to experiences like in the 1970s where there were shortages. I mean, oil is so important in so many ways in economies that having a reserve, which is exactly what it sounds like, just having some extra oil, that is the government purchases, it's held in storage. And then at times where there is a global shortage of oil, prices have gone up. That's an opportunity to open up in the United States called the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. And in fact, that was something that President Biden. There were some of the reserves were opened up in 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine and gas prices went very high. And again, lots of countries have these of reserves of oil. The announcement today that several countries under the kind of organization of the International Energy Agency, they'll be doing this large opening of the reserves now that 400 billion barrels, that's not going to come all at once. And I mean, frankly, just the physical nature of getting oil out of reserve, like it happens much more slowly. I think what we should see it as a buffer. This is not a solution. This doesn't plug the hole. We're losing about 20 billion barrels a day, every day the Strait of Hormuz is closed. So this buys us a little bit of time, right? And give some buffers, so it should help with the prices. A lot of that had already kind of been baked into the oil prices. So we didn't see a lot of movement when the announcement came. But I think the main thing that we should take from this, this is a very serious situation. The coordinated 400 billion barrels, that's the largest ever. I mean, that really tells you something about what this moment is and how countries are trying to work together to ensure that Iran and its actions to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed, that they don't succeed with this. Right? That this doesn't cause global pain. It's not a solution, but it is a buffer. And it's very important to see this happening right?
Jean Chatzky
And you can mark the seriousness of it because this has really only happened five times in our collective history. So it tells us that this is a significant situation. We mentioned the sum indicator at the
HerMoney Sponsor/Host Voice
top of the show.
Jean Chatzky
We're going to take a very quick break, but when we come back, I want to talk about what it is and even if it's not flashing red right now, how we should be looking at it. So don't go anywhere.
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Jean Chatzky
We are back with Claudia Sahm, economist, creator of the SAHM Rule. So I gotta ask because I know that a lot of people have heard that term in the news over the last couple of years. Some people may not know what it is and you know you've got your name on it. So tell us about the genesis of the SAHM Rule and what it does. And it's strange but really interesting accuracy.
Claudia Sahm
So the genesis of the SAHM Rule goes back to I started at the Federal Reserve in the summer of 2007. So right before the Great Recession, I was focused on consumer spending households, and I saw how damaging the Great Recession was. It was a very slow recovery. It hurt a lot of families and it was really bad for workers, particularly people starting their careers in the Great Recession. So I had an opportunity in 2019 to work on a policy volume of how to fight the next recession. And it was all about taking fiscal policies that we often use in recessions like stimulus checks, extra jobless benefits, you know, the variety of tools that are used and finding a way to put them on autopilot, have Congress agree ahead of time under certain conditions, we're going to start the programs, they're well designed. Here we go. Turn them on. When's the right time to turn it off? And so as part of that project, I needed to develop a. Well, how would you do this? It was a very practical, hands on. So what is now known as the SOM role was very much the supporting actress in my story was really about doing stimulus checks, get them out quickly. But I needed to have a way to indicate a recession is here, it's time, let's get going. And so what I did is looked at the unemployment rate and not the level of the unemployment rate looked at changes because there's an understanding that the unemployment rate, it really captures a lot about the US economy. It's also why we hate recessions and why we fight them. And this is very damaging to workers, but is true in the past is it's those increases in the unemployment rate. Even small increases can be bad news. So I spent a lot of time, kind of fiddled around, found a formula that, you know, worked really well historically. It's not totally perfect, but it does a really good job. So what it is specifically take the three month average of the national unemployment rate. You don't want to get psyched out by bumps and wiggles in monthly data. So three month average, look at the most recent value, compare it to the lowest value over the prior 12 months. If you've got an increase of a half a percentage point or more, we're likely in a recession. So it's not a forecast. It's supposed to be an indication of we're in the early months. And again, it has been in the past, very accurate. It actually triggered in 2024. At that time there was no recession. I could tell at that time when it triggered, I was like, SOM rule says recession, SOM says no recession.
HerMoney Sponsor/Host Voice
Right?
Claudia Sahm
Like the economy was still growing, employment was still growing. But in fact we've seen the unemployment rate continue to rise. It's been very gradual. It's very unusual that we've seen as big of an increase as we've seen without a recession over the past two and a half years. But I mean, hey, I'll take it, we're not in a recession. But I still think that it is an incredibly important indicator to look at in the labor market in general to see if the unemployment rate is rising. And it can come from hiring being very low. It's not just about layoffs. Right. But those will come too. So right now the unemployment rate's risen. I do have my concerns about the labor market, but we're not in a recessionary place at this point.
Jean Chatzky
It seems to me recessions are funny that sometimes we don't know we're in them until we're almost out of them.
HerMoney Sponsor/Host Voice
Right.
Jean Chatzky
They're lagging indicators. But this particular rule seems to give us a sense of where we might be in the moment. Is that what makes it so useful?
Claudia Sahm
I think that is part of its usefulness. The official dates of a recession has started or it's. And those come much later because it takes time to get all the data together. And particularly when the economy is going through a sharp change like a recession, those data released, like the GDP and like they tend to get revised. Like it's very hard to kind of keep up when the economy is changing rapidly. The unemployment rate is. It really summarizes a lot about the labor market. And also it's the fact the US we're a consumer led economy and for most consumers their paychecks are so critical to their spending. So it kind of, it works for the US like other economies. This isn't the best probably way to think about recession indicators, but it is a good measure for the U.S. it's very timely. It's very easy to understand why this would be a problem. But I will say I developed the SOHM rule as part of this policy idea, something that could be written into legislation. So it needed to be simple. In the work that I do, when I make an assessment of are we in a recession? I go and get every piece of information I have and try and put all the puzzle together. So like you, we don't want to tie our hand behind our back and just use one indicator. But I do think it's a very helpful starting point before we move off
Jean Chatzky
the data and talk a little bit more about the labor market. There was a, a big kerfuffle at the Bureau of Labor Statistics earlier this year and some concern that we would not be able to trust the government data as much as we have in the past.
HerMoney Sponsor/Host Voice
Are we beyond that or do you
Jean Chatzky
still worry about the accuracy of the numbers coming out?
Claudia Sahm
So unfortunately it is a concern to have though at this point I have seen no Evidence, and frankly, people are looking for. There's no evidence that there's been a manipulation of the numbers. Like, so the politics is saying, write this number down. And that's what we're publishing. The statistics that we use, like the unemployment rate, the cpi, these come from career civil servants. I mean, this is their life, right? And there's really well established methods. There's a lot of safeguards behind those numbers. And so at this point, no signs of political manipulation. One can be worried. President Trump last year fired the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because he didn't like a set of numbers. You know, and that, that's definitely a worrisome science. That's why we're watching for any political manipulation. My biggest concern right now with the data is we're underinvesting in it. There's been really large staffing cuts at statistical agencies, as with a lot of the federal government. So they don't have the people. They're. They've had to cut some of the size of some of the surveys that go into our indicators. So I'm worried that the quality of the data is degrading. It's still high quality data. I still use it, but I worry that it's getting noisier, particularly like month to month. So not manipulation, but neglect is what we're seeing.
Jean Chatzky
Back to the labor market. You've described it as being in a low, higher, low fire environment. What does that mean practically for somebody who might be employed right now but not happy, or somebody who might be looking for work?
Claudia Sahm
So we have a very divided labor market right now. So if you are coming into the labor market looking for a job, or as you said, if you have a job but you don't like your job or you're trying to get ahead, I mean, usually our career ladders would be switching jobs, right? That's how you get to the next step. So if you're in those positions, this is really hard. It's not. When I look at particularly say people coming out of high school or college, I wouldn't call this quite graduating into a recession, but it's not far from it. It's really a tough labor market. On the other hand, if you have a job and you like your job, this is a really good labor market. The rate of layoffs is very low. So is the rate of hiring. So it is very divided labor market. I also have some concerns that it's not a very dynamic labor market. We're not having people come in. Well, people aren't getting into Jobs or at a much lower rate. And people aren't moving around. Like those career ladders are important. You know, you gotta like kind of move around to find a good match between the worker and the employer. Like it takes some time. And that's not happening right now. Even two or three years ago, we were doing a lot of moving people around, getting to better jobs. You saw low wage workers getting wage increase. I mean, like we had a very, very dynamic labor market. Maybe a little too, too dynamic. It was, you know, we had labor shortages. That was a problem. But now it's just a very slow, not moving people around. Wage growth has slowed. And also in the context of what's happening with energy prices and war and Middle east, we don't have as resilient of a labor market as we had, say in 2022 when energy prices spiked the last time. Because while we have this low hire, low fire environment, which is largely okay, the unemployment rate's 4.4%. This is a okay labor market. It's vulnerable because if something were to happen, a bad event, a shock that pushes up the rate of layoffs, like if businesses really got to a place where they needed to let people go to deal with the cost, deal with the uncertainty, we already have a really low hiring rate. And so then you can see the unemployment rate, which has been gradually drifting up, move up really fast. And that's the piece I'm very uncomfortable with. The hiring rate, as low as it is, it's just not a comfortable place for us to be because we're vulnerable.
Jean Chatzky
Understand? Let's talk about the Fed. You spent over a decade there. You've expressed concern about what happens to its independence under political pressure. There's been a lot of that. We've got a new Fed chair already been named. Talk a little bit about the concept of Fed independence and why it's important.
Claudia Sahm
So first of all, Fed independence is not about the Fed, it's about all of us.
HerMoney Sponsor/Host Voice
Right.
Claudia Sahm
It's just the idea of like who should be making the decisions about interest rates. And what we have found in the United States and around the world is that the people are better off, the economy is better off. If you have a group of what are called technocrats, so experts, but not politicians.
HerMoney Sponsor/Host Voice
Right.
Claudia Sahm
If politicians are making decisions about short term interest rates, they, they tend to put interest rates lower, get the economy going, maybe especially in election years, like let growth pick up. But what often happens is then it's like the sugar high and then afterwards you end up with inflation. That's Too high could be financial instabilities and to get inflation back under control, sometimes that ends up requiring a recession or like you have an even bigger mess. That's been the pattern. So this view of central banks like the Federal Reserve, where those day to day decisions about interest rates or with the technocrats, that's just been the best approach. It's not perfect. There are certainly some issues about having a group of unelected individuals making decisions that are really important for Americans lives. They do, you know, report to Congress, Congress created the Fed, Congress can take the Fed away. You know, like the Federal Reserve act has changed over time. So there, there are ways of accountability, but this is the system that has the best track record. And so seeing that under threat as it's been in the past year makes, I think it should make us all
HerMoney Sponsor/Host Voice
pretty, pretty concerned as we wrap this up.
Jean Chatzky
You've said you don't think that a recession is upon us. You're not flashing, not flashing recession. And yet you've written recently that you just don't have a good feeling about this economy, the state of this economy. So putting the whole picture together and taking a look at it, what's your advice for individuals, consumers, investors, workers who are just trying to attain a comfortable standard of living and get from wherever they happen to be to a sustainable retirement?
Claudia Sahm
Right. So I think for people kind of in general having an extra bit of caution at a moment like this. Like we know that many Americans are kind of on average there's a larger tax refund coming their way. Not for everybody, but you know, the policy did change and there were gonna be some larger refunds. This might be a good time to set that aside, not increase your spending cause you got this bigger refund. Find ways to create a bit of buffer. I mean it's just like that, opening up the reserves of the oil, like that's about creating some buffer like in the time where the shocks to energy prices are happening. So I think just as how we can find some ways to buff terms of savings, it certainly is the case. And I spent a lot of time recently talking with college students who are getting ready to graduate soon. And how do you navigate a labor market that is this tough? And it's like you just, you gotta cast a really wide net, you gotta be open minded about that first job and just understand it's not you. Right. Like this is tough, but we push through things and we are resilient people. It was resilient economy. Being clear eyed about the challenges and trying our best to kind of navigate through them. I think that's the best advice. Panic is not going to help anybody, even if things get much worse. Like we gotta keep pushing ahead.
Jean Chatzky
Claudia Sahm the substack is Sam Rule thank you so much for this. Is there besides your substack any place
HerMoney Sponsor/Host Voice
you'd like us to go to find
Jean Chatzky
more of your work?
Claudia Sahm
So my substack is a great place. I also write occasionally at Bloomberg Opinion. That's another place to find my work.
HerMoney Sponsor/Host Voice
Amazing.
Jean Chatzky
We appreciate your time and your ideas. Thank you so much.
Claudia Sahm
Thank you.
HerMoney Sponsor/Host Voice
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Air Date: March 12, 2026
Guest: Claudia Sahm, Economist and creator of the “SAHM Rule” recession indicator
In this episode, Jean Chatzky hosts economist Claudia Sahm to address rising fears of a recession following a sharp surge in oil prices due to geopolitical conflict in the Middle East. Sahm, creator of the highly-cited SAHM Rule recession indicator, offers context, explains economic risks, shares insights on the labor market, and delivers practical financial advice for individuals navigating uncertain times.
On Uncertainty:
On the SAHM Rule’s real-time value:
Oil Reserve Releases as a Signal:
Labor Market Divides:
Financial Resilience:
Tone and Approach:
Sahm combines calm expertise with compassion and realism. Chatzky ensures the discussion is approachable and relatable, particularly for women seeking actionable advice in turbulent times.