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VTA strike continues and a new recession indicator

KAZU | By Eduardo Gonzalez-Torres,
Scott Cohn, Amy Mayer
Published March 18, 2025 at 1:15 PM PDT
An model developed by economists Pascal Michaillat of UC Santa Cruz and Emmanuel Saez of UC Berkeley uses the unemployment rate and the job vacancy rate to plot the start of recessions. At the start of each recession, which is indicated in grey in the graph above, the lines converge as the downturn begins.
Pascal Michaillat, UC Santa Cruz, and Emmanuel Sanz, UC Berkeley
An model developed by economists Pascal Michaillat of UC Santa Cruz and Emmanuel Saez of UC Berkeley uses the unemployment rate and the job vacancy rate to plot the start of recessions. At the start of each recession, which is indicated in grey in the graph above, the lines converge as the downturn begins.

In today's newscast, the Valley Transportation Authority strike enters a second week a UC Santa Cruz economist explains his new method for determining recessions and why the tool says the country is already in one.
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Eduardo Gonzalez-Torres
Eduardo Gonzalez-Torres joined the KAZU newsroom in January 2025 as a student intern. He transferred to CSUMB in the fall of 2024 from Porterville College and is excited to embark on his journalism journey. Eduardo is contributing to daily news coverage and KAZU's social media. He loves music, watches at least one movie a week, is a soccer fan, and enjoys the moments he shares with family and friends.
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Scott Cohn
Scott Cohn is a nationally recognized journalist who has been based on the Central Coast since 2014. His work for KAZU is a return to his reporting roots. Scott began his career as a reporter and host for Wisconsin Public Radio. Contact him at scohn@kazu.org.
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Amy Mayer
Amy Mayer is an award-winning journalist with more than 25 years of experience in public radio. Before KAZU, she worked as an editor for the California Newsroom and at St. Louis Public Radio. For eight years, she covered agriculture as the Harvest Public Media reporter based at Iowa Public Radio. She's also worked at stations in Massachusetts and Alaska and has written for many newspapers, magazines and online news outlets.
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