The quiet death of a fundamental economic principle

Goodbye, NAIRU. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

The New York Stock Exchange.
(Image credit: AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

Whatever happened to the NAIRU?

For all you non-wonks, that vowel-heavy acronym stands for the "non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment." The idea is basically that there's a "natural rate" for unemployment, and if policy "unnaturally" pushes joblessness below that NAIRU threshold, we'll pay the price with an ever-rising inflation rate.

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Jeff Spross

Jeff Spross was the economics and business correspondent at TheWeek.com. He was previously a reporter at ThinkProgress.