Key takeaways:

• The unemployment rates for young college graduates and young noncollege workers have risen slightly faster than the overall unemployment rate.
• But the rise in young college graduate unemployment in particular was mostly due to higher labor force participation: The employment-to-population ratio for young college graduates has held steady since 2024.
• Certain demographic groups, such as Black and Hispanic workers, face higher unemployment and lower hourly wages, even for young people with limited work experience.
• In the long run, the college degree is losing its edge: Unemployment for young college graduates has risen in historical terms, and the college wage premium has been flat or falling in recent years.

Over the last couple of years, the overall labor market has slowly weakened—with many arguing that the weakening is most pronounced for young college graduates (whom we define as young workers ages 22–27 with only a college degree).1 The evidence is actually pretty mixed—by some measures the young college graduate labor market is notably weaker, but their outcomes are largely no worse than those of noncollege young people or the labor market writ large.

In this first blog post of our series on young college graduates, we examine the labor market the college graduates of the Class of 2026 are entering. We look at unemployment rates and employment-to-population (EPOP) ratios for young workers with and without a college degree and examine wages for young college graduates by demographic characteristics. We also explore longer-term trends in unemployment driven by rising educational attainment, as well as changes in the college wage premium—the pay advantage college graduates earn over their high school graduate peers. In the next post, we will analyze trends in the industries and occupations young college graduates tend to work in, and take a closer look at the tech sector and any fingerprints of AI on labor market outcomes.

Unemployment on the rise for young college graduates—but mostly because of higher labor force participation

Over the last couple of years, the labor market has shown some signs of weakening, though some often reported measures are overstating it. For example, payroll employment growth has slowed significantly, but this is largely driven by much slower population growth over the past year and a half as net immigration has collapsed. The unemployment rate has slowly increased, though the share of the prime-age population—those 25 to 54 years old—with a job has remained high. Of most concern is the hires rate—the number of hires as a share of total employment—which has been steadily falling over the last three years. The hires rate is now at the same levels seen in 2013 and 2014, a period during the prolonged recovery from the Great Recession that saw unemployment rates 3.0 percentage points higher than they are today. Focusing just on unemployment rates, the softening of the overall labor market appears to be hitting young college graduates more acutely.

Figure A shows the overall unemployment rate, as well as the unemployment rate for young college graduates and young workers without a four-year college degree. Since 2023, the overall unemployment rate has risen from 3.6% to 4.3%, a slow and measured increase of 0.7 percentage points. The unemployment rate for young college graduates has increased from a low of 4.0% in July 2023 to its recent high of 5.3% in March 2026, a faster increase of 1.3 percentage points. Young workers without a college degree also experienced a rise in unemployment, though their rise began a little later than the other groups. Their unemployment rate has risen by 1.2 percentage points since March 2024, up from 5.9% to 7.1% by March 2026.

Figure A

Some have pointed to this disproportionate rise in young college graduates’ unemployment rates as evidence that AI is beginning to substitute for the white-collar jobs young graduates typically enter. But this conclusion is premature for several reasons. First, while the rise in the unemployment rate in the most recent period is faster for college graduates than for all workers, the same is true for other young workers without a college degree (see Figure A). This suggests that there isn’t anything particularly damaging to young college graduates happening today, such as AI specifically destroying their labor market prospects.

Further, the increase in the unemployment rate for young college graduates over the last two years appears to be driven by an increase in labor force participation rather than a declining probability of having a job. The EPOP for young college grads has held steady over the last two years as the unemployment rate rose. Nearly all (98%) of the increase in the unemployment rate between 2024 and 2026 for young college graduates was driven by the increase in the labor force—meaning more young workers are entering the labor market in search of opportunities as opposed to giving up and leaving the labor force or never entering it at all. This would actually fit a historic pattern in which labor force participation rates tend to respond with a surprisingly long lag to labor market developments. The historically strong labor markets of the early 2020s likely are still pushing up the labor force participation rates of young college graduates today.

When we look at EPOPs since 2019, shown in Figure B, we see that young workers, college and noncollege alike, fall in line with the overall trend. Not surprisingly, given the industries and occupations hit the hardest, young noncollege workers fared the worst in the pandemic recession, but now are faring similarly to their college-educated counterparts. Prime-age EPOPs have remained the most resilient through this business cycle.

Figure B

Data from the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey provide useful insights into job openings, hires, quits, layoffs, and other separations, but they are not broken down by demographic, limiting our ability to analyze young workers. However, the depressed hires rate suggests that it is more difficult for new entrants to get a foothold in the labor market. The quits rate is down, signaling a reduction in the overall churn in the labor market as workers and employers sit tight through this period of economic uncertainty—likely related to chaotic policy decisions and implementation around tariffs, deportations, and the conflict with Iran. If the layoffs rate ticks up now, the unemployment rate is likely to spike quickly and could spell even more trouble for young people who tend to experience larger swings in unemployment with the business cycle.

Finally, there is no evidence that young college graduates are sheltering in school—i.e., going on to graduate school—to weather out the weakened labor market. In fact, enrollment rates among young college graduates have been falling slightly over the last couple of years, from 19.1% in 2024 and 18.8% in 2025 to 18.5% in 2026. Even though opportunities in the labor market are weaker, it’s perhaps not surprising that enrollment rates are on the decline. The Trump administration’s attacks on higher education have reduced available funding at colleges and the ending of student loan forgiveness and caps on borrowing make it increasingly difficult for students to make those educational investments.

Wages remain unequal across demographic groups

Real (inflation-adjusted) median wages of young college graduates rose slightly over the last year, up just 0.4% since 2025, consistent with the slowdown in wage growth for workers overall. Since 2019, young college graduate wages have grown 7.4% after adjusting for inflation.

Despite this positive wage growth, racial and gender wage gaps remain large even among young college graduates who are just starting their careers. Figure C shows that women are paid $4.18 less per hour than their male counterparts. At 85.9% of men’s pay, a young woman working full time with a college degree is paid $8,700 less over the year.

Young Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) college graduates are paid more than white, Hispanic, or Black workers. The demographic categories shown in Figure C are mutually exclusive: AAPI, white, and Black workers are non-Hispanic, while Hispanic workers can be of any race. Young white college graduates are paid $2.76 per hour less than their AAPI counterparts, while Black and Hispanic workers are paid $5.36 and $5.05 less, respectively. For a full-time worker, this translates into more than $10,000 in lower earnings over the year for Black and Hispanic workers. Not only are wages lower for these historically disadvantaged groups, but the unemployment rates of young Black college grads in particular are also higher. Therefore, their ability to secure employment at all—at any wage—is diminished.

Figure C Young college grads are competing against a wider labor force that is more educated 

As educational attainment has risen across the broader workforce, the advantage that young college graduates once enjoyed relative to the rest of the labor force in terms of lower unemployment and higher wages has steadily declined.

The young college graduate unemployment rate recently surpassed the overall unemployment rate, meaning a greater share of young college graduates are now out of work than workers writ large. The erosion of the unemployment advantage for young college grads, however, isn’t a sudden shift; as shown in Figure A, the trend has been building since 1979, when young college graduates had an unemployment rate of 4.0%, 1.9 percentage points below the national average. Over the following four decades, that advantage eroded. By February 2020, young college graduates had an unemployment rate of 3.8%, 0.2 percentage points above the overall rate, a slow but complete reversal of the historic edge. In recent years, the historic trend has continued—now the young college graduate unemployment rate is a full 1.0 percentage point above the overall. And the young college graduate unemployment rate is at historically high absolute levels today, currently sitting higher than it was during the worst of the 1990 and 2001 recessions.

The shift is not explained by young college graduates faring worse relative to their noncollege peers, as that gap has held relatively stable at around 2.0 percentage points. Instead, as the educational attainment of the overall workforce increased, young college graduates became less advantaged compared to the overall labor force. Further, as a greater share of young adults now attend college and are likely from a wider range of socioeconomic backgrounds, a college degree for somebody in their early 20s today is likely a less reliable marker of general economic privilege than it used to be.

Figure D displays educational attainment over time for young workers and all workers. From 1980 to 2026, the share of the workforce with a bachelor’s degree increased from 12.5% to 26.1%, more than doubling as a share of total employment. The overall level of college attainment for young adults rose from 18.0% in 1979 to 31.6% in 2026. If we include those with bachelor’s and/or an advanced degree in the overall workforce, the increase in educational attainment is even more stark, rising from 18.4% to 41.9%.

Figure D

The democratization of college degrees carries some clear upsides for productivity and the overall health of the U.S. economy. A more diverse set of people have accessed higher education and benefited from the advantages of being a degree holder in recent decades. This rise in college attainment has obviously not been costless, as many of these degrees could only be obtained by taking on large amounts of student debt, which may well provide some constraints on labor market opportunities and options for young adults.

Young college graduates used to be more male, white, and likely to come from higher-income families—all characteristics rewarded (fairly or not) in labor markets. This growing diversity of college graduates may well mean that young grads are less likely to exit (or not enter) the labor force when job prospects are bad. In prior decades, it is possible that young college graduates were more likely to have resources to fall back on during periods of unemployment, and they clearly had less student loan debt. Now, with fewer fallback options and greater debt levels, the cost of being jobless may weigh more heavily on this group, leading people to continue actively searching for work instead of staying out of the labor force even when jobs are scarce, driving the unemployment rate higher.

The long-term rise in educational attainment may also have helped squeeze the wage advantage college graduates hold over those with just a high school degree. Some of the same reasons discussed above—the college-educated population becoming more economically diverse and more workers attaining advanced degrees—may also have eroded the measured earnings edge that once came with just a bachelor’s degree.

A useful way to measure this is the college wage premium. The college wage premium is the percentage boost in wages associated with holding a college degree, after controlling for demographic factors like race, gender, age, and geography. As Figure E shows, this premium peaked around 2015 and has declined slowly since. Today, the overall college wage premium stands at 55.2%, roughly where it was in the late 1990s. For younger workers ages 22–27, the premium is slightly lower, but follows the same pattern, also peaking around 2015 before flattening or trending downward.

Figure E

The labor market is weakening and young workers’ prospects seem worse-off than they did just a couple of years ago. But young college graduates are facing a weakened labor market only slightly worse than that experienced by other workers. Their unemployment rate has risen faster, though similarly to noncollege young workers, while their employment-to-population ratio has remained generally strong. A depressed hires rate may make it even harder for these young workers to get a foothold in the labor market. Much of these short-term trends of higher and rising unemployment are the continuation of a decades-long trend of worsening outcomes as the overall population increases their educational attainment.

1. Throughout this brief, we define young college graduates as people between the ages of 22 and 27 with only a college degree. Unlike similar analyses of young workers, We do not exclude young college graduates that are currently enrolled in school, but the results here are robust either way. Unless otherwise noted, data for 2026 represent a 12-month average from April 2025 through March 2026 for the most up to date and reliable estimates, which removes seasonality and increases sample sizes. Analysis for smaller demographic groups uses a 36-month average to improve reliability.

The Canadian Press reports senior Quebec pension plan executives paid over $17M in remuneration and compensation:

The six most senior executives at the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec received a total of $17.15 million in total remuneration and other compensation payments in 2025.

This information is contained in the annual report of the “Quebecers’ nest egg,” published on Wednesday.

Chairman and CEO Charles Emond was awarded total remuneration of $5.1 million, compared with $4.9 million in 2024, representing an increase of approximately one per cent.

The remuneration and other terms of employment of the president and CEO are determined in accordance with parameters set by the government, following consultation with the board of directors.

The annual base salary of Michael Sabia’s successor was maintained at $550,000 in 2025.

Emond also received annual variable remuneration of $4.5 million, as well as $23,799 in pension plan contributions paid by La Caisse and other benefits totalling $54,906.

In a news release, La Caisse highlights that, “under Mr. Emond’s leadership, La Caisse delivered a return of 9.3 per cent over one year, with a level of risk tailored to depositors’ needs, thereby helping to maintain the excellent financial health of their schemes, even in an environment marked by uncertainty and profound changes.”

It adds that Emond “achieved his ambition of $100 billion in Quebec assets ahead of schedule” and “ensured, through his effective handling of complex situations that arose, the progress of key projects.”

She cites, in particular, the opening of the REM’s Deux-Montagnes branch, the start of planning work for TramCité, and Alto’s selection of the Cadence consortium to build the high-speed rail link between Quebec City and Toronto. 

Earlier today, La Caisse released its 2025 Annual Report: 

La Caisse today presented its Annual Report for the year ended December 31, 2025.

In addition to the financial results published on February 25, La Caisse presents an overview of its activities over the last year. The report includes:

• A presentation of La Caisse’s 48 depositors and their respective net assets as at December 31, 2025
• A detailed analysis of the overall return and different asset classes
• A risk management report
• An overview of La Caisse’s presence in Québec, where its assets reached the historic milestone of $100 billion, one year ahead of schedule, including highlights of La Caisse’s key achievements in supporting company growth and implementing structuring projects that contribute to economic development
• A section on governance, including reports from the Board of Directors and its committees covering audit, governance and ethics, investment and risk management, human resources management and compensation, as well as compliance activities
• The Sustainable Development Report, highlighting the new climate strategy adopted in 2025, which aims to accelerate the decarbonization of the real economy
• The financial report and consolidated financial statements
• The Report on Global Investment Performance Standards (GIPS) Compliance

The Annual Report Additional Information for the year ended December 31, 2025, was also published today.

But instead of focusing on that, Quebec's media is in an uproar that Charles Emond's total compensation reached $5.1 million and senior executive compensation surpassed $17 million:

Basically, all the articles are questioning why so much compensation was doled out when La Caisse underperformed its benchmark in 2025.

Alright, let me give you my quick thoughts here.

Whenever you look at compensation, look at 5-year returns rather than one-year because that's what it's primarily based on.

From table 21 on page 44 of the annual report:

As you can see, La Caisse underperformed its benchmark last year (9.3% vs 10.9%), mostly owing to the underperformance in private equity. 

I covered the results already in late February with the Head of Liquid Markets, Vincent Delisle (see my comment here).

Notice on the table above, over the last 5 years, La Caisse delivered an annualized return of 6.5% vs 6.2% for its benchmark.

And that's what primarily determines compensation.

Over a 10-year period, La Caisse delivered 7.2% annualized vs 6.9% for their benchmark.

The report on compensation starts on page 80 of the annual report and it goes into detail how they benchmark compensation relative to peers and determine it. 

Below, you can see the table outlining executive compensation on page 89:

I have no issue with the compensation that was doled out to Charles Emond and other senior executives (and that includes the $2.2 million severance doled out to Marc Cormier, former SVP, Fixed Income).

Again, look at asset class performance over the last 5 years and see how they get compensated relative to peers.

By the way, despite having the best performance among Maple Eight funds last year, Charles Emond and company received less total compensation than their peers in Toronto.

I'm not going to get into details here, you will have to wait this fall for the 2026 Pension Pulse Compensation Report, but suffice it to say that all the senior execs at Canada's Maple Eight received millions in compensation despite underperforming their benchmark last calendar and fiscal year. 

I've said it before, these people are paid extremely well and they all know it.

It's a great gig if you can land a senior exec job at one of Canada's large pension funds (politics plays a big role in landing these jobs).

Of course, they all have to deliver on long-term targets and in La Caisse's case, its dual mandate adds more challenges to the mix.

Moreover, Charles Emond is constantly in the spotlight; he has to appear in media to explain their activities and that adds extra pressure.

Don't get me wrong, he gets paid $5M total compensation to do this job, I'm not crying for him, I'm just stating that being the CEO of La Caisse isn't as glamorous or fun as you think.

Charles Emond and his senior execs are doing an outstanding job, not perfect, but they're delivering on key targets, including responsible investing.

Yes, they're all being paid extremely well, but that's the industry and it's a whole other discussion on whether or not Canada's senior pension fund managers are all getting paid way too much (according to my friends, their returns are "a joke" relative to the S&P 500 and "they're all overpaid").

Alright, let me wrap it up there, I'm bummed out the Habs lost to the Sabres in Game 1 but this series will be tougher than their first one Sabres have an excellent team).

Below, Canadians are demanding answers, but is the Bank of Canada listening? In this Public Accounts Committee hearing, officials are grilled over a court challenge to disclose senior executive compensation. While other central banks are open, why is Canada resisting? Watch as the committee pushes for transparency on taxpayer-funded salaries and the "personal information" defense. 

I personally find it ridiculous that the annual report of the Bank of Canada and all Canadian Crown corps don't have detailed compensation tables just like our pension funds disclose every year. 

Darcy Song of Top1000Funds takes a peek inside CPP Investments’ TPA engine:

It has been two decades since CPP Investments, Canada’s largest pension fund, first adopted the total portfolio approach, swapping out asset class labels for underlying drivers of performance as guidelines to portfolio construction.

Looking back on the revolution, the C$780 billion pension giant outlined in a recent paper the five pillars of TPA through which it achieves “disciplined flexibility”, allowing the fund to preserve “the ability to deliver exposures efficiently and adjust by choice rather than necessity”.

While CPP Investments made the first foray into TPA in 2006, it wasn’t until 2016 that the fund “institutionalised” the framework and set targeted market risk and desired exposures to economic drivers at a total fund level. It then separated the investments into an active portfolio and a highly liquid, passive “balancing portfolio”.

Central to CPP Investments’ TPA framework is the idea of “relative value” which determines how capital competes across its active strategies, the paper said. The process shifts the focus of evaluation of active risk away from headline IRRs to alpha excluding all costs but taking into consideration liquidity consumption and balance sheet capacity.   

This is especially useful for discerning the true value-add of private investments, which need to generate a rate of return above market beta and also compensate for the liquidity consumption and reduced optimality they cause in the portfolio.

“Traditional asset-class silos obscure these trade-offs. Allocation bands can implicitly treat private assets as inherently diversifying or alpha-generating,” said the paper, co-authored by Sally Shen, Derek Walker and Geoffrey Rubin from CPP Investments’ insight and total fund teams.

“Under the relative value framework, public and private investments compete explicitly on a common risk-adjusted basis, taking these considerations into account.”

The relative value framework applies to both new and existing investments as the decisions to resize or sell down assets carry the same importance to new deployments, the paper said.

“The relative value framework is integrated with exposure management as a continuous, repeatable process: capital allocation affects portfolio exposures; exposures are measured against strategic targets; deviations trigger rebalancing actions.”

The other four pillars around the relative value framework are factor exposures [See CPP evolves total portfolio approach], liquidity, leverage and currency.

Canadian funds have been big proponents of applying leverage in pension management and CPP Investments began using this tool over a decade ago. Its leverage is managed at a total fund level and assessed alongside the funding capacity and collateral demands and other balance sheet factors.

The paper emphasised that leverage is not used as a tool to scale risk and boost return but as a tool to support diversification. To meet CPP Investments’ return target, an unlevered portfolio is likely to be overexposed to the growth factor whereas with leverage, it can “provide a more attractive mix of beta that moderates inherent growth and inflation biases”.

Leverage is also used as a tool to recalibrate risk levels across the total fund.

“For example, if higher-risk private-market exposures increase, total fund leverage can be reduced to maintain the calibrated risk target. If it declines, leverage can increase accordingly,” the paper said.

“In this sense, leverage functions as a balance sheet risk stabiliser: it absorbs shifts in portfolio composition and risk conditions while preserving overall portfolio risk.”

Leverage goes hand in hand with liquidity management which the fund considers on two dimensions: market liquidity (the ability to transact without great price impacts) and funding liquidity (meeting cash obligations).

“Liquid capital—unencumbered assets within the passive balancing portfolio—is structured to absorb shocks while remaining invested… In contrast, the active portfolio is treated as illiquid to preserve the integrity of long-term investment strategies,” the paper said.

“Resilience is monitored through multi-horizon liquidity coverage ratios, which test whether coverage assets, net of haircuts and combined with forecasted inflows, are sufficient to meet stressed obligations. Leverage capacity is explicitly linked to these thresholds.”

The fund conceded that TPA does require investors to be able to handle more portfolio complexities, but in an environment defined by geopolitical upheavals and regime shifts, “prudent design and adaptability matter more than speed”.

“The total portfolio approach cannot eliminate uncertainty, but when properly implemented, it does help build resilience to it. In doing so, it creates a durable institutional advantage for long-horizon investors like CPP Investments, strengthening our ability to weather the storms ahead.”

You can read the paper written by Sally Shen, Derek Walker and Geoffrey Rubin (featured above) titled "Investing in Uncertain Times: Achieving Disciplined Flexibility in the Total Portfolio Approach" on CPP Investments' website here , and the report can be downloaded here.

It is excellent, an in-depth look at a topic that everyone is discussing but few have mastered.

I'm not going to print it all here but like the way it begins:

Markets have entered a period of sustained geopolitical and economic uncertainty. Wars in Europe and the Middle East, fragmentation among major economies, inflation shocks, and volatile liquidity and financing conditions have unsettled long-standing market frameworks, challenging assumptions about diversification and correlations across assets and risk factors. For institutional investors, the question is no longer whether shocks will occur, but how to ensure their portfolios are resilient and responsive when they do1. In this environment, the Total Portfolio Approach (TPA) is often presented as an antidote to uncertainty, a framework that promises adaptability across market environments. Yet there is limited clarity on how that flexibility works, how it is implemented, and what its limitations are. Indeed, flexibility within a TPA is not a “magic wand” of unconstrained agility that can address all threats to a portfolio. Rather, it is a governance and portfolio management architecture that builds an exposure profile that can adjust as conditions change. This stands in contrast to traditional strategic asset allocation frameworks, where implementation is largely fixed once targets are set. Within calibrated risk targets and centralized governance, TPA enables relative value–driven adjustments and multiple channels for delivering exposure while maintaining alignment with long-term total Fund objectives across market cycles. Flexibility, in this context, is a structural feature of the portfolio management architecture, not just an episodic tool deployed only in moments of opportunity or threat. This paper examines how Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments or the Fund) implements disciplined flexibility within its Total Portfolio Investment Framework, focusing on exposure2, leverage, liquidity and currency management, and relative value decision-making. It explores how these mechanisms interact to deliver a diversified portfolio at a calibrated total Fund risk target while enabling capital to move to its highest-value use as conditions change. This supports the Fund’s ability to remain invested and resilient through different phases of the cycle in pursuit of its 75-year horizon.

The Evolution of a Total Fund Model

CPP Investments’ Total Portfolio Approach didn’t emerge fully formed. It evolved over time—from a relatively simple set of constructs guiding different aspects of the Fund’s portfolio construction, such as the risk targeting framework, to a fully integrated framework that calibrates risk, manages exposures, and considers alpha opportunities, while simultaneously integrating liquidity, leverage, and currency considerations. This evolution reflects CPP Investments’ legislated mandate to maximize returns without undue risk of loss, having regard to factors that may affect the plan’s funding and ability to meet its financial obligations. Risk is therefore assessed with a focus on long-term outcomes, and the organization has the flexibility to align its processes with that mandate.

CPP Investments' has a huge balance sheet and arguably the best team to undertake this total portfolio approach which can be complex at times.

There are a lot of moving parts to its portfolio and at the total fund level, you need a team to make sure risks across public and private markets are being monitored and taken appropriately. that leverage is used to enhance diversification and recalibrate risks across the total fund, and that currency risk is managed well.

The paper concludes by stating this:

Disciplined flexibility is the defining advantage of a Total Portfolio Approach—but only when it is carefully designed and managed and the investor can handle the greater complexity of its day-to-day implementation. At CPP Investments, flexibility is embedded through calibrated risk targets, centralized balance-sheet management, and a relative value discipline that allocates scarce capital to true incremental risk-adjusted return. Flexibility in this framework extends beyond avoiding forced selling to include increased capabilities in implementation, separation of alpha from beta decisions, and the ability to redeploy as views of prospective risk and return change, without compromising total Fund targets. In an environment defined by geopolitical fragmentation, liquidity shocks, and regime shifts, prudent design and adaptability matter more than speed. This flexibility is what enables CPP Investments to remain disciplined through cycles, reinforcing its ability to invest against its long-term mandate. The Total Portfolio Approach cannot eliminate uncertainty, but when properly implemented, it does help build resilience to it. In doing so, it creates a durable institutional advantage for long-horizon investors like CPP Investments, strengthening our ability to weather the storms ahead. 

What I like about this paper is that it clearly outlines how they implement TPA, what it can do and what it cannot do.

They're not looking to be cowboys here, they want to strengthen the total portfolio's resilience and risk-adjusted returns using all the tools available to them.  

In this environment, a great TPA team is critically important.

Lastly, a huge shout-out to Sally Shen, self-proclaimed pension nerd. Sometimes I feel like she's the only person who truly appreciates my comments and understands my passion for the subject matter.

Below, in an increasingly complex and fast-moving risk environment, judgment and discipline matter more than ever. Priti Singh, Chief Risk Officer, shares how CPP Investments approaches risk through a total portfolio lens, and how institutional investors are balancing speed, uncertainty, and long-term decision-making in a changing world.

Also, in this conversation with Bloor Street Capital, Frank Ieraci, Global Head of Active Equities, discusses how CPP Investments approaches risk, asset allocation and security selection across global markets.

He explains how CPP Investments targets risk rather than static asset allocations, how active management drives alpha in public equities, and how the Fund navigates uncertainty in areas such as geopolitics, artificial intelligence and energy transition.

Frank also reflects on investing in Canada, global diversification and what differentiates CPP Investments’ platform from traditional money managers.

John Rapley wrote a comment for the Globe and Mail stating that our pension funds must be sovereign wealth funds, too – even if pensioners take a hit:

This essay is part of the Prosperity’s Path series. In a time of geopolitical instability and a shifting world order, the challenges facing Canada's economy have only gotten more visible, numerous and intense. This series brings solutions.

When the 2008 financial crisis struck, the Bank of Canada followed other central banks in flooding the economy with money, by slashing interest rates and buying government debt. This juiced the economy with borrowed money. But it did nothing to boost its long-term productivity. This effectively took future income and redistributed it to the present.

When wealth races ahead in this manner, something I call the Icarus effect sets in. Initially, rising wealth raises a country’s growth rate by, among other things, creating a larger pool of capital to support investment. But past a certain threshold, wealth becomes a dead weight.

A greater share of investment tends to go to real estate, which sucks income into paying rents – not just on homes but on commercial real estate as well, which raises fixed costs and so can hurt competitiveness. Money gets sucked into stocks as well, but it tends to steer clear of start-ups and innovators and more toward established, conservative but dividend-paying companies. That slows the rate of new business formation and depresses labour productivity. It also undermines regime stability, as young people, who are disproportionately affected, turn against democratic capitalism.

So, if the problem is that the country has enriched itself by redistributing income from the future to the present, the solution is to reverse some of that, ensuring future generations enjoy the same benefits that today’s receive.

The good thing is that we seem to be going in this direction. The past week Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a sovereign wealth fund to invest in nation-building projects and generate returns, “creating even greater opportunities for future generations.” 

On April 27, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced the creation of the Canada Strong Fund, Canada's first sovereign wealth fund.

But Mr. Carney did not go far enough. The fund would have only $25-billion initially. Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, to which Mr. Carney compared Canada’s, has US$1.7-trillion in assets.

There is a next step that governments must take, and that is to expand the mandate of Canada’s pension funds so that they invest more domestically. These funds should effectively become sovereign wealth funds as well.

These institutions manage $2-trillion in assets and have long time horizons. They are big enough, patient enough to make a difference. And they should. Pension funds are, after all, the very embodiment of protecting the future, of deferring income today to spend tomorrow. It’s just that this “future,” and whose future it is, has so far been defined too narrowly.

This idea is admittedly controversial. Two years ago, a group of executives wrote to then-finance minister Chrystia Freeland, calling for the government to “amend the rules governing pension funds to encourage them to invest in Canada.” The initiative stirred considerable pushback, not least from the pension industry itself, which said it would hurt returns. In my own modest contribution to the debate, I doubted the merit of a national-development mandate.

Half of the Canada Pension Plan's holdings are invested in the U.S. economy, an odd mismatch at a time when Canada is trying to lessen its American exposure and fortify its economic sovereignty.

But the world has changed an awful lot since that original debate. After all, Canada did not then face an existential crisis, and the case for a national-development mandate has turned into a national-survival one. Economic sovereignty is what will enable Canada to stand up to a hostile United States, Prime Minister Mark Carney has said. And as former prime minister Stephen Harper said in February, “We must make any sacrifice necessary to preserve the independence and the unity of this blessed land.”

Almost all Canadian pension funds have a purely fiduciary model. Take the biggest of them all, the Canada Pension Plan. As the CPP states, “Our mandate is clear: to invest the assets of the CPP Fund with a view to achieving a maximum rate of return without undue risk of loss.”

But an exception already exists: the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, which has a dual mandate of also contributing to Quebec’s economic development. Notably, this has not proved controversial. Despite the criticism that anything but a purely fiduciary mandate is irresponsible, the Caisse’s returns are in line with other Maple Eight funds. Why not give all funds a similar mandate – and more?

Singapore’s Central Provident Plan provides an illustration of how this can work. Singapore used its pension scheme to accelerate national development by steering toward housing, education and the growth of the local stock market (by allowing members to withdraw some funds to invest in local securities). The results speak for themselves. Measured in per capita income, Singapore was in 1960 poorer than Argentina. Today, it’s richer than Canada.

The specific mechanics might differ greatly – for one, Singaporeans must pay a whopping 20 per cent of their salaries into CPF. But the general idea is worthy of emulation. Canada’s pension system can play a similarly vital role in reallocating resources back into the Canadian economy, steering investment toward emergent businesses with a long-term future and also engaging in a multiyear investment program to build houses, especially at the underserved low end of the market. As happened in Singapore, the reduced cost of housing would free up money for working people, which could then be allocated toward other purposes.

Singapore has seen success using its Central Provident Plan pension scheme to accelerate national development by steering toward housing, education and the growth of the local stock market.

Moreover, while that purely fiduciary requirement has led funds to invest in what they view as stable assets with generous dividends, it has arguably come at the expense not only of the Canadian economy, but of future generations.

For instance, many funds invest heavily in fossil fuels. That neglects the impact carbon emissions will have on future generations and carries an opportunity cost – that money could have gone into other investments. The funds are heavily invested in the U.S. economy – half of CPP’s holdings, for example. That is an odd mismatch at a time when Canada is trying to lessen its American exposure.

An expanded mandate is a way for the funds to fix those issues.

Canada has one of the world’s largest pension funds. As a tool to help steer the country through this moment of difficult transition, and thereby preserve the independence of which Mr. Harper spoke, it could prove extremely potent.

Most Canadian pension funds have a purely fiduciary model, but Quebec’s pension fund manager, the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, has a dual mandate of also contributing to the province’s economic development.

The Caisse’s example notwithstanding, even if an expanded mandate hurts returns, it is a worthy sacrifice. If Canada is to grow its wealth in the long term, and if it’s to build a more dynamic, competitive and diversified economy, over the short term it will need to reduce its wealth. Although wealth is good, since it’s the accumulation of past income surpluses, the problem is that today much of Canada’s wealth is actually the opposite and a drag on growth.

Most importantly, there’s an argument to be made that young people already made their sacrifices for their country and now it’s the turn of their elders.

When the pandemic hit, lockdowns hurt young people’s education, job prospects and mental health, but they were asked to make the sacrifice to protect the vulnerable elderly from COVID-19. They gave a lot. Let them now be assured of a future in a sovereign and prosperous country with the sacrifice that can be made today. 

Oh God! I fundamentally disagree with pretty much everything John Rapley states in his comment, so why am I posting it here?

He's not totally out to lunch. La Caisse has a dual mandate and is delivering solid long-term returns, but I loathe the argument that if La Caisse has a dual mandate, every other major Maple Eight pension fund should too.

Total rubbish! CPP Investments has its own mandate and laws that define its objectives and risk-taking.

All of Canada's Maple Eight invest more than enough in Canada and if Carney governments finally privatizes airports and other major assets, they will invest more domestically.

But let's stop pretending Canada's pension funds will "save our economy" by investing more domestically.

There are intelligent arguments to invest more wisely in Canada, and then there are silly ones like this one.  

Dual mandates are hard; they require great governance and are fraught with risks, like political interference and corruption.

When things go right, you look like a superstar, but when things turn south, you look like a complete fool.

I've seen plenty of organizations suffer major setbacks investing in Canada. I saw the BDC lose its shirt in venture capital during the 2008 GFC. 

Invest more in venture capital, not dividend-paying stocks from stable businesses.  

Really? That's what we want our pension funds to do: to invest more in Canadian venture capital?

Not me, I see a recipe for disaster with this strategy. 

Invest in large infrastructure projects, fine, but in venture capital, tread extremely carefully.

Why? 99 times out of 100, you're going to lose your shirt. 

Notice how Rapley doesn't talk about the insane regulations that have destroyed business formation in Canada. 

No, it's the pension funds' fault for not investing more in venture capital.

Give me a break!

What other nonsense? Oh yeah, how dare CPP Investments invest in oil and gas companies and put 50% of its assets in the US?

Well, thank god John Rapley isn't in charge of asset allocation at CPP Investments. 

Lastly, he writes:

Most importantly, there’s an argument to be made that young people already made their sacrifices for their country and now it’s the turn of their elders. 

Seniors on a fixed income who paid into the CPP all their lives are in no position to make sacrifices, nor should they be asked to.

The job of every pension fund in Canada is to make sure all members -- young and old -- are taken care of when they retire. Full stop.

Dual mandates sound cool but in practice they can be hell, especially if the governance is all wrong and governments continuously interfere in the investment process. 

We all deserve better, a lot better, and we need to trust the fiduciaries of our large pension funds. 

I don't know where this Canada Strong Fund is headed. As I wrote, I have my doubts but want it to succeed. 

I think our government is on the right track if it privatizing airports and other large infrastructure assets.

That all remains to be seen.

But changing the mandate of our large national pension funds to emulate La Caisse or Singapore’s Central Provident Plan?

No thanks, I think we are on the right path and Trump Derangement Syndrome is leading some commentators into recommending the wrong long-term path. 

Below, Prime Minister Mark Carney introduced a sovereign wealth fund for Canada to bolster national projects, create jobs and grow taxpayer money — but it's not a sovereign wealth fund in the traditional sense. Andrew Chang explains the stark differences between the Canada Strong Fund and other countries' sovereign wealth funds, and what we know so far about how it will work.

Adjusting a 1950s three-speed manual clutch involves understanding its vital role in smooth operation and gear changes, ensuring a pleasurable driving experience.

Understanding the Importance of Clutch Adjustment

Proper clutch adjustment is paramount for a 1950s vehicle with a manual transmission. A correctly adjusted clutch ensures seamless gear changes, preventing grinding or difficulty selecting gears. It facilitates a smooth connection between the engine and gearbox, maximizing power transfer and minimizing wear on components. Misalignment can lead to clutch slippage, causing reduced acceleration and increased fuel consumption. Conversely, a too-tight clutch results in dragging, straining the throw-out bearing and potentially damaging the transmission. Regular adjustment maintains optimal performance, extends clutch life, and enhances the overall driving experience of these classic automobiles.

Tools Required for Adjustment

Adjusting a 1950s manual clutch necessitates a few essential tools. A set of open-end wrenches, typically ranging from 7/16″ to 1/2″, is crucial for loosening and tightening adjustment points. Screwdrivers, both flathead and Phillips head, are needed for accessing and manipulating linkage components. Pliers can assist with cable adjustments. A flashlight illuminates dark areas under the vehicle. Penetrating oil loosens corroded parts. Finally, a feeler gauge verifies proper cable free play, ensuring accurate and reliable clutch engagement for optimal performance.

Identifying Clutch Issues

Recognizing clutch problems is key; symptoms include slipping gears, difficulty shifting, a noisy pedal, or the clutch dragging—indicating a needed adjustment.

Symptoms of a Misadjusted Clutch

A misadjusted clutch on a 1950s vehicle manifests in several ways. Slipping gears, particularly during acceleration, is a common indicator, suggesting insufficient clamping force. Difficulty shifting, requiring excessive force or resulting in grinding noises, also points to an issue.

A clutch pedal that feels excessively high or low, lacking its usual travel, is another telltale sign. Furthermore, the clutch may drag, making it hard to shift into gear even with the pedal fully depressed. These symptoms collectively suggest the need for careful clutch adjustment to restore optimal performance and prevent further wear.

Common Causes of Clutch Problems in 1950s Vehicles

Several factors contribute to clutch issues in vintage 1950s vehicles. Cable stretch is frequent, altering free play and engagement. Linkage wear, including pivot points and rods, introduces slack and imprecise operation.

The clutch disc itself can become worn or contaminated with oil, reducing friction. Furthermore, a failing throw-out bearing or a warped pressure plate can cause engagement problems. Environmental factors like moisture and corrosion also play a role, affecting component functionality and necessitating regular inspection and adjustment.

Preliminary Checks Before Adjustment

Before adjusting, inspect the clutch cable and linkage for wear, damage, or corrosion, ensuring smooth movement and proper connection for optimal performance.

Checking Clutch Cable Free Play

Assessing clutch cable free play is crucial before adjustment. With the engine off, fully depress the clutch pedal and note the amount of slack in the cable at the lever.

Typically, 1950s vehicles require approximately 1/2 to 1 inch of free play. Insufficient free play can cause the clutch to drag, while excessive play hinders complete disengagement.

Carefully measure this distance to establish a baseline and determine the necessary adjustment. A worn or stretched cable may require replacement rather than simple adjustment.

Inspecting the Clutch Linkage

Before adjusting, thoroughly inspect the clutch linkage for wear or damage. This includes checking all pivot points, connecting rods, and the clutch fork itself for looseness or corrosion.

Ensure all connections are secure and properly lubricated. Worn or damaged linkage components can mimic the symptoms of a misadjusted clutch, leading to inaccurate adjustments.

Pay close attention to the condition of the bushings and ball joints, replacing any that exhibit excessive play. A smooth, responsive linkage is essential for proper clutch operation.

Adjusting the Clutch Cable

Proper clutch cable adjustment is crucial for optimal engagement, ensuring smooth gear changes and preventing premature wear on clutch components.

Locating the Clutch Cable Adjustment Point

Identifying the clutch cable adjustment point on a 1950s vehicle requires careful observation. Typically, it’s found where the cable enters the clutch linkage, often near the transmission or on the pedal assembly.

Look for a threaded section with locknuts on either side of an adjustable clevis or a similar mechanism. Some systems utilize a turnbuckle-style adjuster. The precise location varies by manufacturer and model, so consulting a shop manual specific to your vehicle is highly recommended for accurate identification.

Step-by-Step Clutch Cable Adjustment Procedure

Begin by loosening the locknuts surrounding the clutch cable adjuster. Next, slowly turn the adjuster to increase or decrease cable tension. Aim for approximately 1/2 to 1 inch of free play at the pedal – this is crucial.

Tighten the locknuts securely once the desired free play is achieved. Test the clutch engagement by attempting to shift gears; it should engage smoothly without dragging or slipping. Re-adjust if necessary, prioritizing a comfortable and responsive pedal feel.

Adjusting the Clutch Fork

Fine-tuning the clutch fork ensures proper throw-out bearing contact, optimizing clutch engagement and disengagement for smooth shifting performance.

Accessing the Clutch Fork Adjustment

Gaining access to the clutch fork adjustment typically requires working underneath the vehicle, necessitating proper safety precautions like jack stands. Locate the clutch fork, a lever-like component connected to the clutch release mechanism.

On many 1950s models, an access cover on the transmission housing provides a view and limited working space. Some vehicles may require partial removal of the floor pan or transmission components for sufficient access. Identify the adjustment screw or linkage point on the fork itself, which controls the clutch’s engagement point.

Fine-Tuning the Clutch Fork for Optimal Engagement

After accessing the adjustment point, small adjustments to the clutch fork are crucial. Loosen the locking nut, then incrementally adjust the screw to modify clutch engagement. The goal is smooth, predictable engagement without slippage or dragging.

Start with small turns, testing the pedal feel after each adjustment. Proper engagement occurs when the clutch begins to grab near the top of the pedal travel. Avoid excessive adjustment, which can cause premature wear or difficulty shifting.

Troubleshooting Adjustment Issues

Persistent slipping or dragging after adjustment indicates underlying problems beyond simple cable or fork tuning, requiring further inspection of components.

Clutch Still Slipping After Adjustment

If the clutch continues to slip even after careful adjustment, several issues could be present. Worn clutch facings are a primary suspect, reducing friction and preventing full engagement.

Contamination from oil or grease on the clutch disc also diminishes its ability to grip. Inspect the rear main engine seal for leaks. A stretched or damaged clutch cable, despite adjustment, may not provide sufficient throw.

Finally, a failing clutch pressure plate can’t generate enough force to fully clamp the disc. Thorough inspection of these components is crucial for diagnosis.

Clutch Dragging After Adjustment

If the clutch drags after adjustment, meaning it doesn’t fully disengage when the pedal is pressed, it hinders smooth shifting. This often indicates insufficient clearance between the clutch disc, pressure plate, and flywheel.

Check for debris or corrosion on these surfaces. A binding clutch cable, even with free play, can prevent complete disengagement. Inspect the clutch fork and its pivot point for proper lubrication and movement.

Worn or damaged throw-out bearing can also cause drag. Careful examination and lubrication are essential to resolve this issue.

Specific Considerations for 1950s Transmissions

Older systems, like Borg & Beck, demand precise adjustment; worn components require extra attention and may necessitate replacement for optimal clutch function.

Variations in Clutch Systems (e.g., Borg & Beck)

Many 1950s vehicles utilized different clutch designs, notably the Borg & Beck system, a diaphragm spring clutch requiring specific adjustment techniques. Unlike earlier cone clutches, these demand careful free play and fork adjustment.

Understanding the specific system is crucial; Borg & Beck clutches are sensitive to cable stretch and linkage wear. Variations exist even within the Borg & Beck line, impacting adjustment points. Incorrect adjustment can lead to slipping or dragging, necessitating a thorough understanding of the manufacturer’s specifications for your particular vehicle and transmission combination.

Dealing with Worn Components

Clutch adjustment on older vehicles often masks underlying issues from worn components. Excessive cable stretch, a common problem, requires frequent adjustments, signaling cable replacement. Worn clutch forks, linkage bushings, and throw-out bearings contribute to imprecise engagement and adjustment difficulties.

Inspect these parts during adjustment; simply adjusting a worn system is a temporary fix. A slipping clutch might indicate a glazed or worn clutch disc, demanding replacement rather than further adjustment. Addressing worn components ensures a lasting and reliable repair, preventing recurring issues.

Lubrication of Clutch Components

Proper lubrication is essential for smooth clutch operation, reducing wear on critical parts like the cable, fork, and linkage, ensuring longevity.

Recommended Lubricants for 1950s Clutches

For 1950s manual clutches, selecting the correct lubricant is paramount for optimal performance and longevity. Chassis grease, a petroleum-based product, was commonly used on clutch linkages and pivot points. High-temperature grease is ideal for the throw-out bearing, resisting breakdown from friction-generated heat.

Avoid modern synthetic lubricants, as they may contain additives incompatible with the materials used in older clutches. Light engine oil can lubricate the cable, preventing fraying and ensuring smooth travel. Regular application prevents corrosion and sticking, maintaining efficient clutch engagement and disengagement.

Lubrication Points on the Clutch System

Key lubrication points on a 1950s manual clutch system include the clutch cable, where light engine oil prevents internal friction and corrosion. The clutch fork pivot point requires chassis grease for smooth operation, reducing wear. The throw-out bearing necessitates high-temperature grease to withstand heat.

Don’t neglect linkage connections; grease these regularly. Inspect and lubricate the pedal pivot points as well. Proper lubrication minimizes wear, ensures smooth engagement, and prevents sticking, contributing to a longer clutch lifespan and easier gear changes.

Safety Precautions

Always use jack stands when working under the vehicle, and disconnect the battery’s negative terminal to prevent accidental electrical shorts during adjustment.

Working Under the Vehicle

Prioritize safety when accessing the clutch linkage. Never rely solely on a jack; always support the vehicle with properly rated jack stands positioned under the frame rails.

Ensure the vehicle is on a level surface before lifting. Chock the rear wheels for added security. Inspect the jack stands for damage before use.

Wear safety glasses to protect your eyes from debris. Consider wearing gloves to protect your hands.

Double-check the stability of the vehicle before beginning any work underneath.

Disconnecting the Battery

Before commencing any electrical component work, including clutch adjustments that might involve electrical connections, disconnect the negative battery terminal.

This prevents accidental short circuits and potential damage to the vehicle’s electrical system. Use a wrench to loosen the nut on the negative terminal and carefully remove the cable.

Tuck the cable away from the terminal to avoid accidental contact.

Remember to have the radio code available if required upon reconnection.

Post-Adjustment Testing

A thorough road test confirms smooth engagement, quiet operation, and effortless gear changes, verifying successful clutch adjustment and optimal performance of the transmission.

Road Test Procedures

Begin with a slow, first-gear start, carefully monitoring for clutch slippage or grabbing. Gradually increase speed, shifting through all gears, paying attention to engagement points and smoothness.

Listen for unusual noises during shifts and while cruising. Test the clutch’s holding power by attempting to accelerate in a higher gear.

Perform several stops and starts to assess consistent performance. If any issues arise – like difficulty shifting or continued slippage – further adjustment or inspection is necessary.

Checking for Smooth Gear Changes

After adjustment, verify smooth transitions between all gears during a road test. Shifts should be effortless, without grinding or resistance. A properly adjusted clutch allows for quick, clean engagement into each gear.

Pay close attention to the synchronization; hesitation or jerking indicates potential issues.

Ensure the clutch fully disengages, preventing gear clash during shifting. Consistent, fluid gear changes confirm successful adjustment and optimal clutch performance in your 1950s vehicle.

Maintaining Clutch Adjustment

Regular inspection and minor adjustments are crucial for preserving optimal clutch performance and extending the lifespan of this vital component.

Regular Inspection Schedule

Establish a routine for checking your 1950s manual clutch. Inspect the clutch cable for fraying or damage monthly, and verify free play. Every 6,000 miles, or bi-annually, thoroughly examine the linkage for wear and lubrication needs.

Pay close attention to pedal feel; changes indicate potential issues. A yearly deep dive should include checking the clutch disc’s condition if accessible. Consistent monitoring prevents major repairs and ensures reliable operation, preserving the classic driving experience.

Preventative Measures to Prolong Clutch Life

To maximize the lifespan of your 1950s manual clutch, avoid “riding” the clutch, which causes excessive wear. Fully depress the pedal during gear changes and release smoothly. Ensure proper engine speed matching during shifts to minimize stress on the system.

Regularly lubricate linkage points and inspect for leaks. Address any clutch slippage or dragging promptly. Gentle driving habits and consistent maintenance are key to preserving this vital component for years to come.

Resources and Further Information

Online forums and original repair manuals offer invaluable insights into 1950s clutch systems, aiding successful adjustment and troubleshooting efforts.

Online Forums and Communities

Dedicated online forums are a treasure trove of knowledge for owners of classic 1950s vehicles. These communities often host detailed discussions specifically about clutch adjustment on three-speed manual transmissions.

Members frequently share their experiences, troubleshooting tips, and even photos or videos demonstrating the adjustment process. Searching these forums can reveal solutions to common issues and provide valuable insights beyond what’s found in repair manuals.

Look for forums dedicated to specific vehicle makes (e.g., Ford, Chevrolet) or to vintage cars in general. Active participation and asking specific questions can yield personalized guidance from experienced enthusiasts.

Repair Manuals for 1950s Vehicles

Original factory repair manuals are invaluable resources for adjusting the clutch on a 1950s three-speed manual transmission. These manuals provide detailed diagrams and step-by-step instructions specific to your vehicle’s make and model.

They outline the correct adjustment procedures, torque specifications, and lubrication requirements. Reproduction manuals are readily available if an original is difficult to find.

Supplementing the manual with a general automotive repair guide from the era can also be helpful, offering broader context and troubleshooting advice.

The post clutch ajustment on a 1950 3 speed manual trans appeared first on Every Task, Every Guide: The Instruction Portal
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Key takeaways:

• Black unemployment rose and employment fell in Q1 2026, reflecting a deterioration in labor market conditions. In the first quarter of 2026, the Black unemployment rate (7.6%) was 1.2 percentage points higher than in the first three months of the second Trump administration.
• Black men’s employment-population (EPOP) ratio decreased by 1.7 percentage points (from 60.5% to 58.8%) since the first quarter of 2025, with noncollege graduates driving this decline.
• Black women’s EPOP ratio was the same in Q1 2026 as in Q1 2025 (56.4%), with gains among noncollege graduates offsetting losses among college graduates.

The rising Black unemployment rate and big employment losses among Black women made major news headlines in 2025. In a February 2026 analysis, I examined the nature of those losses, noting the large impact on Black women who were college graduates and public-sector workers. With so much of the Trump policy-induced 2025 labor market decline appearing to land first on Black workers who typically have relatively secure employment, the longer-term significance of those losses is of continuing interest. This post provides an update for the first quarter of 2026, examining changes in the overall Black unemployment rate and gender-specific employment trends for Black women and men relative to the first quarter of 2025. For consistency with the prior analysis, I apply the same mutually exclusive race and ethnicity categories used in EPI’s State of Working America Data Library and include all people age 16 or older when examining outcomes by gender. While these estimates differ slightly from those reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), they lead to similar conclusions.

In the first quarter of 2026, the Black unemployment rate (7.6%) was 1.2 percentage points higher than in the first three months of the second Trump administration. While a rise in the unemployment rate can sometimes be for “good” reasons—workers getting drawn into the labor force because of strengthening job opportunities—that was not the case here: the rise in the Black unemployment rate reflected a decline in employment. The Black employment-population ratio (EPOP)—the share of working-age people who are employed—declined 0.8 percentage points over the same period, from 58.3% in Q1 2025 to 57.5% in Q1 2026 (see Figure A).

Figure A

Looking more closely at changes in employment for Black women and men separately, Black women’s first quarter EPOP was the same in 2026 as in 2025 (56.4%), while employment among Black men was 1.7 percentage points lower (from 60.5% to 58.8%). BLS published estimates by race—limited to the sample of people age 20 or older and not exclusive of ethnicity—show a similar decline for Black men (-1.5 percentage points), but a 0.4 percentage point increase for Black women.

Figure B shows that among Black women, Q1 2026 employment was lower than Q1 2025 for college graduates but higher for noncollege graduates, resulting in essentially offsetting effects. The opposite was true among Black men, for whom the decline in employment was driven by lower employment among noncollege graduates and higher employment for college graduates.

Figure B

These first quarter 2026 estimates incorporate annual population adjustments applied to Current Population Survey (CPS) data each January to reflect updated population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. Since the previous year’s data are not adjusted, monthly data across the two years are not strictly comparable. This year, shifts in the demographic composition of the population also resulted in larger than usual discontinuities in labor force measures by race, ethnicity, and gender between December 2025 and January 2026—which is why this analysis is focused on a comparison between the first quarters of 2025 and 2026, when the population controls are the most up to date.

Based on this analysis, we can conclude that overall, labor market conditions for Black workers were not better in the first quarter of 2026 compared with the early months of the Trump administration. Black men’s employment is lower than what was reported in the first quarter of 2025, and while Black women’s employment is unchanged overall, employment among college-educated Black women is lower than first quarter 2025 estimates.  

Jared Blikre of Yahoo Finance reports the stock market just had its best month since the pandemic rebound:

Stocks knocked it out of the park in April.

Wall Street’s April rebound ended the month with a scoreboard that looks more like 2020 than 2026 — and some of the details look even more like the dot-com era.

The S&P 500 (^GSPC) surged over 10% during the month, its best showing since November 2020, while the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) jumped more than 15% for its best month since April 2020. The Nasdaq 100 (^NDX) gained nearly 16%, its best month since October 2002.

That was not the setup investors had in mind a month ago, with stocks still shaking off the shock of a major war and the bull market suddenly on defense.

The rally was broad enough to pull smaller stocks along too. The Russell 2000 (^RUT) climbed more than 12%, also its best month since November 2020.

But the S&P 500 equal-weight index rose less than 6%, barely more than half the gain in the cap-weighted S&P 500, and it now sits just under its March highs. That gap shows how much of April’s rally still came from the biggest stocks, not the average one.

Technology did most of the heavy lifting. The Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLK) gained 20%, its best month since October 2002.

Chips were the biggest reason.

The PHLX Semiconductor Index (^SOX) surged more than 40% and had its best month since February 2000 — extending the record-setting semiconductor run that has been driving the AI trade. It logged a record 18-day win streak and rose 13 straight days to record highs.

That strength ran straight through the stock leaderboard.

Intel (INTC) posted its best month ever, adding to the breakout above its dot-com-era ceiling after earnings. AMD (AMD) had its best month since January 2001, while Micron (MU) and Texas Instruments (TXN) had their best months since February 2000.

The same concentration showed up in market value.

Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) added roughly $1.2 trillion in April — posting its best month since 2004 — while Amazon (AMZN) and Nvidia (NVDA) each added more than $600 billion. Broadcom (AVGO) tacked on more than $500 billion.

The laggards told the other side of the story.

Energy (XLE) and healthcare (XLV) finished lower in April, while the software comeback that briefly looked promising ended up fading against the semis. The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (IGV) rose less than 5% and is down more than 20% for the year.

April put bulls back in control. The test in May is whether the average stock can start carrying more of the load.

Seal Conlon and Lisa Kailai Han of CNBC also report S&P 500 closes at a new record to usher in May as oil prices cool and Apple rises:

The S&P 500 rose to a fresh all-time intraday high on Friday, boosted by Apple shares, while oil prices fell as a new month of trading got underway.

The broad market index advanced 0.29% to end at 7,230.12. The Nasdaq Composite added 0.89%, reaching an all-time high and closing at 25,114.44. Both indexes posted closing records. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 152.87 points, or 0.31%, to settle at 49,499.27.

Shares of Apple climbed more than 3% after the consumer tech giant posted a fiscal second-quarter earnings and revenue beat. Not only that, the company’s revenue outlook for the current quarter was better than expected, overshadowing the fact that iPhone revenue fell short of estimates for the second time in three quarters.

On the flip side, oil prices fell after Iran reportedly sent its response through Pakistani mediators to the latest U.S. amendments to a draft agreement to end the Middle East conflict.

President Donald Trump revealed later Friday he is displeased with a new peace offer from Iran, saying that the country “wants to make a deal, but I’m not satisfied with it.”

Oil prices were off their lows of the day following that development. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures fell 2.98% to settle at $101.94 a barrel. International benchmark Brent crude futures slid 2.02% to $108.17 a barrel.

The moves come after a record-setting session, with the S&P 500 closing above the 7,200 threshold for the first time ever. That helped both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq — which also notched a new record closing high — secure their strongest monthly performances since 2020. The Dow, meanwhile, saw its strongest monthly performance since November 2024.

A strong first-quarter earnings season, as well as hopes for easing tensions in the Middle East, have ultimately boosted stocks higher on the year. Although the major averages took a dip on the commencement of the U.S. war with Iran, all three indexes are now trading well above where they began 2026.

David Krakauer of Mercer Advisors believes that positive trajectory can continue in the long term for equities. While Krakauer is hopeful that the Iran war will conclude in the near term, leading to a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, he believes that the earnings growth potential in the U.S. as well as overseas will offer momentum to stocks, even if the conflict persists.

“There could be always new news or some sentiment declining, where we could see a little bit of a pullback here after a strong pop up, but we’re still just overall strategically bullish on equities,” the vice president of portfolio management said.

Noting that there will be winners and losers in technology as “not all” of the artificial intelligence capital expenditures spending is going to “pay off,” Krakauer added, “We think the enhanced productivity story remains intact.” 

Alright, it's finally Friday, Game 6 between the Montreal Canadiens and Tampa Bay Lighting starts in a little over 2 hours and I'm hoping the Habs win again tonight. 

What can you say about the US stock market over the past month? Led by semiconductor stocks which were up 40%, it was outstanding month, an April to remember:

Notice how last year, during the Liberation Day tantrum, semis melted down to their 200-week exponential moving average, and then they bounce big -- and have never looked back.

You had a bit of a selloff when the Iran conflict hit in March, the SMH fell just below its 20-week exponential moving average (not shown above), and then "PAF!!", another melt-up to make a record new high.

Who's driving this price action? My bet is on CTAs and quant funds, whenever I see parabolic moves, I now they're adding massively to their positions.

Aren't semis overbought here? You bet they are but that doesn't mean they can't continue going higher.

You have to play the game but also be cognizant that stocks don't go up or down in a straight line, and when they're going parabolic, common sense risk management tells you to take some money off the table (an easy rule of thumb after a big move is to reduce your position after a negative weekly return).  

This week we saw Big Tech earnings and while we can debate details, there's no debating Alphabet (Google) is the new AI king:

Again, this stock was a buy when it held above it 50-week exponential moving average in March and then ripped higher in April.

The violent upside moves I'm seeing in April in a bunch of stocks is quite incredible.

For example, last week I discussed Intel, but check out shares of Qualcomm (QCOM) and Twilio (TWLO), both up big this week:

Now, notice how Qualcomm's weekly MACD remains negative and the stock is unable to make a new 52-week high, whereas Twilio's weekly MACD is now positive and it made a new 52-week high today?

That tells me to stay long Twilio, buying any pullback there and avoid buying pullbacks in Qualcomm shares.

I can go on and on and on, I know Apple shares made a new 52-week high today and that's typically the (defensive) tech stock to buy when you feel the red-hot chips stocks are cruising for a bruising. 

Below, the top-performing US large cap stocks over the past month (full list here): 

Alright, that's a wrap, time to enjoy my weekend and Friday night hockey.

Below, the CNBC Investment Committee debate whether earnings can drive stocks higher and how you should position your portfolio.

Also, Fundstrat's Tom Lee joins 'Closing Bell' to discuss Lee's thoughts on equity markets, recent earnings growth and much more.

Lastly, some highlights from Game 5 where the Montreal Canadiens beat the Tampa Bay Lightning 3-2. 

I'm psyched for Game 6. Go Habs Go!! Let's put this series behind us!!

May 1 is International Workers’ Day. Also known as “May Day,” its origins trace back to 1856 in Australia, where workers organized a day of stoppages and celebrations to demand an eight-hour workday. However, May 1 didn’t become a widespread international day for labor until after the infamous Haymarket Affair of 1886.

Workers in Chicago, including many immigrants, went on strike on May 1 to demand the eight-hour workday. At least four strikers were killed while picketing the McCormick Harvester factory, at that point the largest factory in the world. A large rally was held on May 4 to protest violence against peaceful picketers. As police moved to disperse the crowd, someone threw a bomb that killed seven officers. Police fired back indiscriminately, wounding and killing an undetermined number of workers.

What followed was a sweeping crackdown: police raids, the arrests of hundreds of men and women, and the indictment of eight people—five of whom were German immigrants. The partisan judge Joseph E. Gary conducted the trial where all 12 jurors acknowledged prejudice against the defendants. All defendants were convicted with no evidence and seven were sentenced to death; four were hanged, one died by suicide, and two had their sentences commuted. The trial is widely considered a miscarriage of justice.

In the aftermath, socialists and unionists worldwide began marking May 1st as a day of international worker solidarity. However, in 1894, U.S. President Grover Cleveland—looking to make peace with labor prior to the midterm elections after more than 30 workers were killed during the Pullman Strike—established Labor Day in early September. He did this explicitly to avoid associating it with May Day and the labor unrest it represented. In 1955, at the height of the Cold War, President Eisenhower proclaimed May 1 “Loyalty Day” instead of “May Day” in response to the holiday’s popularity in communist countries.

Labor unions today

Now 140 years after Haymarket, workers are still fighting for higher pay, better working conditions, and a voice on the job. In recent decades, policymakers have done little to stem the relentless tide of anti-union actions by employers, conservative governments, and a hostile Supreme Court. As workers’ rights have been eroded, the share of unionized workers fell from over 30% in the 1950s to just 11.2% in 2025. Fewer workers were involved in major strikes or work stoppages in 2025 (307,000) than during the Haymarket year of 1886 (610,000).

Nonetheless, there are clear signs of momentum in the labor movement. The post-pandemic period has brought a notable resurgence in labor’s popularity and organizing activity. Figure A shows that 68% of Americans now approve of labor unions, levels not seen since the 1960s. Unions are also more highly regarded among young people. Further, 43% of Americans want unions to have more influence in the country, a record high.

Figure A

Not only are unions more popular, but more workers have been trying to join a union. Figure B shows that the 2024–2025 period saw the highest number of newly unionized workers since at least 2000.

Figure B

Indeed, while the Trump administration has taken a decidedly hostile approach to unions and made labor organizing more difficult, union representation in the United States increased by 463,000 in 2025. More workers were represented by a union than at any point in the past 16 years, a sign that workers see unions as a means of resisting authoritarianism.

The time is ripe for policymakers to support workers’ struggles for dignity and respect. Key policies such as passing the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, ensuring workers can reach a first contract, expanding collective bargaining rights, and eliminating anti-union “right-to-work” laws can help workers organize their workplaces. Beyond improving the lives of their members, unions have spillover effects that benefit whole communities and democracy.

This May Day, workers and their unions across the country are holding thousands of events, encouraging participants to join an economic blackout and “demand a nation that puts workers over billionaires.” Just as workers around the world came together to demand fair hours and wages after the events of 1886, we can hope the workers of the future will find inspiration from May Day 2026.