The American labor market is over-described and under-read. Headline unemployment misses half the story; payrolls miss the other half. This index reads jobs across three dimensions simultaneously: hiring (openings, payrolls), separation (quits, jobless claims), and compensation (wage growth, real income). The weighting balances them. The result is a 0–100 score where: - 0.0–0.2: distressed (high unemployment, falling wages, hiring collapse) - 0.2–0.4: weakening - 0.4–0.6: balanced — the canonical "soft landing" reading - 0.6–0.8: tight (low unemployment, accelerating wages, quits rising) - 0.8–1.0: overheating, late-cycle risk The index is forward-looking by construction. Quits rates lead unemployment by 6–9 months; wage growth lags by 3–6 months. Reading them together gives the regime, not just the snapshot.
The Palanor Indices
The instruments Palanor builds to read what the singular series cannot.
Anyone can show you CPI. Anyone can show you the VIX. Palanor builds composites — transparently disclosed, weight-by-weight, with public-source components.