Will the July 2026 U.S. unemployment rate be at least 4.5%?

Resolution

This market resolves YES if the initial BLS Employment Situation release for July 2026 reports an official U-3 unemployment rate of at least 4.5 percent, seasonally adjusted. Use the household-survey U-3 unemployment rate for July 2026 from the first BLS Employment Situation release. A value of 4.5% or higher resolves YES. A value of 4.4% or lower resolves NO. Do not use total nonfarm payroll employment, household employment level, labor-force participation, U-6, metro-area or state unemployment rates, demographic subseries, non-seasonally-adjusted values, forecast consensus, any-2026-month markets, or later revisions unless BLS corrects the initial July 2026 release before resolution. If the July 2026 Employment Situation release is delayed, wait for the first BLS release containing the July 2026 U-3 unemployment rate unless there is no such release by August 14, 2026, in which case resolve N/A. Creation context: {"latest_official_context": {"bls_context": "BLS said the unemployment rate held at 4.3 percent in May and had remained in a narrow 4.3 to 4.5 percent range since July 2025.", "may_2026_total_nonfarm_payroll_change": 172000, "may_2026_unemployment_rate": 4.3, "release": "The Employment Situation, May 2026", "release_date": "2026-06-05"}, "metric": "U-3 official unemployment rate, seasonally adjusted, household survey", "related_non_duplicates": ["July 2026 nonfarm-payroll-change markets are not duplicates.", "June 2026 unemployment-rate markets are prior-reference-month markets.", "Any-2026-month, U-6, labor-force-participation, household-employment-level, claims, ADP, JOLTS, forecast-consensus, state, metro, and demographic markets are not exact duplicates.", "July 2026 CPI, PPI, PCE, retail-sales, industrial-production, housing, and permits markets are different statistical releases."], "release_schedule": "BLS schedules the July 2026 Employment Situation release for 2026-08-07 at 08:30 AM Eastern.", "resolver_surface": "Initial BLS Employment Situation release for July 2026", "source_fetch_caveat": "BLS pages may return HTTP 403 to raw Python urllib from this host; official BLS pages were verified via web/search tooling before creation.", "threshold": "4.5 percent or higher"}. Sources / resolver surfaces: - BLS Employment Situation release schedule: https://www.bls.gov/schedule/news_release/empsit.htm - BLS 2026 selected releases schedule: https://www.bls.gov/schedule/news_release/current_year.asp - BLS current Employment Situation page: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm - BLS CPS latest numbers: https://www.bls.gov/cps/latest-numbers.htm