U.S. employment rose by just 29,000 in September, while July and August were revised down by a combined 60,000 jobs. Monthly wage growth slowed to 0.1%, and unemployment rose to 4.2%.
The real issue is not a single data point, but locking a Q4 plan into a single scenario. We think about budgets in three layers: core, flexible, and pausable. For a company with a $1 million Q4 marketing budget, keeping 20% flexible means not committing $200,000 upfront to the assumption of a strong holiday season.
Even if spending remains resilient, budgets should be able to shift weekly based on Real Growth Index (RGI) — our measure of whether growth is actually profitable, sustainable, and scalable.
How quickly can your budget change direction when demand changes?