Friday’sjob report for August will be just strong enough and just weak enough to leave the Federal Reserve trapped in its current indecision on interest rates.

Economists estimate the monthly employment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday will show a 55,000 increase in payrolls after an unexpected dip in July employment. Such a result would be broadly in line with average monhly job growth this year.

The unemployment rate is seen holding at 4.1%.

Steady labor demand combined with limited layoffs are “consistent with full employment,” Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh said Friday at the U.S. central bank’s annual conference of global central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. But this level of employment hasn’t strong enough to push real incomes higher. Workers have been losing ground to inflation in recent months.

It’s hard to argue from these numbers that the economy is so hot that raising interest rates justifies the risk of sending the economy into a stall.

Indeed, the general economy has been just strong enough to keep inflatiom parked well above the Fed’s 2% target rate. And there’s nothing inthe August jobs report to suggest that the economy–without a push from something like higher interest rates–will just naturally slip into a lower gear on inflation.

Especially with the Iran war keeping the pressure on energy prices and the AI infrastructure buildout pushing up prices amid shortages of ebthing from chips to copper.

Some Fed officials still argue that those price increases are transitory and will come down on their own, but that song has become increasingly tired.

So after Friday’s report we’re likely to still have a data-dependent Fed waiting for data that show a clear trend.

Today, Sunday. the CME FedWarch tool shows 56.9% odds of a 25 basis point increase in its benchmark interest rate at the Fed’s September 16 meeting. That’s miniscule change from the 57% odds yesterday.