The US labor participation rate has fallen over the last 10 yrs from 67% to less than 63%. That computes to almost 10 million citizens NOT participating/working. If the average new job growth were to be 300,000 jobs/month that would cover the jobs needed for the always expanding US population (200,000 new jobs/month) leaving 100,000 new jobs to increase the participation rate back to 67%. That would take ~ 100 months to get back to the 2008 rate.
Trump is crowing about a losing score. What if the Trump-GOP criminals had inherited an economy losing 800,000 jobs per month as Obama did. I believe he would have declared bankruptcy and dumped the debt/chaos on the little people.
2
This a recession?
Boy I am I out of touch.
Before the tariffs were (are) to hit full force companys bought up as much as they could.
Not a recession.
Nothing wrong with lower unemployment numbers, but it's just getting back to numbers before George W's meltdown (as caused by Sen. Phil Gramm's banking deregulation, still-full-of-himself Alan Greenspan's lack of action, and a whole host of greed-niks).
Obama Administration with Republican Congress' sequestration vice-grip left the annual deficit below $600B for FY2016.
"The CBO is still projecting that the deficit will keep rising to $973 billion (4.6 percent of projected GDP) in fiscal 2019 and just over $1 trillion (also 4.6 percent of GDP) in fiscal 2020."
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-07-16/rising-federal-defici...
Sounds like Wall Street has an idea that this touted growth is riding that wave of greater deficit spending. Maybe the authors should check it out.
Instead of wage data, we get a cherry-picked quote that makes it sound like - at least substantial raises. NOT!!
"One reason for the lack of big raises is that a substantial number of workers remain on the sidelines, including the less-skilled ones who are now gradually coming back".
WAKE UP WORKERS! Trump's immigration policy is going to open his "big, beautiful gates" to high-skill foreigners (green card) and everyone else (work visas). NO WAGE EARNERS WILL BENEFIT! Republicans just saddled you with debt to HALVE corporate taxes and now scheme to by-pass Congress to give 86% of the next heist to the top 1%! How can anyone still deceive themselves about Trump?
Democrats refuse to credit Trump for the strong economy. Republicans refused to credit Obama for the recovery.
Turn off MSNBC and Fox
Stop playing my team versus your team
Think for yourself
15
Workers are joining...........for what wage? You bet they’re joining. Many have three jobs just to make ends meet. That’s joining all right.
8
Can we really trust any numbers coming from this adminnistration? No disrespect to the fine people at the BLS but they work for a White House that leaks BLS data when it feels like it...
4
Why does it seem that "the enemy of the people" is kissing up? We all know economies can be relied upon to run in cycles. So, just you wait. And, as comments here suggest, it is entirely possible to take too much from this. But don't think I am hoping to deflect credit from Goldilocks for all the good he does. Remember, if you ask him, what we are told is happening is NOT happening. Therefore, I am merely hoping to deflect credit for this wild surge from Goldilocks. Confused? So am I.
1
"The unemployment rate for those without a high school diploma......." I have trouble comprehending the scope of that sentence.
3
I just read the top 10 “Time’s Picks”. All 10 were very negative. Not one was positive. Wow. I think I’ll go eat some broken glass. It would be more pleasant.
14
No, they aren't participating, they're pressed into what is all but slavery. forced to work but still not able to afford to live while corporations hoard profits at record levels never seen before. They have the money to pay the paltry wages rise to make one job pay a living wage, they're just too stingy, greedy and dishonest to do the right thing--while the GOP readies the next tax break for those who don't work for their money but make others into slaves.
5
The reality cannot be ignored. Trump has made it difficult to hire illegal aliens and difficult to hire H1b. Employers are now forced to look for legal Americans and the results are obvious. I guess the deplorables from PA, OH, MI, WI and others that voted Trump in, knew what was best for them.
Democrats need to stop harping about DACA, illegal immigrants and lgbt rights, none of these polices get extra votes. If you are not focused on jobs, you are not going to win. Americans prefer jobs, even low paying one, as opposed to taxing the rich and giving handouts to the poor.
7
Understand that every one of those newly employed people will be voting for Trump in 2020. I think Trump is overall a disaster, and we haven’t even seen the tip of the iceberg of damage he is doing to us yet, but I understand why he is popular with his base - the wealthy and the uneducated. The Democrats have been ignoring the working class and making idle threats to the wealthy for so long I find all the concern over Trump’s lying to be hypocritical at the very least. If the Democrats had won in 2016, would these people have jobs? I don’t know, but I kind of doubt it. Of course the other ridiculous thing is that Trump is destroying the middle class by making everybody but the super-rich into the lower class, then telling them they are winning hugely, and they are believing him. But certainly to these newly employed people, Trump is better than the false promises of Democrats. Sad.
4
i hate to be a chicken little, although i am sure i'm in line with many other comments, but this "good news" seems like the calm before the storm. trump has done nothing of lasting value for the economy. all he has done is add a sugar high of high fructose tax cuts on top of what obama started 9 years ago. the issue not included in trump's "thinking" or in these rosy economic reports is climate change; which is getting very serious very quickly. we, the entire world, are still talking about goals 15-20 years in the future. we are almost 40 years behind the curve..... and the future is now.
2
As these undereducated people will be the first to lose their jobs during the next economic downturn, the bigger question is how to induce today’s children to stay in school so as to avoid becoming the next generation of undereducated Americans.
6
Browsing the comments, the proverb "looking a gift horse in the mouth" comes to mind. "Biting the hand that feeds you" is also acceptable. But mostly it's partisan tribalism that gives Trump ammunition for his endless campaigning. Why do it? There's enough of Trump to despise without complaining about actual good news. When his sycophants point out a "Trump derangement syndrome" among the left, there's more than a little truth in it.
11
It's pretty easy to juice the economy with a $1 trillion debt scam.
5
Throw the masses a bigger bone, put a flag in one hand, a beer in the other, and chant, "USA USA USA" and "MAGA." Welcome to Reagan Redux with even more greed and less substance,
if that was possible. This distorted statistic is today's bright shiny object, designed to distract us from the real story: the Trump train wreck, the actual truth, the real news.
4
Wait till the trade wars with the rest of the world takes a real toll on the economy, we'll see how good is this recovery really holds. By the way, Houston Chronicle today (8/4/2018) just had an article on the Chinese proposed 25% tariffs of our liquefied natural gas export, impeding our access to one of the world's largest LNG markets.
1
Democrats would have increased taxes which would have worked out much better because the government spends money so wisely. Cant wait for the mid terms so we can stratighten this out.
6
The good news here is that when Trump, Kushner, Manaford, Gates, Flynn and the rest of the gang of White House crooks get out of jail, they'll have honest, well paying jobs waiting for them.
Still in all, I worry about them.
Many of them are not really qualified to do anything but lie.
5
If there is better reason to throw the borders open and and flood the country with unskilled uneducated people it has to be low unemployment numbers. if were not careful this could possibly lead to rising wages and nobody wants to see that. The right needs cheap easily exploited labor and the left needs to replenish the only source they have of new voters. Everybody's a winner, except of coarse the average American worker, but when did either party ever care about them?
5
Why are the comments so begrudging and sour when America is working again? The balance of power between workers and companies has shifted. In order to attract workers, companies are no longer insisting on strict requirements like three years of relevant experience (usually not relevant anyway), a high school diploma or a bachelors degree as a way to winnow out applicants even when they’re unnecessary for the job, background checks (criminal history? no problem), and even drug tests (weed allowed during the interview? As long as you don’t inhale). Workers don’t have to be afraid anymore. If they don’t like the job, they can quit and easily find a job elsewhere, and the employers know it (Take this job and shove it!) Companies will no longer be able to blackmail states and local municipalities by threatening to relocate elsewhere unless they get unfair tax breaks which have to be made up for from other sources (Yes, Amazon, you, too. You can relocate on the moon if you like). Now tell me what it means to be “liberal” in this changed world. Do we want to go back to hiring illegals and exporting good jobs to third world countries or bringing in technical workers on work visas? That would be the Obama world which is about as dead as the age of the dinosaurs.
7
Thank Trump! Imagine how the economy would be performing under Hillary? Not as well. When you have a job and the pride and independence that comes with being self sufficient, you don't mind if he says rude and obnoxious statements. Paying your bills and supporting your family feels to good compared to a poor economy and receiving government hand outs.
9
The partisanship in the comments sickens me. The very same analyses from the red team of why the recovery under Obama wasn't actually beneficial for the country are now being trotted out by the blue team under Trump. It's so incredibly disheartening seeing what should be universally regarded good news being tainted by petty tribalism.
10
Funny thing--It all started happening when the Obama administration started pulling us out of the recession.
5
I fear this article only tells half the story. As many commenters have pointed out, people are earning low wages that make living difficult. And to cap it off, the president will use this to brag about how Great he is making America. Sigh.
2
I am one of those people that have commented here about goosing the economy. The classic Republican ploy is take a solid economic foundation created by Demarcates with fiscally prudent policies and in the blink of an eye slash taxes, with a massive increase in the debt. Presented by someone with Mr. Trumps salesmanship abilities it sounds like a brilliant plan only later will the working people suffer the terrible loss of long term stability. This started with Reagan the epitome of fiscal brilliance and all around champion of the working man.
I am still in awe at the ignorance of voters and the cruel self serving policies of all complicit Republicans and the corporate thugs that they represent.
America is headed for an unprecedented economic disaster that with some hindsight could have been avoided.
7
We do tend to focus on business and not on labor. On millionaires and not on working families.
But if the economy is doing so well, why can't we fund food stamps? Why is college tuition so high? Why can't we afford universal health care? And what about affordable housing? Poverty?
The economy does well for the top 10%, but leaves most of us out of it. And yet we rejoice -- officially.
Are we all in thrall to Wall Street?
6
Ignorance of this impending bubble bust is not bliss; it is deadly dangerous. Those who are suffering despite their meager .07 penny increase per week will absolutely suffer far more after the BIG POP. The 1% will snicker all the way to their ever fatter bank accounts . . .
6
In 1990 the National Center on n Education and the Economy published a report they called "Low Skills or High Wages, America's Choice." We chose low skills.
The Republicans have refused to invest in the things necessary for the American people to have higher wages. No investment in education and training, no investments in infrastructure, no investments in healthcare.
The Billionaire donors of the GOP used that money they saved on education, infrastructure and healthcare here in America to build factories overseas where they already have those things.
4
This is good news - although the clarifications I'm seeing about the sustainability of these jobs and how little has improved for the middle class are sobering - and fairly reported. Given the tenor of this administration, I find myself having a nagging curiosity about the process by which this set of Labor Department-published data has been externally (or internally) validated prior to release.
2
I keep hearing people talking about 'Trump's economy' and how it's doing so much better than the economy was during the Obama administration. Then I look at the graphs. The unemployment rate has been falling at about the same rate since 2010. The jobs added rate has been going up at the same rate since 2010. By the numbers, I'm not seeing that Trump has done anything special.
5
This welcome article about "Workers Hardest Hit by Recession Are Joining in Recovery" addresses the rise in employment of low-skilled Americans who benefit from the increased number of manufacturing jobs. This is great news!
There's another story that is likely to develop over time: that's the number of low-skilled employees who will recognize that lack of skill kept them from working.
How many of them will take advantage of training at a vo-tech school to move into quality control or maintenance jobs? How many of them will use their own lessons to teach their children the value of education?
How many of these workers will marry and form families, buy a first home, use the company-provided medical insurance to get checkups, buy healthier food, quit tobacco, see a dentist?
The family is the source of stability for society and is the bedrock of the nation. Paychecks that care for the family spread out to businesses throughout the community - Econ 101.
This is a time for celebration for each of the people who are newly employed, for their families, for their communities, their states, and our country. On Monday, September 3 let's all join in celebrating all American workers - but especially these people who have been able to join or rejoin the workforce.
6
Democrats should focus on outrage against Trump’s threats to Journalist, our Allies, non-whites, women’s equality, cruelty toward non-white immigrants and refugees, and intention to “Christianize” our Department of Justice.
Let the trade war seep in to the real economy. What gains the population has temporarily gained from the tax cut have already been erased by increased costs of durables and imports. Products that are essential to consumers should be emphasized by Trump opponents. Attacks on journalists by Trump and threats and acts of violence against journalists must be tallied in all reputable news papers and broadcast media just as the days of the Iran Hostage Crisis and the casualties of Vietnam.
Labor unions must aggressively wage war against Trump, the GOP and FOX, AMI, and opponents of democratizing the workplace and ending worker organizations. Job growth is good but the stagnation of wages in the face of double digit corporate and equity profits is outrageous.
3
All of those wonderful jobs that went to China and then Bangladesh and other struggling economies are now coming back to the U.S. where uneducated workers can earn as much as any other third world citizen. HOOOOORAY! But what happens when these low wage workers try to purchase food and other basic living goods at their local store and can't afford the prices because inflation has pushed prices beyond their reach?
3
So glad to hear that this sector of workers has less unemployment. I wonder if the wages they're earning are truly high enough to support them and their families. I've heard of full-time workers who still qualify for food stamps because the wages are so low. Still I'm happy they have work. Now if my friend with a Master's degree and several years of experience could just find a job. It has been nearly three years without one.
8
It was my favorite book as a teenager. Thanks for support;)
Who will pay for the Trillion dollar deficit. Surely not the one percent and the corporations. The Republicans giveth and the Republicans taketh away.
4
This article neglects to mention what the NYT described this week: job losses from Trump's tariff war - expected by the US Chamber of Commerce CEO to number 2.6 million - will take a few more months to hit the labor rolls. Also not mentioned is the rising cost of goods that will hit Wal-Mart and Target shoppers directly in their wallets - a 7¢ speck of dust will do nothing to staunch the bloodflow.
Both impacts, though, are not likely to hit hard until after November elections. In the meantime, Trump hedges his bets in case the impact shows before the elections - by railing against the media to "discredit" and "demean" them "so that when (they) write negative stories about me no one will believe" them.
Trump is a 6-time bankruptcy artist after all, and THIS, along with the trillion dollar check he just wrote to the very rich that fracks the foundation of our economy, is his artistry.
10
If the GOP can continue to sell the economy as a success and hold on to that meme through the upcoming midterms, many people taught to vote against their own interests will do so again. This bubble that we're in will inevitably crash, but unless we have bread lines in the streets the people that think Trump is God will continue to do so even as he pulls their house down around them.
4
@Georgia Lockwood
The economic recovery IS a success. It's just that:
1. it has nothing to do with the GOP, who systematically blocked the measures that got us to recover in the first place.
2. what's happening today has nothing to do with the GOP either, as they didn't pass any major legislation on the economy or trade yet.
3. Trump is already trying to install extremely globalist policies such as no tariffs or subsidies to American companies at all, whereas those things cannot but strongly hurt the US economy - as does his strategy to get us there (radically increasing tariffs)
4. now that the Obama recovery evolved into full employment, we urgently need measures that increase wages. The GOP has no idea whatsoever about how to do so, and clearly not the intention to do something about this either.
And most people know this. THAT is why the GOP is avoiding the economy at all costs, during campaign rallies, rather than having the guts to mention it - let alone try to "sell" it as a success.
It's up to well-informed ordinary citizens to make sure that Trump supporters get their facts right too.
5
@Ana Luisa all good observations on your part, but my main point is that to a certain segment of our population, which appears to be going larger, logic does not apply.
A 'striking symbol of a strong economy", heh? Tell that to my college educated friend who was "let go" from her legal assistant's job of 25 years 3 years ago when she was making $60,000 a year with paid time off, 401(k) and profit-sharing and subsidized group health insurance as well as group life insurance coverage. Now she's making $21.50 an hour with NO BENEFITS and had to work a year only 20 hours a week before she was "promoted" to full time. And she can't afford to buy health insurance on the exchanges because the costs have increased so much under Trump, and she "makes too much money" to qualify for any benefits under Wisconsin's Badgercare. Don't tell me that this is happening - I don't believe you. And my friend won't, either.
11
The Trump tax cuts have helped a lot. I love getting the extra take home pay.
Obama seemed to be more interested in the take home pay of people in Indonesia or Pakistan or other third world places. His globalist vision was an elitist's fantasy that hurt working people here at home. That's over and the American economy has revived nicely.
4
@Navigator
In real life, Obama turned Bush's -9% GDP, where we were losing 700,000 jobs a month, into a steadily growing economy creating more jobs a month than it did under Bush.
How did he do so?
One of the most important decisions was the Recovery Act.
What did it contain? Mostly TAX CUTS.
But not the typical Republican tax cuts (= permanent cuts for the wealthiest, and some temporary small cuts for a minority of ordinary citizens), as these were fact-based, very well-designed tax cuts and tax credits for small businesses (= the companies that hire most workers) and middle class families. AMERICAN businesses and families, that is.
He NEVER did anything remotely similar for citizens of Indonesia or Pakistan ...
As to globalism: globalists most important goal is to obtain zero tariffs and subsidies in international trade. That includes no subsidies at all for American workers or companies.
Guess WHO rejected this? Obama.
Guess WHO fully supported this? Trump, during his press conference with European leader Juncker.
His tariff increases (expected to kill more than 2 million American jobs) are merely a strategy to try to force other countries who still want to protect their workers to drop all national protections too.
ESPECIALLY when it comes to globalism, Trump is all talk, whereas his actions do the exact opposite.
Time to wak up if you want to be a patriot ... !
5
An extra $2/week!! I’ll be buying name-brand ketchup from now on!
8
We should have recovered from the recession a long time ago.
But Obama's globalist policies were suffocating our economy. His final year GDP was 1.6 percent. We were told it was the new normal. And that we should be happy wages were rising in third world countries.
Thankfully Americans didn't elect Clinton so Obama's globalist agenda could continue.
Trump has turned this economy around. Cutting red tape and tax reform have made a real difference.
I'm a middle class professional making 110,000 dollars a year. My marginal tax rate dropped from 28 to 24 % with tax reform. I take home 300 dollars more a month. That goes right back into the economy. Don't tell me tax reform is only for billionaires.
NY times quit labeling this surge from Trump's policies as some sort of natural recovery from our recession.
I didn't vote for Trump but I might next time. Credit to him.
8
@Ari
That's absurd.
Obama turned Bush -9% GDP into a decade-long, for Western developed economies normal 1.5% growth, and somehow you interpret that as "suffocating our economy" ... ?
The only reason why the recovery didn't happen faster was because Republicans systematically blocked his policies, even those most of them were TAX CUTS. But the GOP and its voters immediately seem to start disliking tax cuts when Democrats propose them ... just like they start immediately liking deficits when Republicans create them.
And Obama fought HARD to increase wages.
It's Trump and the GOP who are doing absolutely nothing to increase them.
And it's even worse: the GOP didn't pass any major legislation on the economy or trade yet (reason why you cannot possible attribute the current economy to them ... and reason why you don't see ANY Trump dent in economical graphs at all, but just a steadily evolving Obama economy instead). But Trump told Juncker that ... his goal is to end all American tariffs and subsidies. THAT is 100% pure globalism, remember? It means that American farmers will have to compete against Chinese farmers even though the Chinese dictators totally exploit their own workers.
Fortunately, Trump only recently started his trade war, so we're not seeing a lot of consequences yet (apart from the fact that the GOP already acknowledged that it makes farmers need a $12 billion extra subsidy).
But ... a small minority of people like you got a tax cut, so all is well ...
7
@Ari
It bothers me to see someone so focused on their own bottom line that they have no idea of the social, environmental, and economic damage being wrought by Trump.
I won't tell you that Trump's tax relief is only for billionaires. But billionaires are precisely who the GOP wants to benefit the most, and they keep offering tax cuts to them. In my own well-to-do middle-class community, I saw folks headed in a panic go to City Hall to pay their property taxes for next year in advance, given the new Trumpian tax code. Do you seriously think that billionaires are in the least worried about doing the same?
No, as with most people who give Trump a nod-and-a-wink, you'll denigrate the good that Obama did as if Trump himself is Year Zero because your wallet feels a bit heavier (for now).
4
But they're working for peanuts while those who hire them--company owners--are reaping the benefits. What a country!
5
Business will do anything to keep wages low and profits high.
8
A hard hit group is the STEM educated veteran who worked for multi-national companies and who are now being let go...displaced by lower waged people with H1B visas.
Years of dedicated experience pushed aside for lesser skilled but cheaper labor. Often two to three H1B visa persons replaces a single US veteran. The numbers are huge, up to 80,000 annually.
This is a disgraceful and untold horror story in our economy.
10
@ladps89, but but but - Trump is supposed to be AGAINST immigration. Isn't he (via Incel Stephen Miller) being pushed to cut it drastically, to 80,000 legal immigrants a year - other than all the exception Visas for big business, of course.
2
Very similar in technology. The H1B visa program for Indian technology workers pretty much wiped out a whole generation of US college grads starting in the 90’s because companies could hire them for literally 1/3 the cost. Google, Amazon, Microsoft etc cannot now survive without this labor pool because so many American kids switched to other fields as a result.
6
The Times called job growth of 173,000 in August 2015 "disappointing", but job growth of 157,000 in July 2018 "strong"
Right wing bias in black and white
6
@Marion Grace Merriweather, regardless of what the number is, it will be adjusted quietly and we won't hear about it, if we want to know what the actual adjusted number is we'll have to go hunting for it in the stats released online. Meanwhile, the FED is telling us that the economy is "strong" but refused to raise the interest rate. We can't have two contradictory things true at the same time. If we have a "strong" economy, we should have inflation, which would cause rising interest rates to head it off at the pass; but we can't have a strong economy because we have zero wage inflation despite the actual inflation that everybody is suffering from are for items that are deliberately kept out of the CPI. In actual terms, we're making less now based on the adjusted value of a buck than we were in 1970. STILL. How convenient...
2
The lost years, courtesy of "W" and the GOP, remain lost, and the fools are back on the assembly line.
Goody for them, oblivious and dumb.
3
The NYT and it's readership are in decline as more and more of us, many lifetime Democrats of multiple decades are getting tired of the insistent and repetitive negative coverage.
The confusion here is so palpable. Half the arguments here are, 'this is actually bad news and people are doing worse' while the other argument used here is 'THANK YOU OBAMA' which while plausible explains why things were improving 2 years ago but not the fact we are now getting results this good 2 years INTO Trumps election. This means the imminent collapse predicted here turned out to be as accurate (ie NOT) as predictions of Hillary's imminent victory 2 days before the election, the WMD's reported to be factual in Iraq or the fantasy that everything in the world that is bad is Putin's fault even when as in Libya, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Honduras, Egypt, etc etc it is OUR war crimes that are flooding Europe with refugees while Europe goes neo Nazi, (also blamed on Russia, even Poland who hate Russia apparently).
Scapegoating is the very lowest tactic and since 2014, I now I find these newspapers to be today's Pravda and alongside FOX utterly incapable of being a newspaper that investigates corruption and reveals it rather than acting like a rabid dog, protecting the interests of Party over the people and defending a failed status quo to the point of declaring, as Orwell would in 1984, that accurate information is 'weaponized truths' rather than what we need to know to make democracy functional.
12
@Vlad Drakul
There are many democrats turned off by the incessant attacks on Trump. The most strident and vocal Trump critics are just unaware of this phenomenon or in denial about it.
9
@Vlad Drakul, I wish the negative coverage was not the real news, but based on everything from a multitude of sources that I read, sadly it is. I deeply appreciate that overall, the Times, The Washington Post, and far too few others are carrying the torch for actual truth, not trumpist distortion. Sometimes, as the old cliche goes, the truth hurts, and it is frankly pretty painful these days. I hope I live long enough for the pain to at least relent if not go away.
7
Make usa great again
3
Wow, that headline must break Salzburger's heart. Gee, guys, remember when the Messiah told the American people that those unskilled labor jobs "probably aren't coming back," to excuse his own limp economic recovery. It wasn't Barack's fault, Krugman et al told 'em. TRUMP 2020.
12
@Dan. The democrats have fumbled the economy just like they continue to do with immigration. Every time anyone mentioned job loss they said, "get over it loser, those jobs are gone. Now let's talk about another amnesty". They risk 8 years of trump by simply hoping things get worse and claiming everything is worse, when clearly, not everything is.
"Steel Ceilings in Johnstown, Ohio, the company’s president, Rick Sandor, insisted on a couple of years’ experience in metal fabrication before considering applicants. But he’s had a harder time lately finding workers for his company, where shifts run from 5 a.m. to 2 p.m. and temporary positions start at $14 per hour."
That shift is coveted by people with families round here.
And that wage is more then places like Home Depot, Lowes offer and their schedules are all over the place. You could be working a day shift one day, then a closing the next, up and down, all around...and they are absolute jerks about availability. Retail in general is the hardest place to work if you have children, as their schedules are unforgiving...
But as others have pointed out, the lack of real increases in wages is where the real problems lie. The tax cut for the working classes has been overwhelmed by the increases in basic costs of living. I dont know anyone who has even noticed their pitiful "bump" in any real way. No one I know is running to the bank with an overflowing piggybank. But I do know they are still figuring ways to cut back on expenses, and/or artfully pay their bills on time, and not slide down in their credit score. (slide any further that is)
Facts are; there are NOW more lower paying jobs available, and most people are still struggling to make it week to week.
Awesome news! Not.
Fact; There has been no grand fix to the plight of the middle class. None! None in sight.
12
“The tax cuts that took effect in January are playing a role, Mr. Masadeh said — most families may have gotten a relatively small tax cut, but it is enough to fuel a few more nights out” “People feel good. They’re going out and spending more money,” he said. “In our segment, $50 feeds you and your family.”
Sure, a few nights out and people are feeling good while their food and rents are skyrocketing, their healthcare (If they have any) is crumbling, their children’s education is suffering and simply they are not making barely enough to make ends meet. The economy may look rosy for those in Wall Street but for the average working American….they struggle as usual.
Mr. Masadeh should try living off the minimum wage and get a firm grip on reality.
11
I'm a teacher with a master's degree and I can tell you that I have not had a raise. I have seen nothing from Trump's tax cuts. In the South, MidWest, and in some Northern states such as Idaho, teachers are paid about the same as janitors. Some states and regions are better, but even the Northeast congratulates itself for what are merely entry-level professional salaries. This past spring we saw teachers in some states strike and push for appreciable raises, but those raises still did not approach a decent, professional salary. Now the lucky teachers in those are supposed to just shut up and dribble for the next decade or two.
Everything has been tried to recruit and retain great teachers, everything EXCEPT giving all teachers a very significant raise. Every Teach For America teacher I've met has told me that they would like to stay in education, they believe it's one of the most important professions, but teaching is "WAY too much work for WAY too little pay."
But hey, let's not try raising salaries in a real, substantive way. Let's drag out new standardized tests, new gymnasiums, new anything but what would actually work
to support the people who actually teach.
11
@SCZ
Your teaching salaries are dependent on being able to tax citizens. You should be happy there are more jobs for them. It's a first step in being able to tax them.
3
@SCZ
If you received "nothing" from the tax cut it is because you already paid no Federal tax.
Teachers salaries include significant non-salary compensation.
Teacher's salaries are quite good in my neck of the woods.
2
Wait until the impact of Trump's tariff war kicks in. The less educated will be the first to lose their jobs. They are benefitting from growth that began long prior to Trump's election. Trump will undo all of that.
5
All I can say is that there are thousands of homeless in Seattle, and so very many that I see are over fifty. And that I am making $16/hr and I was making $14/hr in 1995. I guess I'm lucky to have a job at 60, though I will retire when I'm found dead on the sales floor.
9
It is time we give President Trump and his team their due credit for stimulating the economy by lowering personal and corporate taxes. Kudos President Trump!
10
To all those giving exclusive credit for the recovery and and unemployment rate decline to Donald Trump—- this turn over in the economy started in 2010! There are many factors not entirely controlled by whomever is the White House. One thing for sure— is the economy takes a downward turn, I seriously doubt Trump will take responsibility.
9
In the world of the New York Times readership, ever cloud is a signpost of impending doom.
7
@mannyv
Every *cloud*? Every ray of sunshine is a signpost of impending doom, at least if it occurs after January 20, 2017.
1
The economy is the best in years and from NYC to LA it is incredible. Only the Trump haters and left wing welfare and food stamp supporters will differ. Even a lot of New York City illegal aliens are fully employed. Of course the rest are on welfare and food stamps. Ever wonder why you taxes are high?
5
Time to boot some lazy people off welfare and back to work.
7
People on welfare aren't lazy. Yet another myth. What hold most back are lack of affordable childcare facilities and lack of affordable health care. There used to be a wonderful program called WIN--cancelled by Gramm Rudman --that provided training/education and free childcare for welfare recipients. Unfortunately, it was the product of a more enlightened era.
4
Reality check with 400000 baby bombers retiring every month from jobs pay living wage . Replaced with 37000 manufactoring jobs as tempory no benfits were having recovoy from what incredbile shrinking work force . We still hear sucking sound of jobs pay living wage in rochester ny being exported.
4
I'm curious what impact the aging workforce has on the improved employment statistics over the past 10 or so years. While recovery certainly accounts for a large part of this trend, particularly in the years immediately after the 2008 recession, what is the impact of the growing number of retirees on the current trends. As an example, I read an article in a manufacturing journal earlier this year that manufacturing businesses were expecting something like 25% loss of employees through retirement in the near future. Is this part of the growth in manufacturing hiring and if so, how much?
6
@BillFNYC.the average savings for an American in their 60s is less than 200,000$. Are we sure all these boomers are set to retire?
5
“I am the king of debt. I love debt. I love playing with it,” said Trump.
His casinos might have looked glitzy and exciting for a while, but they went bust under that pile of debt he loves playing with.
The current bubble might look good for a while.
16
I'm amazed that people can STILL find fault with this fantastic economy.....
It's historic!
I, and most everyone I know, are making a LOT more money the last couple of years and the momentum is foretelling more to come.
If you still can't make it, get a job or a raise, maybe it's YOU and not Trump or the economy.....
Just sayin-
13
We definitely need more fast food outlets to fuel the obesity crisis. On another note, workers would be smart to use this chance to get their g.e.d., associate's degree, or bachelor's on top of working. Because when the next downturn comes, and come it will, they will be the first out of a job.
7
We are approaching America's version of slave labor that they have in countries like Vietnam, India, Mexico etc.
Trump has brought these jobs back and made them American.
Unfortunately these slave labor Americans(and others) are saddled with a trillion dollar debt that Trump just awarded in corporate welfare to his cronies.
14
Will the liberal community ever learn that losing long-term unemployment is a marvelous motivator to go out and get a job?
11
Will the conservative community take into account that some affected by long-term unemployment lost their jobs or careers st the worst point in their lives...50,and older, and ageism, illegal as it is, is their biggest obstacle in getting a halfway-decent job? Apparently not.
So, why don't businesses in the conservative community, who are making out like bandits courtesy Trump's tax cuts, consider giving those unemployed liberals a break, and a job?
Problem solved!
7
@CHN
Don't forget disability. Unfortunately, it was turned into a crutch as well.
There are always complaints when people are removed from government assistance and have to go back to work.
Thankfully, Trump is creating jobs for them. Just getting a job is an important first step for many who haven't worked in a very long while.
2
I've been after the Times, my all-time favorite media site, for its lopsided anti-Trump rhetoric since the campaign (and no, not a supporter and did not vote for him). So, I have to say congratulations for printing an article which at least covers something positive and didn't try to give credit to Pres. Obama. Is this b/c of Trump's meeting with their publisher? I have to wonder.
All moderates ask for is balance. This is one article. There's a lot to make up, before I trust The Times' political articles again. I'd like to someday.
11
In the blue states the surest path to success is govt or public education employment. In Conn state workers have a no layoff clause and teachers have tenure. The avg state worker makes 74k and avg teacher 76k..the first year pension payed last year to a retiring teacher is $59025 at age 62 which is equal to a million dollar annuity. I know paralegals, nurses, DSS mid managers at 100k, in Bridgeport last week a DMV clerk was arrested for fraud of some type, her pay was 60k. All of these stats come from "openthebooks.com". In my town almost 200 teachers are at 100k+ and 100 public safety the same. There has been no govt or public ed recession, and at 63 with 1.5 masters in IT and 25 years of adjunct faculty I feel lucky have kind of reached the end but my future lot pales to govt/ed workers(most with less education and stress) who just got a job and rode it out 40 years with no chance of failure. When I read these comments from 50-60 something who lost jobs they never reclaimed despite good education and work records(which was almost me a number of times) I think of those I know who just go to work, come home, oblivious to unemployment , outsourcing, tech replacement etc and get salary and pensions on our nickel that we don't get
14
@arthur. Unfunded public employee retirement debt is the other looming crises besides the fed debt. Problem is, what politician of either side, is going to buck those unions and say "you have to work longer or get less"?
8
@arthur
The day of reckoning is soon coming for government workers who have been enjoying those juicy pension benefits you cite as well as the politicians who promised them. Here in New Jersey Standard & Poor’s notes that have “America’s most underwater pension fund, with a mind-blowing $124 billion in debt.” “With assets covering just 30 percent of what’s needed for future obligations, well below the 40 percent mark the Rockefeller Institute of Government deems “crisis” level”. In other words the pension “bubble” is set to burst. Of course if the same politicians who promised such lavish pension packages without paying for them stay true to form, they will just raise our taxes.
To add insult to injury the social security and medicare “benefits” that the likes of you and me have paid into our whole working lives presents an even bigger bubble and unlike government pensions they are not guaranteed. In other words we will pay more and receive less.
4
Trump is busy fixing the economy for all Americans. I could not be prouder to have voted for somebody who actually cares about all Americans and their ability to have pride in bringing home a paycheck instead of a welfare check.
9
One can only smirk at the childish whining and negativity at the strongest, lowest unemplyment and most vibrant economy in decades. The Times and its readers trumpet the plight of the desperate to assail Trump for the general improvement in the economy not being 100% perfect (when was that?)
13
Title should be "Workers hardest hit by the liberal Democrat miss managed economy", are joining recovery.
7
um, I think the recession happened on the Republican watch and the recovery was very much stymied by them
9
When journalists bury the fact that wage increases for workers with limited educations haven't kept up with inflation in the third to last paragraph of their article, you have to wonder about their partisanship.
6
@Jennifer Fox. The middle class hasn't had a real pay raise since the 80s. Even during BHOs recovery most the benefits went to the top 5%, just like when the republicans are in. It seems to be the only bipartisan issue left. The rich get richer, no matter who's in charge.
6
No doubt Fearless Leader will attempt to articulate a translation of this occurrence and for that I'd like a front row seat for that, the first act and then the second act when the whole of it once again caves in around a trillion dollar deficit, no organized health care platform coupled with McConnell and Ryan's raiding of our Social Security and Medicare funds in order to make war around the globe brought to you by mysterious shadows who don't like government because they get in the way of their strip mining and hog farming but like government when it is time to get BAILED OUT.
5
That the booming economy is bringing more people who have been overlooked into the work force is heartening, welcome news and along time coming! No one on either side of the political divide would argue that.
Obama rescued us from falling off the cliff and then laid the groundwork for a slow and steady recovery. Trump came in and poured gasoline on it with tax cuts at the expense of the deficit.
Anyone who has been around long enough to understand basic finance knows this is unsustainable.
Giving credit to Trump is like giving an arsonist credit for the awesome house fire.
22
@m shaw
Obama created a safety net at a very critical and frightening time for Americans. The problem is it had no "exit" ramp. People remained there far too long.
For those stuck in the safety net, Trump has built a way out and back to a job. This is a critical first step. He deserves credit for it.
5
Creating low paying jobs to keep the uneducated employed but struggling to survive. More of an issue is why we have so many people without higher education. But then people would realize that wage increases below the inflation rate means less money to spend.
11
The persons hardest hit due to the Bush recession and well after the beginning of the Obama recovery, the forgotten men and women are no longer forgotten as they are becoming beneficiaries of the recovery. It seems like everyone who wants to work has a job. This is great news that everyone across the party lines should feel happy about.
If the recovery continues steadily, why would anyone want to alter the course or shake the boat sailing smoothly? I predict that the incumbents in congress and senate from both parties have a good chance to be reelected if they can assure the people that the good times will roll on.
It this is what "America first " meant, we can all rejoice. What also seems to contribute to the recovery is the focus on domestic issues while letting rest of the world go on doing the same. America not poking its nose around the world and not wasting tax payer monies on useless wars over seas is great.
5
The same people that heralded Obama's slow growth recovery are now criticizing significant gains. Their perspective is clearly clouded by political bias towards Trump.
More people working is a good thing. And always will be.
9
@AACNY - yes, but as long as the cost is not greater than the benefit. The newly working poor and lower middle class are getting a grain of sand while the richest 10 percent are getting the rest of the beach. We've seen how that plays out; do you really want to go through that again?
4
These job numbers are deceiving, but all we get is the obvious, the slogan. Delve deeper into the statistics and explain to an angry population waiting for a meaningful raise. Consider: Everyone is afraid of loosing their job, and no one will leave a job, even a poorly paying one. No one asks for a raise for fear of being fired. How does fear add to "full employment"? Plenty of Baby Boomers plan to work to 70 or later because they just can't afford to retire. This is especially true for older single women, a group completely ignored by the media. "Open" positions are not real until filled. Know someone who has gotten a job interview, even for a tech position, through an internet job bank in a metropolitan area? I don't. Commercial banks may show "300 open positions" at all levels (from "needing no experience" to VP) but no one ever seem to get an interview, even with obvious qualifications. How can that be? Raises are a fiction. Paul Ryan's fictional "tax relief" barely pays for the increase in gas, let alone the sudden increase in everything Chinese at the mall. I challenge a reporter to pose as a business major, a teacher, an RN, a physician, and apply for a job. They try to apply for a fast food job. The reporting on these "jobs numbers" is about as credible as those stories about the pizza place in Washington during the Presidential election.
11
Employment numbers are wholly misleading without wage growth data. It’s like giving half of a baseball score:
Red Sox 7 . . .
13
According to the Donald’s bombast our economy is now the envy of the world — again.
This article was way too rosy, it so needed some serious hard ball on the underlying negatives of what is actually happening in terms of wages, inflation, and the nature of the jobs that are forthcoming — part time, no benefits, etc..
How many Americans moved above the poverty line in the last year?
10
Wait until paychecks hit higher costs resulting from Trump's tariffs. Let's throw in drug costs while we are at it with those over 800% increases per year.
12
Happy to say I'm feeling it. Disabled out of high school for ten years, scored my first a month ago. People entering the job market appears to be, from my view, that businesses are putting up with more.
When I came out of high school, no one would hire me I think because the recession was beginning and a lot of the lower end jobs were going to people who had experience and were older. I remember applying at Valero during a job fare and they were all people that had to be 40 years older than me. This was every one I looked at in a few miles. I gave up!
2015 is when I saw a lot of places hiring, and younger, unskilled workers in my city. It was great to see them make mistakes, and that drove me to start trying harder to recover. I have close friends who are disabled and they all have jobs except one that is really mentally ill. My boyfriend has held his mom and pop restaurant job for over two years now, his longest, despite having a very bad sex abuse felony dating back to 2000.
Things are good right now :-)
5
Republican President None of the Credit, all of the blame. Democrat President all of the credit None of the blame. I Truly am amazed when I read this stuff. President Trump Turbocharged this economy period. But, if and when the next recession hits, and it will eventually. He will get all of the blame.
7
@MiguelM,
So what did Trump do to improve the economy? The tax cuts went to corporations and the 1%, not to workers - wages certainly haven’t increased.
As for a recession, we’re headed that way with Trump’s trade war, so, yes, he would get the blame.
12
Let's review:
1) Worst economic meltdown in 80 years happens on Bush's watch.
2) Obama puts the economy back together again.
3) Trump inherits Obama economy and all trend lines simply continue.
Yeah, what a crazy idea to give credit to Obama.
11
@MiguelM
Yes, most of these comments could be considered "sour grapes." We are definitely benefiting from Trump's actions.
Wait until 2018 taxes are filed and the lower tax brackets and $2K child credits are factored in. Even in high tax states, these benefits will mitigate the loss of real estate tax deductions.
4
Liberals are now saying what Republicans were saying when Obama saved the economy: not counting the underemployed, part-timers, etc. That the economy continues to perk along is welcome news is a combination of strong stewardship under Obama and businesses sense that Trump is pro-employer. His policies, however, are going to lead us into the next recession.
5
@Orange Nightmare
The difference is that we are now seeing the long term unemployed returning to work. Under Obama few were being offered jobs without any prior experience, which is what's starting to happen now. A very good thing for the job market.
1
One clear factor in drawing these workers in: the available number of legal and illegal immigrants has declined and many business are no longer looking to skirt the law to hire them. This has made the high school grad a more attractive as an option.
10
i only saw one wage rate for one company quoted in this...that was $14/hr. and that, having been looking around since april when the manufacturer i worked for for 37 years closed its doors, is on the high end of starting wages...$9 to $12 /hr. seem to be more the norm here...and the question i keep asking is can that support a family and that answer is no it cannot...i was headed for retirement anyway and am in fair financial circumstances...someone in their twenties or thirties who does not have the benefit of a few decades in unionized manufacturing will not have that advantage...the system is still rigged...the house ( in other words, capital ) holds almost all the cards now...a generation in debt penury, educated or not, is what they seem intent on creating...you are helping them cook the books here.
15
Looking at the graphs provided with this article, it is clear that whatever is going on now is a continuation of trends started years ago during the Obama administration.
Economic reality did not magically begin in November of 2016. I think it is important to point this out.
18
You're completely and absolutely correct. It's also important to note the improvement did not end with Trump's election either. The economy persists despite who is President. A strong economy is not the only thing, but it is an important thing for everyone. It makes everything just a little easier.
6
I'm shocked and dismayed! This is the sort of positive (mostly unbiased) article no one expects on the front pages of the NY Times. Why? Because it doesn't benefit the Democrat Party in any obvious way--in fact, if anything, it hurts their prospects for November.
And while it doesn't specifically give credit (rightly deserved) to Trump, it doesn't try to convince us the good news is just a continuation of Obama policies either.
I own a specialty contracting company with 20 employees. And while I could use 4 or 5 more, I'm having a difficult time finding potential new hires that might be a good fit for us. But the folks I have are amazing--and I'm satisfied with the current level of business we're doing.
From where I sit, this economy is on fire. If we have any issues at all, it's in getting materials on a timely basis--because our suppliers are overloaded with orders. We are currently turning away nearly as much work as we sign up.
Instead of trying to take on more to raise our bottom line, we're selecting the best projects for us--and raising prices. And because I can't do anything without talented employees, I have raised wages--so nobody has a reason to wander away.
Conservative economics works. Low taxes, higher incomes--who can argue with that--except the Left? The best news of all...the 3rd quarter numbers will be out just before the Nov. elections--and GDP will be above 5%. This should make sure fewer anti-business candidates get elected.
13
Do you offer your employees any benefits? If one of them is injured, do you offer them compensation, or do you fire them and get someone fresh?
5
@Jesse The Conservative
"From where I sit, this economy is on fire."
Exactly. Trump removed the yoke of a heavy-handed government and set entrepreneurs (a/k/a small business owners) free.
No longer is government competing, via benefits and support payments, with small business owners for workers.
2
Whatever happened to Trump's massive infrastructure plan? That would have provided real (high wage) jobs for real improvements to our economy, transportation system and national security (individual and governmental) overall.
Instead, he gave a giant pile of cash to billionaires and corporations that just turned around and reinvested it for their own profit.
Some populist.
21
I'm not an economist. But I find myself somewhat skeptical of the jubilation about the economy. Not quite sure if it is just a reaction to Trump claiming credit for things improving on the foundation built by Obama after the Recession (despite a Congress that blocked most of his agenda) or if the trend is real.
One should remember that a really good date that turns out to be a one night stand does not generally result in a lifelong commitment of marriage.
Let's wait and see what the actions of the last year do in the long run. Right now I see the people who have money in the stock market buying luxury housing and BMWs. Let's see if the people in inner cities can send their kids to college, or buy healthy food. Or if people like me can get an annual checkup under Medicare that covers lab tests. Or if families are no longer torn apart. Or if our elections produce valid results. Or if we can get past daily national crises in the news. Or if I don't lose my home because I don't have enough free cash to save to pay my taxes. THEN I will be able to celebrate our economy.
Right now, with the stupid tariff's that Trump is playing with, I don't see how Walmart and other affordable stores will continue, and expect that food prices will go up. No cheers here for Wall Street or companies whose workers who can't unionize.
12
The Obama recovery has been a slow and long, but steady recovery.
Why?
Basically because Republicans blocked a faster and deeper recovery on a systematical basis, in Congress.
So now, finally, high school drop-outs are seeing more job opportunities too.
But how long will this continue? Because it's not as if the GOP learned its lesson and now decided to finally go back to fact-based economics again. Quite on the contrary, they just doubled the federal deficit, and now ... start imagining that a trade deficit is a bad thing, so are taking measures to end it - measures that are already hurting farmers so much that they're thinking about a whopping $12 billion subsidies, JUST to try to get farmers back to the economic situation they were in before Trump started his tariff madness.
And of course this is only the beginning. Once the trade war will get at full speed, we will need MASSIVE subsidies and deficit increases JUST to go back to the current Obama recovery results ...
And by then voters will finally be fired up again and go voting, so Democrats will control DC again ... only to have to work hard to get back to where we were before, and with Republicans blocking progress every step of the way. Which will then result in progressives being disappointed that Dems weren't able to move beyond where we were before, stay home during the next elections again, and then ... the whole cycle starts anew ...
14
This is great news for some, not so good for us with the dream of handing the GOP a monumental drubbing in the fall. The Dems must be careful in crafting their responses.
4
These same folks found jobs right before the last Crash. Multiple jobs and were still barely treading water.
Statistics like these say nothing about quality of life in our downward-bound nation. Welcome back to the Gilded Age, where a Tax "reform" sugar-high will last a bit longer, followed by another and deeper Crash. Then I suppose the Right will call for more deregulation.
10
As much as I detest Trump and his policies, this robust economy, even for less educated workers, cannot be denigrated. Of course, some of the policies that have created this economic boom do not bode well for the immediate health or future economic well-being of the nation. The nation's business class runs rampant getting richer, destroying the environment, and hauling in riches that it does not share with workers.
There are some who would say, and I think I agree, that Obama did not do a good enough job balancing the needs of the working class with many of the other concerns that he pursued. Whoever is the next Democratic presidential candidate needs to find the sweet spot between Trump's and Obama's policies, a tough trick to be sure.
8
"There are some who would say, and I think I agree, that Obama did not do a good enough job balancing the needs of the working class with many of the other concerns that he pursued. "
Like what? I can say, "I've heard, and I suspect it's true, that vincentgaglione steals money from the church till". Sounds bad but I offer no context or evidence.
7
In the 8 months since the "Biggest Tax Cut Ever" how much more salary is everybody now enjoying?
If it is not as much as you were hoping for or expecting it to be, or anything more at all, just remember that companies have already delivered $700 MILLION dollars in share buybacks to their investors in just 8 months showing you that workers and employees are not being given salary increases and are not a priority for their Employers.
Who would have thought that would happen?
12
Good for the Trump administration for getting the economy going and getting Americans to believe in America's economy and its capabilities.
13
@2observe2b,
How did the Trump Administration get the economy going? First of all, the economy is continuing on a trend that began under Obama. Second, the only major piece of legislation that Trump has signed is the tax cuts, of which the majority of benefits have gone to the wealthy. I'd love to see the evidence that Trump has anything to do with these job gains.
7
@2observe2b: Look at the charts in the article.
2
These numbers enrage me. Show me real-life numbers this drop of unemployment reflect.
The only increase in employment came from the service industries and health care whose workers include college graduates.
What's the hourly wage increase of 7 cents an hour going to buy? Not even a cup of coffee let alone an electric bill, a bag of groceries nor college debt.
The number decreased due to underemployment.
13
According to the article there’s an increase in factory jobs. Who woulda thunk it?
2
" ...in the summer of 2009, the unemployment rate for high school dropouts hit 15.6 percent, more than three times the peak unemployment rate for college graduates."
Great! So it only took 9 YEARS for these workers to recover from the GFC??
Lucky them.
5
If Nader Masadeh says things are better then who am I to question. Still I worry about Wings and Rings’ ability to find and retain workers. What with those extra nights out and all they may get greedy for more. Of course they may as well go out; their new found wealth will hardly enable early retirement or what, a new car?
5
We are usually shown graphs where the number of employed people is represented by a LINE that rises and falls like the line showing a stock price. That's fine for a stock price because it really is a single number. But the material well-being of a population is much harder to represent graphically:
- What percent of the population is employed, on average?
- How many hours per year, per person?
- Earnings per year, per person?
- Cost of living?
- Life span? Home size? Auto mileage? Years of school?
- Probably all of these need to be shown for each 1% or 5% or 10% of the population, in a wildly complex histogram or a stack of them.
I'm floundering here, but that's my point. I'd love to see the NYT do an article or a short series on how to graphically represent the material well-being of the American people, from top to bottom, from 1918 to 2018. When it's just words or even a single-line graph, nobody knows what to believe.
18
Where is this booming recovery that everyone keeps talking about it? I haven't seen it. I have a masters from an Ivy-League university but I've been looking for work since 2011 with no luck. But, of course, I am female and over 50. Workers without high school diplomas are still the more desirable employees, I guess.
13
And what percentage of those workers are working two jobs to make ends meet?
14
@JCAZ Very few: 4.9% on average in 2017 (https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat36.htm).
That is a continuation of a 20-year+ decline in the % of workers with two jobs (https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2015/article/multiple-jobholding-over-the-p....
Don't think trump has a thing to do with it one way or another but it is easy to educate oneself on the facts. BLS (bureau of labor statistics) is a very easy statistical treasure trove. Atlanta Federal Reserve has some great tools on wages (https://www.frbatlanta.org/chcs/wage-growth-tracker.aspx) etc
4
I continue to read about the strong economy in every news publication or website I read. I continue to read about how the unemployment levels are incredibly low, and I know this from what I see in my own job. Having said all of this, do I feel any better? Not at all, because other than having a safe job that I love, nothing is changing for me. I am a veteran teacher in North Carolina whose salary has barely moved in the last decade. Supposedly the economy has recovered and everything is great, but the only thing that has happened in my state is that already well-established people continue to get tax cuts while the public schools continue to suffer not just because of teacher salaries, but more importantly, because the General Assembly refuses to give the students what they need and refuses to invest in infrastructure building and repair. Perhaps for some 2018 is 1998 all over again, but for those of us who work or have children in public education, this is not much different from the fall of 2009 at the worst of the Great Recession. The Great Recession has never ended for us because our gerrymandered, power-hungry, and ideology driven legislative leaders despise public education and still subscribe to trickle down economics. Well, guess what? We are still suffering, and the money is not trickling down.
30
@What is TruthI have not known a teacher who lost a job, got a pay cut, or lost a benefit or pension. Flat pay adjusted for inflation is not really a problem in the past 10 years.
4
@arthur
North Carolina teachers have received two raises in the last three years. Most of the increases went to newer teachers and to help in recruitment.
1
The real statistic is why we still have such a large number of dropouts and unskilled workers?
9
Of course, gaining a job is a good thing. But too bad it doesn't come with a living wage or benefits. These statistics are nothing to cheer about. Wages are low and trending lower with a high percentage of added jobs being in the neighborhood of minimum wage. Shouldn't we be asking why there are so many Americans who were unable to complete a high school education? Do you remember when we were told that it was fine to have a low minimum wage because these jobs were for high school students in the summer? Lack of education and age discrimination are huge problems. If these trends continue, the future is bleak.
17
I was in Toronto and there was a big WeWork sign.. Across the street there was a bigger sign Why Work ?
Jobs don't translate into economic security or the ability to save or own a home . Low educated personnel can find a job behind a fast food grill but the vision of economic prosperity eludes most of us. Considering this is the year 2018 with great technological advances there hasn't been a better quality of life . Oh and lets not forget the disregard of the environment and how a heated up economy takes a toll on mother earth.
I don't mean to complain i have a job.
9
Pollution is the smell of money. When the factories were closed, the air became purer and the earth greener, but people couldn’t eat air or cook weeds (well, not most weeds). Under Obama global warming became a dividing line. The elitists whose jobs were unaffected by it embraced the idea. The deplorables had no use for it. Under Trump all that has changed. It’s all about jobs, jobs, jobs. The factories have reopened. People are working and spending. They are going out to eat. They are able to do things for their children. This, of course, is anathema to the elitists. They’re just not used to an equitable world where the little guy is given a chance.
7
@Ed Well said I agree with a lot of it . Especially the purer air . And there is less war . No WW I and WW II and even Vietnam and Korea . Its all good . Things are better or maybe as good as they have even been . Regardless of Presidents but a lot of the jobs don't pay the rent and savings are down . The young folk especially the kids of the little guy are in very precarious jobs. $30,000 per year and there are few apartments under that annual wage here in NYC and in many places.
"Pollution is the smell of money"
Suck on the tailpipe of a Super Duty then; see how long you last
"Some experts doubted they and other low-skilled workers would ever fully recover from the effects of the recession".
I'm a social scientist who specializes in behavioral economics (i.e. I look at well-being and unemployment), and there is plenty of evidence that taking up a low skilled job following a long spell of unemployment is associated with lower levels of life satisfaction.
While they have recovered in the narrow sense of being employed, their well-being will appear "scarred" permanently by recession. It likely relates primarily to the nature of the work i.e. poor working conditions, monotony, lack of autonomy etc. They may be surviving, but if you think they are happy, or as happy as they have ever been i.e. that they have truly "recovered", you are undoubtedly wrong.
19
I am convinced this is happening only in more sparsely-populated areas. In NYC, the jobs that do not require college (retail, service industry, etc) draw from a surplus of high school grad applicants. Those without a hs diploma are left with the very worst jobs with no benefits. We don't have room for huge industrial and warehousing businesses that have to rely on drop outs.
5
So you have a very large unemployed class that is dependent on government handouts which the rest of you who work are paying for. Is that a good thing? BTW, much of that factory space that no longer exists is now lofts and condos that are not even occupied by people who live there. Sounds like the NYC economy is very sick and in need of help, but the Socialist mayor you have is hardly going to change that.
4
Obama's policies are paying off. And less educated workers begin to feel the benefits of democrat's good management.
how long will it take for Trump and the Republicans to break it and throw the economy under the bus ?
Trump took his first major actions a few months ago: insane tax cut and trade wars.
The effect of those terrible decisions will appear in a year.
Brace for impact people. And please, don't blame Democrats for it.
12
What were Obama’s policies? Unemployment and bigger government? Trump has dumped all that. If Obama’s policies were any good, the economy should have tanked when Trump reversed them. Instead, the economy has roared ahead.
5
Recovery...not really. In 2012 my husband was laid off from the software company he worked at for 11 years at the age of 52 with about 25 years of IT and software experience and a spotless job record and major recommedations, earning 85k a year in California. Nether he nor his co workers have ever found employment in the IT sector since. He now works as a personal assistant and caregiver for 1/4 of previous earnings with no benefits or time off. Where is the recovery for these experienced tech workers who have the knowledge and skills and dedication to fill the tech skills gap we are always hearing about?
31
He should try a job in Cybersecurity. they are hiring a lot. Even above 50.
2
Under President Obama, there was a long steady improvement in jobless numbers and in the economy. Trump is only reaping some of the benefits from all of the benefits of the Obama administration. Trump is always quick to blame his problems on Obama, but never gives him credit for anything, instead exploiting someone else's hard work and acumen.
The Trump costs to the economy will come next year. Many in the middle class will have to pay higher taxes. Many will lose healthcare. The enormous tax cuts for the rich added $1.5 trillion plus to the deficit, and the trillion dollar deficit is coming up. The highest trade deficit in 10 years is on track this year. The trade wars are costing workers jobs and companies their survival. They will also raise the costs on goods.
Historians have said the current era which has been great for billionaires is paralleling the Gilded Age before the Great Depression.
25
We are continuing to create jobs is good news. The reverse would signal that the new Tax Cut which provided funds to businesses to invest in new competitive products and services for both domestic and global markets gives me a feeling of confidence that we may be improving the quality of life of Americans.
However, the U.S. tariffs and the counter tariffs imposed by our trading partners in the first battles of the increasing tempo of a so-called trade war have not historically benefitted the economies involved and I don't see that the current trade wars will turn out any better.
It also concerns me that wages are persistently stagnant -- flat or barely keeping pace with inflation. If wages allowed a decent standard of living, including having enough in the paycheck to afford a decent place to live and provide for the care and nutrition of children and their education this would be really good news.
The US economy is not doing well by its wage earners and this very poor income distribution will take its toll and our society will be burdened with a huge number of middle-aged and older people who will be caught in a future of despair. See the findings of Ann Case and Angus Deaton http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/early/2015/10/29/1518393112.full.pdf
Equity must pay a greater share of its income to wage earners and I believe an increase in the minimum wage is overdue. There will also be a need to provide better health/dental care that won't impoverish the wage earner.
10
Good God, Good News, Slow in Coming Over 10 Years
16
New York Times please stop the con-job. As the fed Chairman Powell did the same when he announced last month that the economy was now “normal”! Oh really. How fast we forget about the condition of the working class in America in contrast to the Gilded Class of the world over. If this is such a great economy then why hasn’t real wages increased in 40 plus years? Why has the cost of living across the board gone up? Why can’t anyone get a decent loan? Why is it that no one has a real “savings” to speak of. And why is a gallon of gas nearly $3.00 a gallon. This list of truths goes on but the New York Times will go along with the Trump-Speak and tout a paper-tiger of an economy as a heavy weight economic powerhouse. What’s next: the Time will tell us we need to start a second rate war with a tiny poorer country to prevent them from obtaining WOMD and to keep our economic fortunes alive and prosperous. That’s been the M.O. of the past.
We need to ask ourselves: what’s the matter with the Times? Is it that this Paper Thing (The New York Times) is still beholden to a Neoliberal dictum, economic theories, bad policies all of which have been proven to be wrong and bad. Must be so because they cheerlead the worst of kind economics and ignore the facts on the ground. Facts are: People need a real wages. People need good housing. People need good jobs. People need real worth and most people work for a living and don’t depend on false wealth stemming from stocks, speculation, and lies.
15
How refreshing No spin, no snark. Just the (very positive) facts.
16
7 bucks an hour and all the burgers you can flip!
21
So we have another 4 years of Trump? God help us
11
I can't believe my eyes. I am reading The Times and they are printing something that makes the President look good.
Did the Russians put The Times up to this?
18
Numbers of jobs is a great measure of economic growth, unless you’re a worker. We need to be researching, writing, and reading about pay. How much do workers make today versus how much they’ve made historically? What percentage of “economic growth” goes into workers’ pockets versus how much “investors” and upper management glean? How much has worker productivity increased versus how much workers are compensated for that increase?
Why is there a Business section in this paper and no Labor section?
18
"Unemployment among those without a high school diploma has declined by two-thirds since the economy’s low point"
Yes those Amazon warehouse jobs have added up.
10
just think what could have happened if the gop hadn't had their foot on the brakes of the economy for 6 years
17
@slightlycrazy
Actually the president during that time was a proud socialist, Barack the Cool. It was his decision to pump up the number of people dependent on government aid and to disrespect the American workers at every turn.
His problem: you can grow government power and control over people, OR you can grow the economy.
It is impossible to do both at the same time.
10
These job numbers are hogwash.
I am earning 30 percent less than what I earned before I was laid off in 2009, with less and most costly “benefits.”
And don’t even get me started on temp work in which vulture temp firms still pay the same hourly salary for work I did while looking for a permanent position during the Great Recession.
Job recovery?
Rubbish!
35
It is encouraging that employment for high school drop outs and uneducated workers has recovered momentum.
Why is there no mention of the dearth of jobs for those who bought into the myth of education? I have an MA from NYU, solid work history, good health and sobriety, but cannot find work.
I have been working for $14 an hour, PT for two years. I am not counted in any employment stats. During that time I have applied for more than 400 jobs. I have not had an offer.
I put myself through college in Upstate NY in the 80s working as a secretary for $26k, including benefits. I never thought I’d be applying for jobs, 30 years later, for the same dollar amount.
Something is wrong with this scenario and I can’t think it’s just me, or I will lose all hope.
Maybe someone will write about this.
74
@Elizabeth You are not alone. The wholesale dismissal of older workers is deplorable. As a group, we have and continue to suffer the most since the recession. We must become louder about our struggles and more demanding that our needs be met. We will not back down in the face if adversity.
5
@Elizabeth very honest of you. I just escaped at 63 by the skin of my teeth at 60% of peak wage but finished paying college/mortgage on a downsized house. My enjoyment is planet fitness and reading and public court tennis. I can think of many like this but we are invisible to the public at large. There is a new generation of parents in their 30s and 40s and a new generation of public sector retirees our age yukking it up. I hope I dont have to work at "Dollar store" but you never know
6
@Elizabeth
My hope is that a continued worker shortage will move the dial, and just as companies are now hiring without a stitch of prior experience, so will companies hire older workers.
1
More companies are turning to part-time workers. So yeah, they can say they pay higher wages, but end up giving workers less hours and less benefits so they end up saving themselves money anyway. The data does not accurately reflect reality.
24
Jobs jobs jobs, has been the credo of this administration.
How much of a tax break did I get from our president?
I got a boost on my paycheck of $4.00 every two weeks.
I work to support my family, but now because of of the lack of getting a raise from my employer, I’m having to look for a second
Job. I wonder how many of our presidents friends got a boost
from their tax break?
26
@The Chief from Cali And how many upper level executives made a bundle from the stock buy-backs that corporate tax breaks funded!
almost none of that money "trickled down" to wage earners. And where it did, it was not enough to offset years of wage loss to inflation.
24
@The Chief from Cali
Your take home pay is dependent on your withholding, which you control. Many payroll managers are grappling with how much to withhold under the new tax laws and are prone to overwithholding just to play it safe.
It's possible you will reap the benefits of the tax cuts and increased credits when you actually file your tax return in the form of a larger refund or lower tax bill. Your current paycheck has very little to actually do with that, unfortunately.
Still looks pretty difficult for tens of millions of Americans who have not been employed full time since the early years of this century.
And millions of Americans who lost their homes in the mortgage meltdown have not recovered.
Banks kept the down payment, the monthly mortgage payments, the equity in the homes that had accrued, the savings people had used to make payments, and then destroyed borrowers credit histories.
During the same period, banks have received 0% money from the Fed, a trillion dollars in TARP money, took a business tax deduction on the homes they foreclosed upon, kept the payments on the homes, and resold the homes.
Banks may be doing better.
Most regular people are not.
People have figured out how to survive with a lot less, but they are not necessarily better off than they were before the longest running recession in US history.
27
@jan That is not how foreclosure works. If a house is sold for more than what is owed on the loan (and costs to sell the home), the homes owner gets that excess.
So that means If someone 1) lost their home to foreclosure, and 2) didn't receive any money when it sold, that means the ultimate lender (the bank or final bondholder) lost money.
2
Sounds good, but I'd love to see them adjusted for population growth. 100s of thousands of jobs always sounds great but in relativity to what total ever ballooning population?
9
I’d rather have a few more people looking for work than an administration that kidnaps children, worsens the environment and is treasonous.
22
Do you really want Wigwm Mills on your resume in 2018?
3
What percentage of these jobs offer health care benefits and a pension plan?
31
Every sliver cloud has a black lining here. Die hard commenters are determined to find fault and trot out the same stale arguments. I'll give you a tip. Bad attitude, the belief that your employer owes you a living, doing the least possible and looking for an angle to stick it to the man, is the surest way to never get ahead. Who wants to hire and promote someone who clearly has no interest in advancing the goals of their business? Try going to the extra mile. Be worth something to your employer and you will be paid accordingly.
8
Or true. My wage as well as my 1400 co worker’s wages are frozen in perpetuity, according to my employer.
26
@Daphne
Next time I am in that field picking cotton I’ll remember your words and go that “extra mile” for my “massa”.....
11
@Daphne
They can always take a risk and do what their employers are doing -- ex., run their own businesses. Those who demand security are going to pay for it; while those who take risks are going to be rewarded or fail. That is, for the most part, how our economy works.
This is wonderful news for all those blue collar workers who used to be chained to the Democrat party. Once they believe in the pro-business President Trump, times get better. And lives do too!
8
Weird, the republicans here in my state passed a law decreasing the wages of myself and thousands of my coworkers by 10%, froze our hourly wage, outlawed our professional guild and are now attempting to steal our pensions- all in the face of an acute shortage of people who do our critically important job. not sure any of us can stand much more of this “ winning” you speak of...
32
Low-paying jobs, with no job security, and no benefits for more and more people?
What an economic "success story"!
35
@Vox
Er...would that be the "Obama recovery" that his supporters are touting here? Would you prefer they continue to accept government benefits rather than work?
1
It appears that the drop in unemployment began with and lasted through the Obama administration.
22
@James S Kennedy
Most of the pro Trump commenters here seem totally unable to understand a very simple graph. Can they really be that dull?
19
@dennis yes, yes they are because his base consists of the poorly educated which he loves because they support his facist ideals.
I'd be interested in knowing how many of these jobs are held by the same person. In other words, how many people have to work two jobs to make enough money for the basics of life, or to get a little ahead because wages are not keeping up with the cost of rent, utilities, food, and gasoline. Maybe a statistic that shows how many hours people are working would be a better indicator of the health of the economy.
29
Or how many new jobs offer anything approaching full time in terms of hours per week.
15
Working at subsistence rates does not equal a good quality of life. But the quality of life is not a political decision: It is a decision of our culture and society. Where do you stand?
11
Citizen Z, I'm on the plus side. During my 37 years of employment, if I didn't like my benefits, or my health insurance, retirement terms, or anything else, I got a different job. If I felt I wasn't getting fair treatment from my employer, I made like a tree. I'd leave! From reading the comments in the NYT (and elsewhere), some people seem to feel that they are married to that job. Like they have to stay. I've never made myself feel trapped by mortgage, school districts or localities, I had to feel comfortable with my work situation to stick around. If you don't like your deal, why are you still there?
3
@BorisRoberts because you have 37 years in, if you are still working, i guess your hopping to a better job if you are unhappy in your present one is a whole lot harder for you as a 50-something. When you started working in 1981, it was a different work universe. Remember when everyone offered a benefit package? I do.
As usual, no mention by the NYT of the national Labor Force Participation Rate, let alone the participation rate broken down by regions, demographics such as ethnicity, age, years of schooling etc.
'Labor Force Participation Rate in the United States remained unchanged at 62.90 percent in July from 62.90 percent in June of 2018. Labor Force Participation Rate in the United States averaged 62.99 percent from 1950 until 2018, reaching an all time high of 67.30 percent in January of 2000 and a record low of 58.10 percent in December of 1954.'
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/labor-force-participation-rate
7
@Colenso Hmm, I'm now not sure how reliable this website is. Seems widely inconsistent with the official ILO data on global and historical participation rates.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.CACT.ZS
Huh, I never saw an article like this when Mr. Obama was in the White House. Kudos to the NYT for publishing something that I know they don’t like, more good news with Mr. Trump at the helm. The elites are finally starting to see what us “normal” folks saw all along, Mr. Trump is doing a FANTASTIC job!
10
It's only "FASTASTIC" to those who know little about - and - care less about our environment.
11
nice story, but I continue to wonder: who will pick up tge tomatoes and lettuce that we eat? No one wants to do the backbreaking job of farming, and we are slowing our foreign workforce to a trickle. Statistics show that immigrants contribute to the economy. But the real reason to eliminate immigration is the fact that the majority of naturalized immigrants choose the democratic party. Now there's the REAL reason for the anti immigration push
20
@urmyonlhopeobi1,
Just read a very interesting article in Washington Post yesterday where a 20 years old young women in Pa. and her boyfriend work on jobs, she in a chicken factory, he in mechanics, both WHITE, the issue is that no one on their jobs speak ENGLISH so she is so lonely at work that she finds the isolation unbearable, but not the work that pays her $13 and change per hour.
Pay them, they will work.
6
@urmyonlhopeobi1 You mean that nobody except illegal aliens wants to do backbreaking work at slave wages. Pay more, improve working conditions. Problem solved.
14
$13 is chicken feed
6
I find it difficult to believe that unemployment is at a low point of 3.9%. I tried to find just how many folks that would be. When it was 4.3%, 7 million people were unemployed.
4
Lots of people gave up looking for jobs as the red states shifted under employed people off state aid to federal aid like SSI, or they simply live under a tarp below a viaduct somewhere
10
So many economists. So few minimum wage workers.
8
So-called president trump's reassuring words still ring in my ears ... "Obamacare is an utter disaster folks. I will repeal it entirely and replace it with something much much better, believe me ... and very quickly". Ringing ringing ringing ... like an unanswered telephone.
32
Thank You President Trump. Keeping. America. Strong.
11
@Brewster Millions
Try looking at the graph that accompanies the article. There is really very little to thank your savior for.
The rate of job growth was established when he was just a bad reality TV actor and otherwise crude rich guy.
17
Thank you, thank you, thank you! Dropping stories like this late on a Friday is actually kind of nice.
Normally, when I see news like this it turns my stomach. But knowing that not too many people will see this because it's a late Friday dump brings me some hope.
Ultimately, it's just crumbs, inflation wipes out any gains, we need more migrants to do jobs our own people won't do, the numbers are fake, Trump is looting the country, and everyone is unhappy and miserable, all the time now.
Oh yeah, and the planet is melting and those paragons of society - intrepid and fully objective journalists like Sarah Jeong - are catching some heat. So much so that Bret Stephens is concerned for their safety!
In other words, this doesn't serve the narrative. I wish you hadn't printed this, but late on a Friday is a close second to just burying it like coverage of the Ferguson effect, or the number of migrants who are currently in this country.
Again, thank you!
6
@Trans Cat Mom
Happy Stockholm Syndrome!
11
America working again. We now see what is possible when we have decisive leadership at the helm. Obama had a drug program for these unskilled workers after giving away their jobs to illegals or to cheap labor in third world countries. Supposedly they didn’t want those jobs which were never coming back anyway. Now Trump has put them back to work and I would also say has put a dent in Democratic hopes for November. Nothing like a humming economy to shut up the naysayers.
14
The recovery has been going on for nine years at a consistent unrelenting determined pace since the catastrophic Bush recession. Yet in this ninth year trump asserts he inherited "a mess" and incredibly claims ownership for the whole recovery, including the low unemployment rate. In truth he's been blithely riding the economic recovery success coattails of his predecessor.
44
In the post WWII period wages rose as productivity did as rising profits were pasted on to employees due in part to unionization and its spill over effects in other markets.
The gap between productivity increase and a typical worker’s compensation has increased dramatically since 1973
1948–1973: Productivity: 96.7% Hourly compensation: 91.3%
1973–2016: Productivity: 73.7% Hourly compensation: 12.3%
The link between levels of unemployment and rising prices was also a reliable link that directed Federal Reserve policy, low unemployment would raise wages, and cost-push price rises would occur with the Fed raising interest rate as inflation approached 2%; but full employment was thought to be 4%, now there is no rush to raise rates as wage increases are lagging wonderfully (from a banker’s perspective).
This as well as any tells where the economic system has changed. For the bulk of the population the system is broken, for the top doing fine.
21
@wsmrer
Them in the 1970s the ideology was rewritten, unemployment was not caused by a lack of Demand, but by a laboring force unwilling to work at prevailing wages (thank you Milton Friedman, Univ. of Chicago Nobel wining Economist). Government need no longer be concerned with generating employment levels through fiscal expenditures, the Free Market devise would find the “equilibrium level,” unhampered by an intervening government; and politicians rejoiced, they had other concerns – reelection.
5
As Obama has shown us...it can always get worse.
3
@batazoid
And it will.
5
@batazoid
Obviously you did not bother to look at (or are unable to understand) the graph which shows a steady increase in these jobs from 2010 onward. In fact, if one averages the numbers over time you can see a slight lessening in the steepness of the curve since your God Trump took office.
And clearly you did not bother to read down to where the inability of wages to keep up with inflation was discussed. Despite what the Trump lovers would desire, these things are not simple. Spending on credit is at an all time high, and savings at quite low. These are more important indicators than one month's spike in employment among a specific sector (again, look at the spikiness of the graph and the trend). This is not his doing, but a combination of factors. If you want to assess his effect on economic growth, wait another year or so.
22
The vast majority of Americans are unable to come up with the extra cash to pay a single unexpected medical bill or car/ home repair of just $400. The buying power of a blue collar / technical job like nursing, police work of public school teaching us about half of what it was in 1965. Few people have any savings much less the gold standard of a year’s wages in the bank as a hedge against unexpected adversity. American workers are more productive than ever before in history but our wages in terms of buying power are lower than any time since the end of the depression
9
To all Trumpsters, this economy was produced by Obama.
27
@Max Deitenbeck
Not a Trumpster but an economist and had Obama followed the advise of his chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisors rather than banker Summers the recovery would have occurred in 4 rather than 8 years. Obama cut it in half and worried about the financial sector (the causal factor) recovery and then health care. He was easy to lead around by his Clinton administration holdovers, unfortunately.
7
Is this all being financed by the trillion dollar federal debt...hello?
20
Trump doesn't care about the working class. Or so we've been lectured.
7
If he does, he had a funny way of showing it. Taking our money and giving it to the never-working class (the 1%).
25
Thats actually the 0.1% that Trumpkin is helping out...many of them apparently wealthy Russians
14
A lot of people are getting big raises--the executives at the top. They're getting 100k raises and bonuses and the middle guy is getting 100 bucks or less. I've seen it personally.
35
Thanks, President Trump.
12
Yes, thanks for taking our hard earned wages and spending it at your own golf courses.
16
These employers are now just going back to doing what was the norm. Training Americans who are willing and read to learn and giving a second chance to those with minor offenses.
We have always had a segment of the population willing and able to do low skilled jobs. Unfortunately in recent decades they had to compete with illegal labor and were constantly denigrated as lazy. So much for that nonsense about them being unwilling to do the work.
5
So it is the employers who deserve your ire, not undocumented workers.
9
Obama’s policies would have left all these people on the unemployment roles.
9
@John S Seriously? There's not one shred of truth to that statement.
26
@John S
Obama's policies are what primed the pump. In point of fact, any president could get the results currently taking place. A case can be made that Romney or Rubio could have the economy in a better place--without risking a trade war, alienating allies, and stoking a profoundly ignorant form of populism. The tax plan would have passed, more responsible regulatory rollbacks would have been put in place and our allies would still be, well, allies. The fact that the electorate believes that strongman tactics were required to achieve our current position--and that the position is sustainable--is a result of a lack of investment in education.
17
@John S
What is most amusing about your post is the how obvious it is that you did not bother to look at the included graph. Despite the one month spike (in a very spiky graph) the downward trend in unemployment in this sector is no more steep than it has been in the past 8 years.
There is the hint of a decrease in rapidity of decrease which is consistent with the more realistic view that Trump's policies will certainly leave these people behind in the long run.
18
Making America Broker Than Ever. Low wages, here we come.
No billionaires need apply.
22
I'd really like to see the numbers on people who were 45+ at the time of the market crash in 2008, lost their jobs, and have since failed to find a new one that pays 50 percent or more of their last white-collar salary. We could also talk about how those "skilled jobs that go begging" ads never seem to mention that even if you have the skills, they aren't interested in older workers.
70
Pretty soon the crumbs start to add up. How great is it that marginally employed people now get to experience the feeling earning their way and providing for their families. It will provide them with an elevated feeling of self worth. That is priceless.
5
Interestingly, 50% of legal Hispanic voters and 29% of blacks now support Trump. Apparently, they like what is happening in the economy, and care nothing for the inside baseball in Washington.
12
@Jonathan Do you mean the almost 60 million Hispanics and 29% of almost 39 Million Black Americans? Or are you referring to just those who responded to whatever poll you are drawing your percentages from?
It is always useful to read the fine print to see how those states were derived.
8
@Candlewick - That's how polling works - it's all extrapolation. If you are a good statistician, and select a valid sample, then you should be about right within a given margin of error.
What's interesting is that the same poll, using the same methodology, shows the numbers doubling in the past 3 months. Regardless of the actual levels of support, something is going on.
1
I wonder where those numbers came from? I know Trump’s always making things up.
9
"Workers Hardest Hit by Recession Are Joining in Recovery." Does that include those over 50? If so, men or women? I know all too many women over 50 who are not being hired. Age discrimination much?
27
@Metrojournalist
Well said.
4
If you are employed for 1 hour you count as being employed. There may be jobs open, but the pay and benefits are not enough to support people. The Tariff wars will kill job growth. Also where are raises from the huge taxcut.They do not exist.Think if the tax cut money went to consumers they would have spent that money and created a lot of jobs.Instead the money goes to corporations who are not spending the money on wages.
18
According to the latest report pay went up 2.9 % this year.
@ Ed Can I explain something called inflation to you? It makes economics easier to understand.
9
Not mine...and there is a shortage of people doing my particular sort of work. Almost like the law of supply and demand no longer applies...
3
Right! Let's draw large conclusions from one month of statistics. One month means nothing. Frankly, I don't trust unemployment figures. And how much are these new workers actually paid? Also, are they full-time jobs? Are they just contractors rather than real employees? And when we look at the charts over several years, 157,000 jobs for July is slightly low. Every year since 2013 has been higher for this month. Furthermore, let's not forget the trade war our current president has started. I'm not optimistic at all? Why exactly are you?
14
"High school dropouts make up 7.2 percent of the labor force, and some experts doubted they and other low-skilled workers would ever fully recover from the effects of the recession, "
If I had a dollar for each time these "experts" were wrong I would be a billionaire.
5
There are an amazing number of fast food restaurants aren’t there?
6
Sorry, but if the leadership of the Democratic Party( the self described 'Party of the Little Guy ) is not at least somewhat embarrassed by this turn around in the fortunes of the working class under the auspices of a such a fire breathing conservative as Trump, then they need to be. And from this old Lefty's perspective- more importantly, for the future of their Party, the Democrats need to start having some no holds barred, serious conversations about just who they think they truly represent.
23
@Birddog
As former democrat i hope they read posts like yours.
4
@Birddog Who do Republicans represent? The two-party system needs to be abolished.
1
I, too, was a Democrat until NAFTA. I then had no party till Trump. He seems to care about helping American workers whom the professional politicians of both parties had written off.
4
The inequality in America is absolutely stunning. That one man Bezos could have $150,000,000,000.00 and most Americans can’t come up with $ 400.00 in an emergency is appalling in itself; even more appalling is a system, the investing public included, that would allow and support such a business model, designed twenty odd years ago to cannibalize the businesses in the communities where it’s customers live, loosing money all the time until it, Amazon, was the last business standing. Reflectively the moral compasss our nation has devolved to, a nation of self serving “ I got mine”,ma nation that would not be recognizable to members of my grandfathers even my fathers generation: we,( although Im a bit older) the boomer generation, are a disgrace, leaving America so much worse following our stewardship and followed by a generation whose best and brightest seem intent on destroying jobs through disruptive business models, technology or financial engineering. Im not sure where to place the blame but at this rate of duplicity, avarice and greed we as a nation, perhaps as a species, won’t last much longer.
17
The really sad part about this will be the reaction from the democrats. Instead of coming out with real solid plans about how they can make the recovery better, they will just negate any positives. Then they proceed with their platform of DACA and abolishing ICE.
15
@Hellen
Are you talking about the mid-terms or 2020? If you are referring to the mid-terms, the individual Democrats can craft the appropriate regional messages--and be successful. Without winning congress in 2018, 2020 won't matter. The GOP will have done so much damage that it will be hard to craft a platform that will have an effect during my lifetime. If you are talking about 2020, the bull market will be over and, between the fury of the 65% that already hate Trump, and the Trumpers that will be financially devastated by a recession, the Democrats will win. If the recession doesn't materialize, he'll get eight more years.
8
@Hellen Sounds like you're confusing the two parties. Or did you actually think that Trump is responsible for doing anything? He's too busy playing golf and selling us off to Putin.
16
@Hellen
Actually, as a lifelong progressive I hope you and Birddog take a look at the graph provided with (and that forms the basis of) the article you are commenting on. If anything, the rate of decrease in unemployment in this sector has slowed under Trump.
One month's statistics are meaningless and the graph makes very, very, very obvious. And the recovery is clearly well established by 2010, and not some miraculous thing done by your presumed savior.
And when you factor in how much these people actually make, the loss of income vs. inflation (and that is something we can blame every president from Reagan on for), and the dangerous increased in credit spending, you really have nothing to crow about once you separate reality from your imagination.
8
Great now I can afford to get one of those ID cards I need to buy my groceries
25
Great! And to think, all they had to do to increase employment was slash wages and benefits for the bottom 90% of the population -- ingenious!
22
Thank you, President Trump.
9
Who needs Russia to divide us? The NYT is doing a splendid job at that without any help from them.
12
We will have more and more farm jobs thanks to Mr. trump.
2
Democrats need to put diversity, inclusion, and identity politics in general on the back burner and focus on economics.
Unemployment is low but the jobs suck. The jobs take advantage of workers and are often unsafe. They don't pay a living wage. Employers aren't holding up their end of the bargain.
How Dems fail to do this each and every election cycle is beyond me but, according to Edsall's column, it probably has a lot to do with the pipe dreams of the economically secure liberal elite: I'm secure to let's move on to all my pet projects for X, Y, Z identity groups.
Good way to keep on losing. Money and economic security have to come BEFORE any dreams of kumbaya-ness.
17
@LR - Affluent professionals with incomes in the top 20% supply about 35% of the votes, 75% of the money, and 100% of the policies and candidates for the Dems. Naturally, they're concerned with their own concerns, not those of some hick truck driver or machinist out in the middle of nowhere.
6
@LR
Martin Luther King also fought for labor rights because he realized pocket book issues also matter.
2
@Jonathan
Truck drivers and machinists still have strong unions and do quite well. Many of them understand that and are democrat/progressive.
Trump and his toadies have not yet broken those unions, but that is certainly on the agenda. Make no mistake about that.
It's simply amazing to see how liberals can turn such good news into the gloomiest, sky is falling, all Trump's fault negative comments. Are you guys every happy?
14
@Jon Galt Do you know how to read a graph? Did you bother to look at the one in the article?
If so, when did this decrease start? Who was president?
Is the graph spiky or smooth? If spiky, how much exactly does one month tell us?
And if you average the the figures, what do you begin to see about the rate of change? (is that too complicated for you?)
It is amazing how little regressives actually want to use their brains!
7
Thank you, Mr. Trump!
8
Sure makes you wonder why so many white people in this group voted for Trump despite Obama's success with the stock market and the deficit.
12
I can‘t help but wonder... if the cotton crop had failed one season in the antebellum South... and the next season had produced a bumper crop... would the headline read: “Slaves Hardest Hit by Cotton Failure Are Joining in Recovery” !? “Plantation Unemployment Rate Drops to ZERO” ?
When are we going to come to terms with the facts? The Dow... GDP... Growth... as these numbers climb, 80% of Americans have been left behind. And it’s been happening for decades. BY DESIGN. And when the crash comes? “We” will “all” have to “tighten our belts.” Because “We” have been irresponsible...
Heads? The 1% wins!
Tails? You lose.
Sharing GDP growth equitably. It's the only way to sustain a stable, thriving, democratic civilization. And the idea that things like a real living wage, quality healthcare for all, robust public education... are “Socialism!” (Horrors!) or interfering with the “genius” of the “free market”... is balderdash. The 1% are Big Believers in “subsidies” and “entitlements” and all sorts of “Big Gub‘mint interference” in The Market... when THEY are snout-deep in YOUR pocket ... it’s “investment” and “sound policy” and “only fair”... (‘We are The Job Kreators!’)...
But when it’s the 80% demanding an equitable share of the pie? ...“Communists!”
EQUITABLE wealth distribution was what created The Great American Century (1945-1980 RIP)
As I said, the unemployment rate on a slave plantation was 0.0%. Stock market was probably doing great too. And GDP growing. So what?
23
The wealthy .0001% have been robbing the rest of the country blind for 35 years maybe the elitist NY Times hacks will report it when the people start to drag the .0001% out in the street and give them exactly what they deserve. You don't have the guts to post the truth.
10
Uneducated workers are seeing their salaries rise, and feel vindicated by the least educated of all American Presidents. This confirms their belief that ignorance isn't just nothing to be ashamed of, but it is something to be proud of. As a famed GOP Presidential candidate once said, Obama was a snob when he wished every American to have an education. Trump has captured the essence of the American (White) Soul.
9
@Richard Mockton:
Indeed, Trump is well on his way to solidifying his place as the worst President in the history of our country.
That's not an easy pinnacle to achieve; he's making the task seem to be child's play.
Sad.
Bigly sad.
15
@Richard Monckton If you actually looked at the graph, you might have noticed that most of the rise has occurred since 2010. And if you have a better memory than most republicans you might notice that Trump was not president during most of those years.
You might also, if you read and looked and questioned, understand that wages have not kept pace with inflation for well over 30 years.
Lack of a high school diploma is nothing to be ashamed of necessarily. And it has nothing to do with ignorance, which can be just as prevalent among those with impressive educational credentials.
5
Judging from many of the comments these numbers have nothing to do with their real life experience and are just insulting and irrelevant as they do not measure many aspects that would make for a really good economy.
7
Comparing today to 2009 is really stupid. The number of jobs reported is actually pretty low. Do your job reporters and dig in for some real facts instead of just regurgitating what you have been told. Nobody asks what kind of jobs and what do they pay.
9
And how many of those hired still have to go on food stamps and medicaid, or if they are lucky enough, live in subsidized housing? Shouldn't the employers be paying for this?
How many can't juggle childcare or care for a sick relative?
How many get their hours changed weekly?
I could go on and on. Being employed in America is no dream.
13
@dr. c.c.
Spot on doc.
The #1 private employer in the USA is Walmart with 1.5 million employees. As of 2014, those "employed" Walmart workers cost taxpayers $6.2 Billion In public assistance. https://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-walmart-work...
Certainly not the American dream. The rich get richer and the poor get by....
13
Can we really trust any numbers released from the Trump administration any more? Everything they do is cooked.
16
lot of people picking lettuce?
6
I love all the armchair economists who are desperately trying to find a bad angle from this news. Anything- anything- but say “Yes , that is good news and I am happy for those whose lives have been improved”. And of course we know why they won’t say it - because it might suggest that Trump did something right. And for those who belittle the news, you are merely showing how arrogant and privileged you are. The workers who have benefited, who have jobs they didn’t have in prior years, they are grateful. Only elite snobs would mock their situation.
13
@Gino G That is good news and I am happy for those whose lives have been improved. But look at the charts in the article, including the one from the White House: It could not be clearer that this job growth started under Obama. The increase in employment merely continued under Trump; it's not a change based on anything he did. The line that starts early in Obama's tenure and continues to now is virtually a straight line; it's just the Obama employment growth trend continuing.
9
@R. Squire Thank you! You saved me some typing. And to add to that, there is a very definite hint from this graph that the rate of change in unemployment in this sector is flattening.
One month's figures are never "great news". The 6 month or 1 year trend is all that matters.
1
How many jobs were lost due to tRump's sabotaging of the renewable energy industry, the auto industry, agriculture...
The lies that come out of the tRump administration daily should NOT be repeated by the New York Times! Fake president.
12
Fake numbers, folks. Why would believe anything
the government says?
6
Speaking of OUR workers, black America's approval rate of President Trump has doubled in the last year or so.
When was the last time an American president worked this hard to provide work to our workers?
11
@L'osservatore
On that issue Trump is smart. He goes to black Americans and talks about jobs. Democrats go to immigrants, including illegal immigrants, to talk about jobs while talking to black people about welfare. Democrats don't even get how insulting that can be.
12
Trump doesn’t do “work”. He does play. That is all he has ever done, and now America is his toy.
5
@Corbin
You are way WAY behind in your reading.
Skip the blogs that are there only to reaffirm your prejudice and start reading a diverse selection.
Real lear politics has material from all sides.
OR, you can remain someone's trainee.
The comments here reflect the usual extraordinary lack of empathy exhibited by NYT readers whose animus towards the working class and the under-educated continues unabated. I have worked among the least educated and have grown to understand many have confronted obstacles that would bring many of us to our knees. The fact that many of the previously unemployable that were largely ignored by President Obama are finding work should be celebrated. The attitudes in these comments demonstrate a critically low emotional aptitude towards folks who are merely trying to survive and needs to be condemned.
16
It has been an astounding realization that according to President Obama manufacturing jobs were not coming back to America and "get used to it" because this is the "new normal". "What's he going to do, wave a magic wand and create jobs? " Then Trump won and turned a community organizer's failures into America's positives. This is the best that its been in a long time folks enjoy!
11
@P McGrath Look at the charts. All of this job growth started early in Obama's term. The numbers under Trump are just a straight line continuation of what Obama started.
11
@P McGrath
Thanks to Obama for steering us out of Bush's Recession.
Oh, you forgot about that one?
8
Wonderful! For now...President Obama inherited a disaster! And his policies (got no help from the GOP ) have enabled our economy to continue growing for now....until the pain from the Trump-Tariffs take hold!
THANKS OBAMA! Watch out for the Trump Recession!
12
“But the long duration of the recovery has pulled them back in. As the economy adds more jobs, employers have had to dig a little deeper."
This is the reporter's only nod to Obama in this article. Pathetic.
8
Most of this drop occurred under the Obama administration.
Thanks ( again ) Obama !!
13
@Marion Grace Merriweather
Obama inherited an economic Titanic as it was headed for Davey Jones' Locker.
These guys got another silver spoon, and have a get rich quick scheme that probably won't end well for anybody.
7
The Kushner 666 5th ave Deal is obscene.
8
At least they don't have student loans they'll never pay off. They can enjoy compound interest while their educated peers eat their shoe leather.
7
Sounds like
Michigan and Ohio like their own stuff
?
"The unemployment rate for those without a high school diploma fell to 5.1 percent in July, the Labor Department reported Friday, the lowest since the government began collecting data on such workers in 1992. "
But Paul Krugman just told us that Trump is relentlessly anti-worker in every regard. He can't be wrong, can he?
15
@JB Nope, he's not wrong. As you can see from the graphs (including the one tweeted out by the White House), unemployment--including for those without a high school diploma--has been decreasing for years, going back to the Obama administration. The current rate is merely a direct continuation of the previous trend; it has nothing to do with Trump.
12
94 straight months. Trump's been in office 32. In other words, slightly above 30%.
5
Trump has been in office for 20 months. It only seems longer.
17
"That pressure, however, has not resulted in much fatter paychecks for most workers. The Labor Department said average hourly earnings ticked modestly higher in July, putting the annual rise at 2.7 percent. That’s below the pace of inflation in recent months."
Corporations and the rich get massive tax cuts draining the government of funds to provide meaningful assistance and training and available health care.:
While those on the economic fringe beg for the scraps fed them by their GOP exploiters!
AND they worship their exploiters while heading to economic irrelevence and a future of dependency.
Ironic
12
@dave - This is the average.
The average pay for all workers is $37K a year. If a substantial number of new entrants start at $20K or $25K a year, then the average will drop even if the guys making $37K get a good raise, because the denominator is now bigger.
As the workers entering the work force at a relatively low wage get more experience, their wages will probably go up.
2
@Jonathan The trend since the corporate tax cuts has been quite clear and well documented. The money has gone into stock by-backs and minimally , if at all, into wage increase for workers. And now that the unions are being killed off workers have no way to constructively air grievances. To complain is to lose the job you have fought hard to get.
You really cannot spin stuff when the facts are clear. Not even Sarah Sanders can do that without bring a laughingstock,
I don't think that someone reading this article would understand what the employment graph makes absolutely crystal clear: That the job gains under Trump are merely the continuation of a long running trend that began early in Obama's term. The Times shouldn't feel the need to publish an article like this to mollify critics who say that it's not fair to Trump. An article on low unemployment that made clear the indisputable fact that the trend was well under way under Obama would have been more than fair.
21
There is no logical connection between wages or employment and the actions of Mr. Trump. This is still Obama's recovery and Obama's economy. The Trump cult can't get enough of Obama's economy. "Look," they say. "He's making the trains run on time." But Trump doesn't know the first thing about making trains run on time.
20
It seems to me it's time to banish from our lexicon "high school drop out" and "college drop out."
For years I referred to my self as having "dropped out" of college, which drug with it a bunch of negative baggage. I've reordered my thinking and now say that I studied for 2-years at a Jesuit University.
People lack degrees for many reasons: perhaps they had to stop school to care for an sick or aging relative, or to help support their family, or support an unexpected new born, or simply to follow some other dream. Why do we forever label them as "dropouts."
Peale was right, there is power in positive thinking as well as positive words and phrases.
8
I'm sure Trump is taking credit for this even though we all know this is just a continuation of the O'bama recovery. But its fair play, Presidents will always take credit for anything good that happens on their watch, and blame everyone else for anything bad that happens. Don't forget this recover is now in about its 8th year, not its second. As to a living wage, that's something else altogether. As someone pointed out, a 2.00 dollar a week raise is not much at all given the rise in the real costs of things.
7
This is great news for Americans who need a hand up; it's a start.
This is how we build our county for those who haven't had an opportunity at even a minimal job prospect; give the people jobs.
I don't care who takes political claim for these poor people getting restarted with a job; give them a chance.
This is how some in my family were inspired to reach for success.
It will pull a lot of people out of poverty.
6
@JRS
"This is great news for Americans who need a hand up"
This "great news" is, AS THE GRAPH IN THE ARTICLE MAKES CLEAR, simply a continuation of what has been occurring at the same rat for the past 8 years.
What is great news is that poorly constructed policies and decisions from the current administration have only slowly been killing off the recovery.
Now if only there was some way to get wages back up to where they should be, not still decreasing with respect to inflation. THAT would be great news. but that is unlikely during a republican regime (except perhaps Eisenhower, the last great Republican).
4
@dennis,
Respectfully Dennis, I am not particularly interested in exactly how the dynamics were 60 years ago, we need decent jobs for everyone who wants to work and I am not looking at the issue from a middle class job perspective; give people a chance and a decent starting pay to get them started.
thanks
I'm pleased this segment of American labor has benefitted from economic prosperity. Next comments to these people:
"What are you doing to enhance your skill set?",
"Have you made yourself more valuable & employable?",
"Have you diversified to protect your future?", and
"How will you adjust to automation and robotics?"
If Americans in the labor force - especially those who are most vulnerable to shifts in hiring and technology replacement have not considered any of these question, nor have taken steps to protect their futures, all I can say is, given the opportunity to replace labor with technology, workers at the lower levels will be cut adrift first. Folks, it's all about personal investment in education.
Don't think you need to be concerned? India and China made investments in labor-saving technology and process consistency methods (lowers quality escapes cost). Trade protectionism is not sustainable; disregard Donald Trump, Wilbur Ross, Robert Lighthizer, and Peter Navarro. Global economics do work; those who stay mired in the past are forgotten.
2
If you come from a low-wage family, you have limited means for personal investment in education. Here's a thought: American corporations could contribute to/invest in an educated workforce instead of bringing in cheaper H1(?) visa workers from India and continuing to bemoan lack of American workers.
11
You make excellent points.
First, let's consider low-wage (salary) families and options to secure better skills and education, otherwise known as "Human Capital Infrastructure". National priorities, tax policy, and economic strategy drive this. So much has been bantered about by Trump about "infrastructure", but pathetically little (let's say, nothing) has been done. Tax policy funds schools (K-12), Community Colleges, and Vocational training. Not everyone has got to go to college to be successful. Want a successful model? Look at Germany. Second, teachers must be paid salaries for value rendered to society. Investment in physical plant and classroom labs is essential. None of this comes cheap - taxes need to be levied to pay for "Human Infrastructure Capital". Who pays for these taxes? let me suggest the high income earners and those treated most advantageously by Republicans 2017 policy.
Second, you cite immigrant labor & VISA workers brought in. Before you criticize workers from India, China, Vietnam, Middle East, ask whether Americans (specifically, Anglo's who voted overwhelmingly for Trump) come into these positions with equivalent skill sets and educational accomplishments. I proffer you'll not find - on average - Americans possessing equivalent capabilities. Foreign workers also bring another intangible: they see the economic benefit by becoming a US citizen. if you're a corporation, strongly motivated workers is highly sought. That's capitalism.
Until Reagan, states and the feds made huge investments in education from K-12 through grad school. Well-performing public schools and low or free higher ed. It was considered a necessity for future growth and national well-being. Wasn't that long ago historically and could be restored with slightly higher income taxes and political will to do so. We are all in this together!
1
Wasn't the massive tax cut benefiting corporations and the wealthiest supposed to result in a nice wage increase for the peons? What happened? Aren't those savings trickling down yet?
Candidly, I prefer trickle up economics. Pay the peons more, so they can spend more, thus making corporate revenues higher.
The other way around historically doesn't work.
16
@Richard
Essentially the corporate cuts have enables the corporations to buy back their stock, temporarily inflating prices and enabling their top executives to cash out with large profits. Pay raises to the rank and file have been little or nothing.
This is what most expected, and what has happened.
4
I think this is the first positive article I have read in the NYT in 1 1/2 years. I am impressed. For all those worried about the deficit ( I seriously share your worries), I am sure you felt the same way when the deficit went from 8 Billion to 20 billion under obama. I mean fair is fair.
9
@Jdg There were three causes of the deficits under Obama: The Bush recession that started in 2008, the Bush tax cuts, and the ongoing costs of the war in Iraq (started by Bush). So no, we didn't really blame him.
10
@Jdg
three points jdg.
1. you mean trillion not billion.
2. huge amounts of that increase were from unfunded bush wars and tax cuts for the super rich.
3. the house of representatives controls the budget and was under republican control.
i mean fair is fair.
8
The decline in unemployment for this group of workers, ever since 2010, is certainly good news that we all should celebrate.
From the graph provided, the annual rate of decline has been practically constant ever since 2010 -- the second year of Obama's term. So why is this being heralded as new news?
The headline should read, "Workers hardest hit by recession continue to gain from Obama's recovery."
15
@Joel Geier
Despite Trump's references to the "failing NYT" as if it were a liberal paper, the NYT is economically conservative. They are cheering a one month spike in a very spiky graph because it promotes the notion of speedier recovery under republican policy. We will see how this plays out over the next few months, as the trends in spiky graphs are slow to reveal themselves. ut it looks to me as if the rate of decrease will either not change or slow down.
But yes, few on the right seemed to take note of the ongoing recovery. And if we believe their astonishing take on things, the economy was flat through the Obama years and suddenly has shot through the roof.
3
Don't the numbers take older workers into account?
Ask an unemployed 55 year old and you'll get a different take on the jobs "recovery".
15
Again, no mention of the rampant age discrimination being practiced by many employers.
Construction is once again booming in Oregon.
Skilled carpenters are a scarce commodity in this corner of the country, and many help wanted ads go begging for qualified applicants. Still, I see supposedly needy employers wording their ads with "apply only if you are between the ages of 35 to 55", or "MUST include head shot with your resume".
I hope they never find the highly experienced, skilled, reliable 56 year old graybeard woodbutcher who might solve their employment shortage. I know I'd never offer to help them.
11
In defiance of all economic logic, the Republicans have pumped up federal spending, slashed taxes on the wealthy and corporations and set the stage for staggering $1 trillion+ deficits as far as the eye can see....in a period of economic expansion!
Meanwhile, tax cuts and deficit spending are traditionally employed to pull an economy out of recession, not during a period of economic expansion.
So when the inevitable economic crash caused by this irrational exuberance-driven sugar high of tax cuts, deficit spending and deregulation hits, what tools will be left to haul the US economy out of it?
6
So we can see after all that magical "trickle down" from tax cuts swelling the pockets of even the most lowly of workers. An entire seven cents.
GOP grubbers swore that the billions that businesses and fat cats would net from paying less taxes -- taxes which were meant to keep this country afloat -- would translate into fatter employee paychecks, better homes in safer neighborhoods, medicine for the kids and -- hey, why not? -- even the annual night out for buffalo wings.
So was it worth the surge in indebtedness this nation must incur to replace those taxes? Well, here's the proof. You need more than one hand to count the pennies.
7
I think the real issue is that there is no significant (this has a specific meaning in statistics) difference between what nonfarm payroll numbers (or most other metrics) looked like eight years ago, in the time since and what they look like now. The only difference is the narrative and the accumulated benefits. Not so long ago, we heard "slow recovery", now, "robust growth", but we are on the same trajectory. Of course, unemployment has been going down steadily for nearly ten years as well. That will stop soon enough, though, since we have all but run out of workers. Maybe a trade war is good--might get a few more people onto the job market ;)
2
t is good to see that even those without higher education can get back into the work force. Yes they are not getting the highest paid jobs. I worked contract cleaning at night to put myself through high school. Some of my friends would rather be unemployed than do a dirty job. I now run my own business making a 6 figure after tax income. The same people who knew me when I was young and poor still complain about how they are not so wealthy because they wanted a new car racked up credit card debts always needed the latest bling phones and gadgets.
With the tax cuts my US business had grown and I have been able to add employees. I didn't vote for Trump but I would now due to his economic policies.
10
What you’ve inconspicuously hidden away at the bottom of the article, in a single paragraph, is the most important takeaway: wages are not rising. In fact, they are failing to even keep pace with inflation, which means wages are falling. Yikes.
13
You are spitting in the wind.
The supply of workers has to set up before wages rise. For this group, that hasn’t happened yet. They are just now reaching “full employment.”
1
Working for wages is a loser's game. Learn a trade and go into business for yourself. Anybody with a pulse and a plumber's wrench can charge $100/hr on the coast of California. Cash only, too, which means it's effectively $200/hr.
1
Of course they are, as more jobs are created businesses must take more risk. I saw that disabled people are getting opportunities they never have had in the past. Who might get the credit for this? And might they just vote for them to continue such policies? No matter what rumor or personal type issues they might have?
6
The low unemployment rate is great but where are the wage increases from the big Trump tax cuts? High medical expenses, rents, and much more leaves most without a living wage. Health insurance with massive deductibles and out-of-pockets will cause more bankruptcies. There has been no recovery for the average worker.
11
Wages only rise when employers HAVE TO pay more to attract workers. Not a moment before.
9
I have to agree with previous posters that those of us (even with college degrees) over the age of 50 are not seeing these benefits. Many of us are working more than one job and we did not see an increase in pay. We continue to send out resumes to companies that make it impossible to fill out their online job applications without putting down a date of birth or graduation. Resulting in no replies even if we are perfect for the position. And if the ACA goes away many of the senior workers I know that are too young for Medicare will not have insurance. In addition, with 5 and 6K deductibles if we have any extra money it goes to the bare minimum in healthcare. But these are things that weren't addressed under Obama (the deductibles should have been capped on a sliding scale based on your income) and they may become a moot point under Trump when we boomers are struggling to have any healthcare at all. But apparently, none of that matters to this administration.
31
"One reason for the lack of big raises is that a substantial number of workers remain on the sidelines" - What does that mean? That the unemployment statistics do not accurately represent actual unemployment? If the government shortens the term during which an unemployed person can collect unemployment benefits, do they disappear from view when their benefits end?
7
Yes, they no longer exist in that statistic, which doesn't measure discouraged workers, as they are called.
4
@WeHadAllBetterPayAttentionNow - The definition of an unemployed person in the BLS methodology is some who does not have a job, is available to work, and has taken any step whatsoever to find a job within the past month. So if you looked at an online job site to see if there was anything you could qualify for, and didn't find anything, then you are counted as in the work force and unemployed.
Only if you did absolutely nothing to find a job in the past month are you 'on the sidelines'.
4
To all the people who won't accept Obama's role in turning the economy around, and think Trump is not getting credit for what has happened in the last year or so - would you be happy giving credit to Hillary if she had been elected? Because the exact same progress in GDP and unemployment would have happened on her watch.
Swear you would have been happy if these numbers came in under President Clinton . . . I didn't think so.
11
I have a PhD from NYU and a law license in California. I have made less then $100k TOTAL for all of the years from 2002-2018. I have been unemployed consistently since 2009.
Where's my recovery?
21
@Louis Anthes
My big question now as run through my retirement money prematurely is , "Am I too old, too female, and too qualified-Ph.D.- to be homeless?"
17
@Louis Anthes
It's over there, in the corner. Covered with dust. Right next to your willingness to work hard. And blocked by your sense of entitlement.
7
In noting this article and perceived "growth" of the waning number of those collecting unemployment claims for up to 6 months, seems we don't see any coverage of the much hallowed labor force participation rate...in that I recall its now about 62.9% however, we need to have a CREDIBLE 3rd party audit on what comprises this number plus...another composite of those who have "dropped" out, albeit reluctantly, e.g. age 55+ who primarily had specialized in IT, advertising, marketing, project mgmt., logistics/operations, etc...thus givining a viable forecast of how our slowly restructuring jobs landscape...is veering toward...many already know...my point is to see it as a full scale composite/comparison of both above areas. The 3.9% is a total fallacy, antiquated methodology. Online retail will continue its ascendancy...and less jobs likely in this and the hotel sector when more "maid bots" are implemented.
9
@robinhood377 - Some people do retire early. I dropped out of the work force at age 61, and don't regret it one bit.
2
Shouldn't this be greeted as "fake news" by the cult?
6
Where's my Raise? In your bosses pocket. He knows that the President, the Congress, and the Supreme Court are all in favor of him skewering you as bad as he can.
10
Something weird is going on with these numbers, Im not seeing a difference at all in my way of life work or anthing. Its the exact same as it was during Obama last years in office
7
The Obama good economy continues.
9
Four more years, boys and girls.....
My concern isn’t Trump. It’s if he doesn’t last, Pence is next in line. Now, that’s scary!
7
Anecdote is not the plural of data, but I can tell you what I’m seeing in Central IA. Companies are struggling to find people for $20 hour Union manufacturing jobs. Fast food has $14/hour starting wage adverts at the drive throughs. Job ads on the radio constantly. The cost of living here is much lower than the coasts. Keynes said wages are “sticky” and it appears employers here are starting to notice that it’s a seller’s market for labor. We shall see how long this lasts though...
8
The problem with rising wages is that people won’t give anything back when sales slow or rates rise. Their memories are very selective.
1
Good thing they added all those jobs, because we each need two or three just to make ends meet.
28
Certainly. If your first job is only 10 hours per week, you might want to add 3, 4, or even 5 more.
I'm curious if jobs in the so-called "gig" economy, e.g., Uber drivers, etc., are counted in the employment numbers. (Not being facetious...I truly don't know.) If they are, I'd have to imagine those must skew the numbers, and not in a good way. These types of jobs are a.) not sustainable, b.) typically have zero benefits, and c.) don't pay anywhere near a living salary.
15
@Jason - The answer to your question is yes. If you worked for money in any given period, you are counted as employed.
Many people with these jobs work them as supplements to other sources of income. The BLS doesn't know what you're up to, or how you live.
They can provide statistics on how many people work part-time, but want a full time job, and its not as large a percentage as you might think. Around 20%, I believe - you could go to the BLS site and check it out.
2
No mystery here,
Trump Policies and inevitable growth...
Low taxes
Bonfire of job killing Regulations
Real free trade
Rule of law
Respect for private property
Millions of new jobs
What do you expect?
11
And next on the agenda: complete economic collapse!
2
Did Kudlow come up with these numbers? He’s a guy that never even heard much less understand the word “reality”.
5
It’s amazing how in just a year in a half Trump made steady job growth since 2010!
16
Well said! And funny too!
3
This "President" has called this measure of unemployment fake. I'll take his word on that.
The measure he prefers is the employment to population ratio, which suggests a 40% unemployment rate.
40% is not so good.
Now some people might want to argue what the correct measure is and that's fine, but when speaking of unemployment and the Presidency, we owe it to him to use his preferred measure.
8
The 3.something% is the same jibberjabber that Obama used, I didn't believe it then, I don't believe it now. Why they don't just do an accurate count and just tell us the truth, I don't know.
2
If you take out extra government spending, and extra Chinese soybean purchases (to avoid tariffs), the adjusted growth rate is 2.7%. Not 4.1%.
Also Obama had 4 quarters that were all higher than 4.1, contrary to what Trump said.
Even worse, for most Americans, wages are stagnant, and things are getting more expensive.
Even worse, job growth during Trumps first 18 months is lower than under Obama's last 18 months.
8
You, or somebody, is making those numbers up.
This article gives us a clue as to why wages are not going up... job requirements are being "loosened" - so people who would not have been considered as qualified before the labor shortage are now being considered. This is probably a normal part of the hiring cycle - with the complement being that as companies need fewer workers, the required qualifications get stricter - sometimes to the point where they become just a means to making it easier for the company to sort through applicants.
1
and the average wage for the new hires?
8
It is mentioned (at the very bottom of the article, in one small paragraph) that wages are not keeping pace with inflation, i.e. wages are falling.
3
People have to work, pay bills. Low UE rate isn't meaningful on it's own.
What's the quality of the job, the pay, the quality of life for most of us here in the US? Not so good.
12
Thank you, President Obama. His efforts created a solid foundation for the economic recovery which began during his administration and has soared since then.
23
@Paul
Amen! 2010- 2017 belongs to Obama. Just as 2002 - 2009 (the lost decade) belonged to Bush. 2018 is
Trump's but as the stock market is the best predictor of the future, growth is starting to slow. I hope that the GOP tax cut puts to bed the fantasy that trickle down works.
6
The facts speak for themselves. The economy has been rallying since 2010. As always, it will crash or recede sometime in the next few years and then another cycle will begin. All that has changed under Rump is the distribution of profits. More for billionaires, less for workers. As you might have noticed if you made it to the end of this article, wages are being outpaced by inflation. Depressing but predictable.
6
Terrible Trump economy is coming soon - crash! Just like he crashed Atlantic City. Bankruptcy - that's what Trump's good at .
Even as the standard of living for the middle class drops, we are told the economy is healthy because people that make money picking the pockets of our children are doing well at it. We want to believe, so we deny what is right in front of us. It is a house of cards.
17
Jobs or McJobs?
14
Jobs.
5
McJobs. And you know it.
1
As a semi-retired aircraft mechanic I am constantly offered contract jobs out of town but the wages are what I made in 1982. I pass, the 1% can get a A&P license and fix their own airplanes.
37
Love those job offers! /s What you made 40 years ago on a W2 with no benefits and no living or travel expenses. I have had these "offers" and after all expenses my take home would be sub $20 /hour.
4
Trump deserves some credit for not immediately reversing Obama's unemployment numbers but as his policies take effect it is hard to see how he could blame the resulting crash on Obama. there is no doubt, however, that he will try.
12
Oh please! The unemployment rate has been steady! No thanks to the fake president! Obama's economy hit 4.1% GDP several times, do some research!
It is so charming to see our eager and ardent progressive hate-trainees signing in with their reports on how much they hate the President and his majority of the country.
How sad that as they learn to despise the man, inevitably they also hate they country they live in. Alinsky would be tickled.
14
Don’t hate our country just because I don’t consider Trump a President. Matter of fact it’s the attitude that the citizens have against others for speaking opinions that are unpatriotic. I have a patriotic right to not care if a football player kneels. I have a patriotic right believing consumers have a right. I have a patriotic right not to live in fear of getting shot in public. I have a patriotic right not to see 12 billion going to farmers rather then health care. I have a right not to be told just because the feelings of the man is hurt by the press doing it’s job in this one sided failing democracy.
11
@L'osservatore: They despise the man because he’s a traitor to his country, groveling at Putin’s feet.
2
I have a Patriotic right TO care if a football player doesn't kneel.
1
This is terrible news. Unemployment down, hourly wages up. If only Obama was still president! Unemployment would be down, and hourly wages up!
10
John D wages are up? Did you just get a raise at McDonald’s?
4
maybe they all work at Apple and make millions?
2
Economic growth rate at 4.1%. Unemployment at 3.9%.
The President better pace himself or there will be nothing left to do in his second term.
11
I wonder why wages have not risen in thirty years. Could it be the destruction of unions, tax cuts that only benefit the corporate plutocrats, a Republican party that is beholden to their base of wealthy oligarchs who need some of their undeserved profits to run thru Citizens United to enable them to win elections?
A sad scenario for American democracy which may be nearing an end.
God speed Mueller, our last chance.
Justice Brandeis said, "We can have democracy or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few. We can't have both."
34
@Donald Coureas Mueller is the most important man in Washington, maybe the whole country. History will look back on him the same as it does with Churchill, Roosevelt and Lincoln.
5
The Republican Party may perform better than expected this fall based on these numbers, despite the many caveats. Americans aren't a people known for reading the fine print.
7
Actually, historically a first term president whose approval rating is low, and he is at 38% will lose the house and senate. Wait for it....
2
@Mari - Actually, he has just passed 50%, and is still going up. Approval by blacks and Hispanics has doubled, admittedly from a low base.
That is the same Mumbo Jambo Magic Maths they show us also here in Germany. The problem is that at least 40% of those "jobs" ain't offering enough money for a living. So you are not unemployed but poor. I don't need work I need money. I can keep myself occupied.
39
“If only everyone was born a Trust Fund Baby”, you say...
But, where is the honor in living off someone else’s hard work?
1
Which is it? The economy is in a shambles so we need to wage war against our friends and enemies ... except Russia ... or it's going great guns and we're doing untold damage to our own people for no other reason than Trump's gut is working on a 30 year old dogma he's trying to relieve himself of?
Trump seems to be claiming the economy is great ... but we need to wage war anyway ... curious.
5
The economy has changed. The old paradigm of finding a job, sticking with it for four decades, and retiring, is a dying model. We live in a vibrant economy where many of us are private consultants, working together in small groups with other private consultants on a project-to-project basis, then disbanding and forming new groups for the next project. This is the new economy and it is not going to go back to the good old days. It is dying just like coal is, and whale oil did. If you have a skill market yourself as a private contractor. Register as an LLC and work not for hourly wages, but for a per-project wage. Trading hours for dollars is, and always will be, ultimately a losing game that will never quite get you ahead economically. We live in an amazingly vibrant and dynamic economy. I quit my last job in 2005 and started my own archaeological consulting business. My friends thought I was crazy and would fail. I did not, and instead prospered through the last recession as I could limbo well under other company's prices. Be small, be nimble, be quick, out-compete the big box shops. There is so much fat on the land, trust me. If you have a skill market yourself accordingly. Do not let another company mine your skills and therefore profit from your knowledge and labor. It belongs to you, not them. Good luck!
11
There are "big box" archaeological consulting companies? Congratulations on out-competing them.
4
A vibrant economy for Bezos, who exploits his employees and customers and pays no taxes.
4
Somewhat true, though most are not consultants. Priblem is less power/leverage when alone in your field. Need numbers to force change.
2
Reading these comments from the readers would have you think that America was in a deep dark decline and that we are all going to be living under highway underpasses by summer's end. Get a grip! And if you really want wage levels to pop, stop the cheap labor pouring across the Southern border. You can't have it both ways, blame Trump's economic policies for slow wage growth and support cheap labor coming from mass immigration.
15
@Hank Thomas "Cheap labor" from south of the border is not suppressing my wages as a public school teacher; I'm not in competition with illegal immigrants, nor are teachers in Kansas, Oklahoma, Arizona et al. Nor are boogey man unions suppressing wages of "middle class" professionals. What could it be?
7
I value teachers and am grateful they’ve chosen their vocation. But you can’t just look at salary. Have to also take into account teacher pensions, health care (practically free in my school district) and time off (summer, Christmas, spring break, etc). A lot people would give up what they have for the total package that teachers have.
4
No one is keeping them from getter a degree and applying. I hear the same complaint as a municipal worker. I thought this out before applying.
3
Terrible one trillion dollar budget deficit at full employment, when the
budget should be in surplus.
Trump says Putin's attacks on America are bogus.
What is bogus is Trump.
Thank you troll Trump!!!
Trade deficit will inevitably get worse with Trump's bad trade policies and bad budget policies.
10
@David
The great economic news is all Putin's fault!
7
Better numbers under the Obama administration were treated with fewer accolades by most press outlets.
Either you are being swayed by his threats and browbeating, or have been on his side the entire time and continue to be.
My guess is the latter.
10
Actually, the Obama numbers were far earlier in the recovery and were low, on a relative basis. What is so remarkable about these numbers is how late in the recovery they come. Whether they are due to Trump’s tax reform and deregulation or to the actions taken by Obama earlier can be debated. What must be remarked on, is how unexpected and welcome it is at this point in time.
7
@Michael
Anyone who was paying attention to how Obama was firming up the internals of the American economy is not surprised at all by these numbers.
I've been posting for years that conservative growth that doesn't incentivize bad behavior would have long lasting effects on the economy.
Unfortunately, instead of sticking with a proven model, this administration had decided to increase the budget deficit and trade deficits to squeeze cosmetic boomlets that will lead to a recession by 2021.
And let's not forget that taxes, prices, and interest rates are all on the rise in 2018.
2
The numbers were better under Obama? Which numbers? Unemployment rate? Labor participation rate? Black/Hispanic unemployment rate?
8
How is the unemployment rate calculated in the US? Is everybody without a job counted? How is counted someone with a job, which criteria are used, how many hours of work needed to count someone with a job?
2
@Maurice - Here, read this exciting web page from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:
https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm
It explains it all. They have thousands of pages of statistics in excruciating detail, too.
1
We've got the pedal to the metal and, instead of wages beginning to rise, the engine is going to seize up. It doesn't take an MIT economist to understand. Yes, the GOP has taken away every impediment to growth--including deregulation and tax reform--but the gains are being made in the top 12% (those with investments in IRAs, 401ks, mutual funds, etc.). That said, an adjustment is imminent--and it likely won't result in a devastating depression, it will result in greater inflation with zero wage growth and essentially reducing wealth across the board. this is unsustainable. Ask the Chinese.
7
Trump could have 0% unemployment, 10% wage growth, and no inflation and you still wouldn’t be satisfied...
6
@Morgan Funny, I didn't mention Trump. A little sensitive?
@Jose Pieste
Point to the portions of my premise that are inaccurate
1. Where do you believe wages are going, and why?
2. I give the GOP appropriate credit--albeit not believing in its medium and long term value.
3. The adjustment is inevitable, if only because all adjustments are inevitable--ask any MIT economist
4. Are you suggesting the adjustment will result in a depression? I didn't.
5. Wage growth is awful compared to every other bull market--not even close. Housing, food and commodity costs are outstripping wage growth.
I'll be waiting for your responses.
After selling a small business I founded 20 years ago, I am looking for work. These numbers simply do not reflect my reality. My experience has been, based on recruiter contacts and actual searching, that there are an abundance of entry level service/sales jobs paying minimum wage and higher paying professional positions for development/coding employees (3 years experience) and very little in between. I live in Seattle where the job market is very healthy.
14
@HS. I would like to see % of adults of prime working age with full time employment (currently, and over the past several decades). My hunch is that there are still plenty of unemployed, part time and under employed.
5
More meaningless tasks that wreck the planet.
2
Another financial article that does not mention UR 6 and labor force participation rate, the way they always did to mitigate good economic news during the Obama era.
And, don't worry, once Trump gets done pounding on the Bureau of Labor Statistics that 157,000 number will be revised upward to 286,000.
8
@Paul I see this complaint a lot but the numbers are pretty positive there too. Including non longer seeking / discouraged job seekers, we are back better than we were before the crisis (See https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/01/business/economy/jobs-recovery-longer...
Not a fan of trump, but we should argue with numbers and facts.
10
And we are supposed to believe these statistics coming from the Trump regime, an administration that lies with impunity on a daily basis. Talk about fake news!
9
Is anyone actually buying this?
13
All this thanks to Obama's "failed" stimulus bill!
10
When I was a child in the sixties,really good middle-class jobs paid about thirty an hour—by today's standards, according to inflation calculators, that would be about 142.50 an hour. People had health care, which was largely non-profit, and pensions. My father–a junior high drop out—had all these things.
With the 2008 crash, the theft of labor was complete, and the rise of the trillionaire became a reality. Thomas Paine wrote that anyone who has amassed huge amounts of wealth has done so by stealing labor.
What good does it do to be employed when minimum wage no longer covers basic rent in any state?
"Even with some states hiking pay for those earning the least, there is still nowhere in the country where a person working a full-time minimum wage job can afford to rent a decent two-bedroom apartment, according to an annual report released Wednesday by the National Low Income Housing Coalition."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/minimum-wage-doesnt-cover-the-rent-anywhere...
The New Feudalism.
23
@Naples - What? About $30 an hour in the sixties? You've got to be kidding. That is $60K a year, which was the salary of a big executive. Middle-class people made $6-12K a year in 1965, and lived very well on it.
3
Depends on where lived in 60s and what work.
I am no fan of trump, nor do I think the president (him or others) have much of a near-term effect on the economy or unemployment. Those policies play out over a long-time frame.
That said, the numbers are good. For those who complain that it is all a farce because it doesn't include non longer seeking / discouraged job seekers, even including those numbers we are back better than we were before the crisis (See https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/01/business/economy/jobs-recovery-longer...
As for wage growth, it is still lower than 3% but it is creaping much closer which is a good sign but not where it needs to be longer term. (see longer term view on the Atlanta Fed Reserve page). It is interesting to use that Atlanta fed tool to look at different cuts of wage growth. Positively, 16-24 yr olds wage growth has rebounded sharply – if that is a good proxy for entry level roles, that is good for the working poor and could be a good leading indicator of upward wage pressure on older age bands which should be a better proxy for the middle class.
One other thing I see is comments that people are holding multiple jobs and that is the driver. The data doesn’t bear that out. That number has been on an almost continuous 20 year decline based on Bureau of Labor Stat data (https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2015/article/pdf/multiple-jobholding-over-t....
Again, don’t think trump has anything to do with it but we should all argue with the facts; not intuition.
7
@actually
Thanks for your thoughtful and thought provoking comment. I agree. I am also not a fan of Trump and whether or not these improvements are signs of his actions or something more complex, I see them as all positive. I wish more commenters would embrace this view. Yes, wages need to go up. Yes, we need more jobs with full benefits. I get that. But the low wage economy did not end under Obama and it did not start under Trump. The reasons are complex not unique to America. Remember that the previously unemployed Trump supporter could care less if his/her glass is viewed as half empty or half full. They care that it's no longer empty. A strategy that harps on about the half empty glass will only lose votes. Show them solutions on how to fill the glass up and you might get their attention.
Robert Reich: The Truth About the Economy (in 2 Minutes)
https://uwua.net/video/robert-reich-the-truth-about-the-economy-in-2-min...
8
@Pray for Help: It's terrific …. but from 2012….the mid-point of the OBAMA ADMINISTRATION -- when Trump was not even a blip on the political radar…..
Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but who wants to bet even the greediest among the wealthiest aren't beginning to think it's about time to take their winnings and scram? Trump's way of living for thrills and sticking it to the losers, has lately become America's way of living so when he goes down, who knows? Who wants to bet?
7
Wow, that’s a lot of new Uber drivers.
15
I work at an unemployment office in the Midwest and am staggered by the number of individuals in their 70s and possibly early 80s who are looking for work. Clearly, people do not have the means to retire at 65 and relax until they pass. And age discrimination means that an unsettling number of people are being pushed out of careers they've held for decades and left to eke out a living with contract work and/or low-paying jobs.
30
@AreJaye
Absolutely,I was recently coerced by the largest local employer in toen to resign or be fired less then a month after turning 65 for someone younger a cheaper. The rampant prejudice towards the elderly in the workplace continues unabated.
5
Yeah and when this ‘tariff bubble’ fades the truth of the economy will surface. This bubble is the jobs needed to get everything out before the tariffs slam the economy. Fall elections, don’t wanna wish US bad, maybe great timing.
3
I'll tell you who produced this economy (& who should get credit).
The answer: Those Goldman Sachs crooks who gave us the 2008 meltdown, & the unemployed & underemployed reserve army the depression gave us.
As I write this, my old pendulum clock tick-tocks away, most soothingly (I often, indeed usually, need that soothing). If you swing the pendulum from an extreme height on one side, guess what? (Drum roll please)...
It swings to an equal height on the other side. That's how cycles work, in our economy just like on my clock.
I say "our" economy, as opposed to generalizing "all economies," because the GS-Wall Street-fed reserve technocrat-economists utterly failed in their aspiration/fundamental mission of overcoming this cycle & instead sustaining steady growth. What we've had since Greenspan's tenure is more extreme crests/troughs, but in any case a violent roller coaster economy.
Two things are powering our putative/ostensible "boom": the economists who failed in their mission by designing this roller coaster (which btw always gives the designer-owners the nicest, most profitable of rides), & those recession-refuse guys that have to lift the cars up the acclivities. They're the college (& often way beyond that) degreed serving you your lattes & packing your Amazon Prime boxes. Also those millions Amazon put out of business & consigned to those tasks.
The GS-FR economists & their victims gave us this boom. (*Not* President Dump.)
3
Like the energy from cocaine- Trump's tax cuts & spend economy has created a dangerous trillion dollar deficit, leaving no wiggle room for crisis maneuvers.
He can flaunt the stock market rise and unemployment without better wages while leading America into a trade war and bankruptcy.
His own personal bankruptcies led him to make 'deals' with Russian oligarchs close to Putin, forever ingratiating him to them.
Now his personal failures have become our national shame.
6
A former family member of Donald Trump reported that Trump had a book of Hitler's words.
I have read Hitler's words to make try with others to make sure that a person like Hitler never comes to power in America.
Read the following Hitler quotes in order to judge if D. Trump behaves and believes in these ideas, ways and means.
Hitler's words: "It is the press, above all, which wages a positively fanatical and slanderous struggle, tearing down everything which can be regarded as a support of national independence, cultural elevation, and the economic independence of the nation."
"How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think."
"Strength lies not in defense but in attack."
"The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one."
"Success is the sole earthly judge of right and wrong."
"The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force."
"The victor will never be asked if he told the truth. It is not truth that matters, but victory."
" I do not see why man should not be just as cruel as nature."
"If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed."
"Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it."
"All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach."
11
The Feds have been manipulating economic data since the Nixon administration, hence accepting current data at face value seems unwise. The unemployment rate along with inflation for example, represents obvious government manipulation. The present rosey economic situation is in my opinion illusionary. I expect significant world fiat currency devaluation in the near term because that's the only rational approach for paying down total world debt. I also strongly suspect the US trade deficit for the present quarter is an aberation caused by trade tariffs against China: next quarter will provide a more accurate presentation of the present balance of trade.
2
The one frustrating thing is the media, across the board, reports that X new jobs were created this month, the unemployment rate is down, but they don't report the quality of those jobs. If the bulk of the jobs are jobs paying minimum wage or near that, without benefits, it means that the jobless rate only reflects working, but not at what level.
How come there is no measure of 'job quality' given, why don't they break it down and show what the jobs are? In the end that is what is going to matter, and Trump nation who crow about how "Donny" has brought down the unemployment rate are going to feel it when they realize we have low unemployment but a lot of people struggling to survive on what corporate America wants to pay. They should be asking themselves, how come corporate America got a huge tax cut, and my wages are going nowwhere? Where are all these well paying jobs with benefits they promised? I am sure Fox news is spinning this news, saying "this is the lowest unemployment in 50 years, thanks to Republican policies", but how many people are too busy working 3 jobs to notice this?
15
Wages are still barely keeping up with the cost of living. Fancy that! Obviously, the CEOs are continuing to keep the lion's share of their profits for themselves and their board members. So Trump wants to cut their taxes again while his Supreme Court saps the strength of labor unions. But he's a "populist," right?
8
Private industry is still discriminating against older workers and still sending jobs overseas- and there is no end in sight. And why would any of this change when the tax plan is all carrot and no stick for corporations? And if we can't make inroads for workers at a time of low unemployment, it will never be done.
6
Rising wages would be a negative. They would bring inflation, and of course with some retiring their replacements will of course be paid less. Less experience and less dedication means less pay.
1
Just curious, how many are second or even third jobs for all these 157,000 people? Can they support their families now?
2
@kpl The data doesn’t bear that out. the number of multi job holders has been on an almost continuous 20 year decline based on Bureau of Labor Stat data (https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2015/article/pdf/multiple-jobholding-over-t....
3
‘“I’ve never seen such a steady stream of gains — there’s no volatility in the numbers,” said Ellen Zentner, chief United States economist at Morgan Stanley.’
No volatility in the numbers, hooray! We’re going to be just fine after all.
Mathematics operates and functions by using numbers because they represent something which approximates an objective metric. It is the approximation of measurement that plainly suggests that, “the devil is in the details.”
I’m no economist, but ‘The Wealth of Nations’ sure does seem to suggest that Adam Smith and the Physiocrats knew a lot more about this stuff than whatever it is that we’re doing today.
3
I am highly educated, been looking for work since the 2008 recession. These sunny job numbers don't seem to be for people in my shoes.
12
I spend a lot of my day on the roads of the Philadelphia Suburbs.
Been doing this for a long time now.
I am seeing more new development, new infrastructure repair, new home building. home remodeling, new Commercial building.
New stores.
New cars.
New banks ,,for crying out,, ( a very good sign ,,have to put it somewhere )!!
Packed train and bus stations.
More rush hour traffic.
More residential home " sold " signs.
I pass through Norristown , a medium sized old industrial town. For years I saw many young people idle on street corners.
Not now. They may all be working.
To me it looks different than it did only a few years ago.
Of course most here will say I am a Trump cheerleader.
I say, I am reporting what I see.
I think ( you ) see the same but will not admit it.
14
@Joe Paper. You're right. I'm looking out my window at Norristown right now, and I drive through the same suburbs, and I see what you see. Not sure this has anything to do with who is president - it was happening under Obama, now its continuing under Trump. What happens next, when this economy hits a bump, could be better or worse depending on who is in charge. Obama took a rational, cautious approach to navigating turbulent seas. I don't think that Trump, and his lackies in Congress, will do nearly as well.
5
I am too, but it is all supported by the taxpayers credit card, or should I say their kids'.
5
Things are great here if you are young, rich and white. Things have always been great for these people. For the rest of us, they keep getting worse. In this town, anyone who is not all of the above is packing their bags, or in line for subsidized housing.
2
I do not work any longer as I am pushing 70 and had a lucrative career of 40 some years - in the oil industry.
So, I have seen a recession or two and expansions in between?
I do not know what is the break down of these jobs. But I would think if you are educated with a degree - and willing to relocate, these economic reports indicate that it would not be difficult to find jobs.
As to some crticisms in comments below - take my word, I would rather have these excellent numbers showing strength of our economy than the other way around.
My own experience tells me that if you are willing to move, it can't be hard to find a job if you really want one.
7
I wonder how these numbers relate to the phenomenon of low-paid workers who must hold two or three jobs to survive. Any data on this?
5
@Anne Springhorn the number of multi job holder has been on an almost continuous 20 year decline based on Bureau of Labor Stat data. So when you say phenomena, It is a phenomenon but in the other direction --> less people work multiple jobs. (https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2015/article/pdf/multiple-jobholding-over-t....
Again, I think Trump has nothing to do with any of these positive numbers but it is interesting to see what lens people view these things through. We all have our own misconceptions about reality. The important thing is to adjust our misconceptions based on facts.
1
The article is three years old. A lot changes in that amount of time. I use a maid service which charges me $35.50 an hour and pays the maid at my house $16 an hour and she also works at Home Depot. Two jobs.
3
@JMM 20 year trend vs. one anecdote. I will go with the BLS.
What this means is: executive level people who control hiring the want Republicans to hold congress.
9
@Himsahimsa: Precisely. They will do anything they can to prop up this administration.
2
I bet most of them are part-time....with few , if any, benefits.
6
As long as Barack Obama is alive, credit to where credit is due must be given. His mere presence on earth is enough.
7
$27.05 per hour? ($54,000 per year without overtime but with little in the way of vacation.)
Really, the Apple Store doesn’t pay that.
Part timers at UPS don’t make that.
Walmart and Amazon warehouse workers don’t make that.
New hires on the factory floor at Tesla and GM don’t make that.
Starbucks doesn’t pay that. Home Depot doesn’t pay that.
Costco which pays better than all I’ve listed above doesn’t pay that rate; it comes closer though.
I could add many more very common jobs that don’t pay anywhere near that wage in 2018.
Something is wrong with you the New York Times is using “average” here.
15
And if you get that much, after payroll deductions and healthcare, you're lucky if you have $30,000 left to live on.
Can't wait to get one of those $14.00 an hour jobs, on a shift from 5:00 AM to 2:00 PM.
5
@Cowboy Bob - If you were broke and had no income for several years, such a job would look pretty good. You can always take it for now and try to find something better.
2
It was the height of stupidity to hand over a trillion dollars to the 1% and stick the rest of us with a trillion dollars of debt.
When you think of what that $$$$ could have been used for - massive, badly needed infrastructure improvements that would have served to bolster American business interests, and provide good paying jobs whose worker's would then be paying income tax (back into the treasury).
Our education system is being starved and our students are increasingly unable to compete with other advanced nations.
Others leaving college with a four yr. degree and in many cases thousands in debt are struggling to find other than gig jobs.
And don't get me started about for profit healthcare, spoiling the environment, the ongoing outsourcing of labor to third world countries, attacks on the press, oppressing the vote and a president whose main reason for getting up in the morning is to seek adoration from his blind enablers and to inflict harm on those who expose him for the unfit charlatan that he is.
These numbers look good, sound good and paint a nice picture. Today. But there's a sense of "too good to be true" about this report, along with a sense that there's a storm on the horizon, and that it's likely to be a doozie.
You can't just blow a trillion dollars and have nothing to show for it without some major consequences.
11
When the bubble bursts is will be spectacular.
The 1% will be pinned to dollar sign shaped crucifixes on wall street. Their body's will be silhouetted by Wall Street banks set a blaze.
9
@gene Please call me; I'll bring matches.
8
@gene and Guy : I am all in! call me!
Jobs at minimum wage, no benefits, no steady shifts, and fear you'll lose even that. But hey, millions of jobs! At McDonald's and Walmart and call centers. Too bad about your student debt, your hard-earned social sciences degree so you could actually help the world be a better place. You're a barista now, if you're lucky. The real economy -- the one where about 98% of the country lives -- is on a crash-burn trajectory. People clawing their way just to keep from sinking with the majority of the country. But wow! So many jobs! Gee, how swell.
10
It seems to me if you are going to report changes in wages or other similar economic indicators, you should also report the inflation rate for the same period.
5
All of this data is just noise.
If you really want to know how well the economy is doing for people, just put it all to a vote.
On one hand, let Ocasio-Cortez Democrats offer the people less take home pay, but free education, free healthcare, open borders and more immigration, and a guaranteed job.
On the other hand, let Trump continue to offer tax cuts, deregulation, immigration restrictions, and a trade war that seeks to advance the interests of racist blue collar Americans who have enough over hard working minorities in China who need more.
I think the response would be clear and obvious. People will prefer the socialism of the left in a landslide! But will our Democratic leaders have the wisdom and courage to offer this? That is the question!
4
@Trans Cat Mom
Agreed, "progressives" will forever vote for free stuff, not the majority of Americans though.
3
@Trans Cat Mom Another way to ask this: do you prefer Venezuela or Kansas? I’m not sure the answer is obvious. And just a little bit of information: there is no “job guarantee“ anywhere in the world, including the Nordic countries that the ignorant American “socialists” like to refer to. The only country where it existed was the USSR, which had a saying “We pretend to work, so you can pretend to pay us”. Incidentally, who are “working minorities” in China? The population of China is 90 percent Han Chinese and those are the people who make all the stuff Americans no longer know how to make.
3
The economic indicators reinforce an acceptable range of expectations for dreamers in the middle and lower classes who would do the unthinkable and press the government and the private sector to facilitate economic security, such as living wages.
Americans interested in an economic prosperity that includes everyone must look beyond these traditional economic indicators and supplement them with the stories of real Americans who are being impacted by this economy.
If you do that, you will know that this “strong” economy is fraught with serious problems.
4
I am amazed that you can print a graph that clearly shows unemployment has been dropping at virtually the same rate since 2010 and yet all the Trump supporters cheer him for "fixing" the economy. I have to wonder if they also praise him for making the sun come up in the morning.
24
In reality, most of us didn't vote for him, the electoral college put him in office. So most of us know that Trump is leading us toward the next financial collapse. Read the comments.
1
@Stephanie Wood: the Electoral College has elected every President in US history -- all 45 of 'em -- including your saint Barack Obama.
Average hourly earnings are at $27.05, where?
Not in this neighborhood.
15
Huge salaries at the very top will skew the numbers upward. How about the median wage? What is that?
6
@Allison - A more likely explanation is the top 20% of workers, about 30 million people, making $100-400K a year.
two thoughts come to mind.
one, I think we are rapidly approaching the job vacancy / job skill saturation point. the country needs to think ahead ( quickly ) and prepare educating and training people for future growth industries ( medical, tech). for example I'm curious to know how many people are in the US on work visas in IT.
two, income. I live in a county with a 20% poverty level. many folks work two minimum wage part-time jobs (no health insurance, no pension/savings plan)...and still have trouble financially.
if we address #1 I think #2 can be improved.
I don't see a lot of value in job creation and unemployment numbers like we report on today.
2
@VM - If the jobs are open, US citizens will train in IT. The problem has been that young guys thought employers would take H1Bs instead of them, so they didn't major in CS or EE. If they think they can get the jobs, then they will do the training and qualify.
3
First, depending on whose reputable numbers one uses, the economy must create 125-150k jobs a month just to account for net population growth. So, 157k jobs means we are barely keeping up with the population growth.
Second, If U1 is coming down, but wages aren't going up, then U1 is the wrong indicator. How's U6 doing? How's the labor force participation rate doing? Last time I checked the labor force participation rate had not been growing, meaning there's still slack in the labor market.
Finally, with consolidation in industries and the curbing of unions, employers are much closer to monopsonies than they have been in the past.
4
It only takes 3.9 jobs to make full middle class wages also.
6
"We are bringing unemployment way below 4.5 percent, which the Fed considers full employment,"
Apparently the Fed is wrong. Possibly because of the major push by businesses to hire part-time and contract workers only.
6
Didn't we all know it would turn out this way? President Obama led us from the precipice of the 2008 crash back to safety ad safe ground to start from again.
And now that we're here, President Trump gets/takes the credit, crowing like a bantam rooster that he made the sun rise.
Unfortunately, we'll never know what great gains might have been made had Trump built upon the foundation Obama left him with, instead of creating economic chaos.
12
To see proof that the government's unemployment numbers are a sham, one only has to look at stagnant wages. Companies know very well that there is a reservoir of about 5 million long-time unemployed since 2008. They are the ones the government likes to forget about. They have almost become the great unwashed; not worthy of anything. Most of them probably nearing early retirement, and perhaps injured from doing construction all their lives. And, thanks to Trump, very soon going to be without healthcare. Losing wages in the last years of employment is a tragedy to all those people after trying so hard all their lives up to that point in 2008.
14
@James Devlin - Well, which is it? If they are too old and worn out to work, then they can't re-enter the workforce and must not be the cause of wages not rising. If all the people who can actually do work have jobs, regardless of the number of burnouts on the sidelines, then wages should start to rise.
Wow, the "average" worker gets .07 more. Let's see, if the billionaire republicans
For every extra million given to the Republican billionaires, 14 MILLION working Americans get zilch. Zero. And yet someone can claim the "average" American is getting an extra seven pennies each hour.
Wow, those extra seven pennies, when added up, come out to an extra $2.80 a week (before taxes, and of course working class Americans pay higher social security taxes than billionaires.)
That's more than $12/month that Trump is giving the "average" worker (remember at least half of them will get less than that) to pay for all the things that Trump is cutting.
Can't wait to see the Trump voters using their $12 each month to pay for the cancer treatments their health insurance no longer covers. If they save it, after 5 years they can probably afford one round of chemo. If they are still alive.
14
When our last President suggested running larger deficits in an attempt to jump start the economy and get middle class people back to work, the Republicans in Congress were aghast. Doing so was near Communistic! Too much interference in the free market economy! A waste of taxpayer dollars! I wait very day now to hear those same voices bring their opposition to the floor. Amazingly, now that the tax cut for the wealthy is done, they have nothing to say. Amazingly, running a huge deficit is no problem as long as the 1% get their due!
13
I have often commented on this: why is it no longer considered that 200,000 jobs per month were needed just to keep up with population growth? Our country, In particular our cities where there are jobs are certainly becoming more crowded. Also the many commenters who rightly say wages aren’t going up should read the excellent article by Anne Lowery in The F.T. on the effects of stock buybacks on wages, and how all those repatriated tax free billions went to CEOs and shareholders rather than job creation, short termism is certain to catch up with us eventually.
235
@Ted Krugman estimated in 2012 that it's about 90,000 jobs now: "That’s well above the 90,000 or so added jobs per month that we need to keep up with population. (This number used to be higher, but underlying work force growth has dropped off sharply now that many baby boomers are reaching retirement age.)"
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/08/opinion/krugman-truth-about-jobs.html
Regarding stock buybacks, we should be taxing them at 20% or so and treating capital gains and dividends as ordinary income. These two policies should go together to avoid shifting how corporations reward shareholders and avoid taxes.
This should bring in about $300 billion/year or so, bringing out deficit down to a sustainable level or alternatively funding healthcare and education.
2
@Ted The president of the company I work for was recently let go. His golden parachute payment would have paid to keep the 40 employees that were recently laid off employed for another 2 years. All of the tax money was used for stock buybacks, employees are not getting a raise this year.
3
Most of these new jobs are restaurant and hotel service industry jobs that are low paying and often seasonal. The others are in the health 'industry' like nursing assistants and elder care, another very low paying position. These jobs being created offer no benefits, sick time, pension or stability.
447
@Lee This has been the trend since we hit bottom in mid 2009 though.
Show me your evidence
Could you please share your source with us?
I see three months of declining job gains. The effects of the trade war are just starting to take hold. Let's see if a downward trend is being established. We will know in three months.
If the downward trend does not set in, then the average job growth is about the same as it was since 2013. For an upward trend to be established, we should be seeing higher highs, and higher lows. The chart does not indicate that.
Basically, the economy is plugging along as it has been for nearly 10 years now. The Federal Reserve us what saved our bacon with quantitative easing and pumping trillions into the economy. Neither Obama nor Trump have had much else to do with it except Trump has shifted most of the gains to the top 1%.
The trade war is the 800 pound gorilla in the room. If it escalates, combined with the increases in interest rates, combined with the housing market which has peaked, combined with an inverted yield curve which we are fast approaching, then a recession is in the making.
261
@Bruce Rozenblit Try thinking you can't have job gains forever, after all I hear there are more jobs that people to fill them.
1
@vulcanalex
I don't have the vaguest idea of what you are driving at.
There are more jobs available than people to fill them. Most of those jobs are high tech, highly skilled positions and they are located in the big cities. This nation does not have the quality of work force that it needs. That condition has been around for many years. It is the result of a lack of job training programs, apprenticeships, affordable state schools, lack of two year degree programs and a lack of dependable, reliable workers who don't have drug and alcohol dependancies.
Trump and the Republicans have done nothing to correct those deficiencies.
So long as the economy adds jobs, the available pool of workers shrinks. This is what we are experiencing and that is a good thing. Maintaining the level of job growth that we had through the Obama years will cause that effect.
Now, if you are disagreeing with my comment, exactly what are you disagreeing with? Everything I wrote is a true statement, reasonable, and not politically biased.
1
@Bruce Rozenblit: Great post. And the irony is that Ben Bernanke was appointed by W. Both Obama and trump owe W for that appointment.
You are right, the economy is in the gradual upturn from the bottom of the crash.
In a recovery, there's always an 800 pound gorilla in the room that crashes it, some technical gorilla, in this case, trump's trade war, as you write.
In the crash, W *was* victimized by the long-term real estate bubble, but the few trillion dollars dropped into fruitless Middle East wars did not help. Furthermore, as W took office, we were on the verge of balancing the federal budget. Revenues actually exceeded expenditures, something rare in recent history. W should have preserved that.
And now trump tempts his fate.
Trump's tax plan and deregulation and energy push are all helping. If he could settle trade differences, there will be another jump in the economy.
56
@Alan Klein
"Trump's tax plan and deregulation and energy push are all helping. If he could settle trade differences, there will be another jump in the economy. "
This isn't a "jump." This is a continuation of a trend that began eight years ago. Trump's tax "plan" has virtually nothing to do with it.
1
Anyone could slash taxes on corporations and see a boon. Its a no-brainer. But only Trump cares SO little about the years beyond his term that he'd do such a thing at a time it was least needed just so he could bask in the short term glow and reap unimaginable personal gains. Wall Street is not Main Street, but poor Trumpers don't have a clue what this massive deficit will inevitably do to the programs they count on and how the added debt will effect them a few election cycles down the road.
You're in New Jersey, where Trump bankrupted Atlantic City. You're in New Jersey where, if you own a home, your taxes are about to go up big time, thanks to Trump.
You see no numbers on how many people have exhausted their unemployment benefits & are no longer counted in the labor force. How many have just given up on finding a good paying job and no longer counted. Creating jobs & keeping wages low & doing away with healthcare are not gains to brag about. People are still working for extremely low wages & are working 2 jobs to just have food & shelter. So if more jobs are created, how many of those jobs were taken as second jobs by workers who can't live on current wages? Wages have not increased as promised by this administration when they gave the wealthy tax cuts. Even the companies & rich owners are bragging about using their extra money to buy out competitors & give shareholders dividends & officers bonuses in the hundreds of thousands. The little worker who actually "slaves" got a one time bonus of a couple hundred dollars but no hourly increase & no free insurance from these rich owners. So according to candidate trump the unemployment was at 40% or higher and is now 4% & he is taking all the credit??? I think he is reporting "fake numbers" in both cases. Whatever keeps base happy. Higher wages should be an immediate target & forget the profits!
267
@Nostradamus Said So
You “see no numbers on how many people...are no longer counted in the labor force.”
The government reports them alright, the article just neglected to do so. You are referring to the labor participation rate, and it has been increasing monthly at a healthy rate, much improved compared to the prior administration, for over a year now
2
@Nostradamus Said So You can easily find the statistic for discouraged workers. Those are people no longer actively looking for work.
@Nostradamus Said So
"You see no numbers on how many people have exhausted their unemployment benefits & are no longer counted in the labor force."
Actually, yes you do. The graph tweeted by the White House shows total labor force participation (workers as a percent of total population).
But are these jobs full time with long term stability and paid at a living wage? Do these jobs offer benefits? Or are they "temporary" or "contract" jobs that offer nothing but a low hourly wage? Just because someone is now considered employed does mean that they can pay their monthly bills or have health insurance that they can afford to use.
375
@Autumn Flower Living wage here is minimum wage. And healthy people don't need heath insurance and your "monthly bills" might be my waste.
@Autumn Flower
Unemployed have to start somewhere. First step is getting a job. Then they can take a next step, gain skills, and advance to a better job.
2
@Autumn Flower
You're right to ask whether these jobs mitigate income volatility. There are "jobs" and then there are jobs and it’s not clear whether this data will translate into an ability by non-college-educated workers to make steady payments on things like rent and utilities - let alone cover emergencies - going forward.
http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2017/03/h...
Half of jobs today don't even pay people's monthly rent. The ones being created are similar low wage positions. Forget about eating, insurance or owning a car. 50% of Americans don't have an extra $500 for an emergency. Times are lean and mean for too many full time workers who are living in or near poverty.
536
@Lee This is the key issue that is never displayed in thee statistics. But just watch the POTUS brag about his numbers. The issue is far too much money in the hands of far too few people. These skewed statistics are crafted to simply take the heat of the real issue and get everyone fighting one another. It is the oldest play in the book.
@Lee It has been this way since at least 2009, and really since the early 1980s, through multiple administrations, over many decades. Trickle-down economics did not live up to its promise.
2
@Lee
Look at the bright side. Unemployed folks are now working. They get a job, pick up skills and experience, and have the opportunity to continue to advance up the ladder. It's better than sitting on the sofa watching soap operas for sure.
2
President Reagan won an election by asking, “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” American workers today are no better off than they were 40 years ago. And as a country, are we safer, are our air and water cleaner, are our children better educated? Are we more respected? Maybe if we spent less time arguing about Hillary and Donald, we’d have more time to spend on what’s best for our people and our nation.
335
@NCIndependent
" Maybe if we spent less time arguing about Hillary and Donald, we’d have more time to spend on what’s best for our people and our nation."
???
No one is still "arguing about Hillary" except our Master Con Man in Chief.
2
@NCIndependent Maybe if we had a president and a congress who actually cared about this country, we could get somewhere, too. Some try but then the next one tears it all back down. So we spin our wheels.
1
@NCIndependent and Regan asked that fateful question in the second person singular, in my opinion. It was an insidious question that I ponder to this day. Like you, I aske in the first person plural—how are we doing? You, I, and our fellow human beings.
The biggest take away from this, is that after 7 months, since the "middle class" tax cuts took effect, the middle class salary increases are barely above the rate of inflation. In a booming economy, with a 3.9% unemployment rate (7.8% if you count the underemployed, those who stopped looking, and those who dropped out of the work force), workers should be seeing at least 3% to 5% raises, not 2%.
I have been looking fro work, since 1 December, 2017. I live in a county, with a 2.6% unemployment rate, and a state that has a 2.9% unemployment rate. But, at 62, and in IT, I have had some interviews, but no job. I keep being told I have great experience, but I am not a "good fit". Well, when you walk into a conference room, and every person interviewing you is in the 20s and 30s, your pretty much know, at the onset, you are being interviewed, to meet their requirement of interviewing three people.
The employment participation rate is still below what it was, before the Great Recession. There are lots of jobs out there, in IT. Many are going to green card and visa holders. Hence, most of the jobs, I applied for, require a person to be a US,citizen, jobs that do not sponsor visa holders or require citizenship and state residency. I wrote off most of private industry, months ago.
As for the number of jobs created, we will see what August and September bring. If September job creation is below July, then that is is a warning of economic issues ahead.
398
@Nick Metrowsky
Oh I need to add, the discriminatory practice of forcing job applicants to do one way, video interviews, because HR employees are too lazy to do phone screens. These of one way, can't answer question type interviews already cause anxiety in people, who are not used to doing any form of video conferencing. Throw in, if they have something like Asperger's Syndrome, such an interview could be devastating. This certainly does accomplish one thing, driving away people from a job application pool.
The other aspect of this, is a matter of how secure is the video that si being recorded? Will it end up on the internet someplace; like YouTube or the Dark Web. Never the mind, the applicant is being set up to be made a fool of by those reviewing the video. never the potential of abuse in age and sex discrimination.
I personally turned down three of these, one just a few minutes ago. Why would someone want to work for an entity who forces people to do these?
3
@Nick Metrowsky
Agreed, Nick. IT has always been an industry rife with agism. And, like anything, the proof of that willful lack of experience is often found in the product.
I, too, was actually once told by a state-funded university that they didn't have to hire the most qualified individual, only those they thought would "fit it". I explained to them that that was actually fraud of the public purse.
The job I didn't get was working on my own software. And when I say "my own software," only I had built that portion of it which was the requirement for the job. The job went to an intern barely 12 months out of college. I was 55.
Three years later that university department was laying off IT people due to incompetence, but not the intern, from where the incompetence originated. That would have been embarrassing to those who hired him. The men in the department were stunned when I wasn't offered the position because they were desperate for someone who actually knew the software, and not just pretended to. The female administrators, on the other hand, had long wanted the intern.
Yup, so good luck anyone finding an IT job at 60!
5
@Nick Metrowsky
Where I am the unemployment rate is also low. The jobs are low paying for the most part, even in hi tech.
We have an 'ageism' problem also. There are keywords to ponder when job hunting. Among them are 'not a good fit', not a cultural fit, we're moving in a different direction. Add to that the key fit these days is millennial. People over 35 are largely ignored. Jobs that used to pay more are now paying less.
That's why I'm off the job market right now. So much for job creation. When a job that used to pay $45-50 an hour is now paying $20-25, that's not optimum.
5
wow, an average of 7 cents an hour increase, or $2 per week. What will the workers do with all that extra cash? Worse, can the billionaire class really afford to give up that much?
784
@Tom Perhaps apply it towards principal on their mortgages? That would be the best way to make that increase stronger. If we get this each month, compounded as we go, that is a nice overall pace actually.
@Tom Actually, it's closer to $3 per week, and what worker could possibly use an extra $150 bucks this year? And unemployment tracking below 4%...terrible. Now even more people have to work, very depressing. I'd rather stay home and complain about the billionaire class, which is conspiring to make my life miserable.
@Tom: They'll pay the increased prices due to trump's tariffs and budget bill.
Not bad. Seven years of recovery still on track. Way to Go Obama for getting the US back on track after the recession. Hope the current administration doesn't derail it too badly.
15
@James C
I guess you guys don't realize how silly comments like that make you look? Especially given you cannot come up with a single action that Obama took that could have this positive effect on the economy. You believe in magic?
6
Whatever Obama did , he didn't crash the economy. GOP deregulation and tax cuts for the rich did that in the 1980s and 2008.
The economy is growing so we should be adding jobs but 157000 in no way suggests the best economy in history.
5
Use to project future economics of US economy, the difference between Republican and Democrat governing.
PoliticsThatWork Change in Unemployment Rate by Party of President- Since 1945
Each party has held the presidency for the same number of years since 1945. During those years, the unemployment rate has risen 11.8% under Republican presidents and has fallen 7.2% under Democratic presidents. Unemployment has fallen during the overwhelming majority of Democratic years since 1949. Unemployment rose steadily under Republicans up until 1982, then fell during the remaining Reagan years, and then rose again under both Bush Presidents.
PoliticsThatWork Dow Jones Performance by the Party of the President
During the most recent 15 years during which Republicans have held the presidency, the value of the Dow has increased by 42%. During the Democratic presidencies, it has increased by 609%- 14.5 times faster. The average growth in the value of the Dow under Democrats during this period has been 14.75% and under Republicans it has been 5.11%.
PoliticsThatWork Change in Disposable Income Since 1930 by the Party of the President
In the 44 years that we have had Democratic presidents since 1930, the real per-capita disposable income has increased 271%. During the 40 years during which we have had Republican presidents, it has increased 44%. On average, it has increased 3.1% (after adjusting for inflation) under Democratic presidents and 1% under Republican presidents.
19
Economic activity and cycles don't neatly coincide with presidential elections. This is a silly recitation of facts which actually proves nothing. Did the Clinton years not benefit from the George HW Bush's tax increase which eliminated the structural deficit? Did the early George W. Bush years, when we ran a budget surplus, not benefit from the Clinton years?
This is just pseudo-economics and history designed to mislead.
3
@BCnyc So, you are saying that if you grab a red hot poker and burn your hands that you are likely to just grab another one sometime in the future because you are unable to learn from your past?
If the results were just a random grouping of data... which this is not... I would agree. But there is an "obvious" pattern in the data. Democrats= growth, Republicans loss. Unless you wish the data to represent "only" the uber rich.
Didn't the report indicate a rise in the number of workers with two jobs? Not good.
And 14 dollars per hour surely requires two jobs to put food on the family.
15
@Bartolo - Not for a two-income couple. Two full-time jobs at $14 an hours is nearly $60K, which is all right for most areas of the country.
1
Sure the Trump Nation can claim credit, but being that these statistics follow the long term trend since Obama's first term, it is probable that we'd have the same growth numbers today under a H. Clinton administration, if not better. Just remember though, we wouldn't be spiraling down into the deep chasm of debt as we are now. But it's not a bottomless pit. Under Obama the Fed was steadily decreasing the rise in the deficit. Forget that now, it's snowballing out of any control, weakening our country, and it will crush us unless the tax cuts to the top are reversed.
27
@Stanz Apparently you've forgotten 2008 when Obama got the US off the cliff of financial collapse.
Did you actually read this article and look at any of the data and charts ? It's clear growth was occurring long before Trump even became a candidate.
1
If Trump walked on water the average reader here would focus on the idea that he couldn't swim. Just because he is personally off-putting does not mean his policies can't benefit you. Conversely, just because Obama is personally charming does not mean his policies were effective. We elect people to do the job, not to go out to lunch with us.
33
@btbJust wait for the other tariff-soled shoe to drop, my friend. Inflation has already set in, wiping out those negligible tax cuts for the overwhelming majority of Americans. The deficit bomb is ticking. Now that's what I call "off-putting."
8
@btb And the credit from the Trump Administration about the strong economy actually left by Obama is -- where?
Why give credit to the has-been reality show host, when the GOP continually seeks to funnel wealth to the wealthiest? And will you give credit to Trump when the inevitable recession hits?
4
@btb. Can't say I agree. Would you hire a hit man to escape a bad marriage? Is it OK to win an election by any means? Even if Trump succeeds in the short term, the real test is the long term. Case in point - allowing more green house emissions may help out some industries in the short term, but the cost to society in the long term will greatly outweigh any short term benefits.
9
Re: Wage growth - stagnant in constant $
One reason, mentioned is that the labour participation rate is still at 62.9%. For reference it was 67.3% in January 2000. I.e. there is still a reservoir of about 5 million
A second reason is the job mix. If it moves from manufacturing jobs to Walmart greeters , average wages are nailed down, even if they increases in both categories
The third reason is that employers, in response to wage demands still shift jobs overseas. Cummins, who's CEO attacked Trumps Tariffs in the NYT, opened a 2 500 engineering center in India in March.
Outsourcing jobs is an effective way of keeping wages down in the US, as demands for wage increases can be met with the thread to move the job
----
Data on Cummins
"A Message From a C.E.O.: Tariffs Are Going to Hurt American Companies"
"https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/25/opinion/trump-tariffs-hurt-manufactur...
"Cummins Opens New, State-of-the-Art Technical Center in India"
https://www.cummins.com/news/releases/2018/03/01/cummins-opens-new-state...
4
I would very much like to know how to get one of those "average" jobs ("Average hourly earnings rose by 7 cents to $27.05. The year-over-year gain is unchanged at 2.7 percent.")
16
@Soulidarity - That's $54K a year. There are certainly many jobs that pay that - welder, nurse, tax preparer, plumber, electronics repairman....it depends on what you are good at.
Huh. Let's see Trump sit down with any serious journalist of his choosing and explain how the jobs added was below projections yet the unemployment rate fell. Just as him that one question (repeated if needed) until he actually answers it.
9
Why does the headline say "Unemployment *slips* to 3.9%" (emphasis added)? "Slips" is a negative word. "Drops" seems more appropriate for good news, and has the same number of letters. I am in NO way a Trump supporter, but I this headline is biased. (Just because he's wrong and lies about many things doesn't mean EVERYTHING he says is wrong.) There IS bias in how some major media outlets report the news, even when they are factually correct. Come on, NYT, can't we celebrate some good news occasionally?
22
@Thomas N. Lee I don't read slip as negative. I think it is used because it's only a 0.1% difference. "Drop" would imply something more significant, like a full percentage point. At lest that's how I read it.
4
@Thomas N. Lee Slip describes a slight fall, like a slip on ice. A drop implies a harder fall, like I dropped to the floor. I would characterize going from 4.0 to 3.9 as a slip, not a drop. In any event, the body of the article accurately stated the number fell. So I don't see any bias here. The news is good - not great, just good.
2
But what about all of the illegals taking all our jobs?
11
@eyeball, If there are less illegals in our country there would actually be more jobs available for them. Any correlation going on now that Trump has clamped down harder on illegals?
5
Another triumph for Donald J. Trump, the President of the United States of America. Record low unemployment across the board! That's why Americans elected you, sir, to be our president. Thank you. I support the President. I support Trump. Thank you.
16
@Southern Boy President Obama started his presidency in January of 2009. Aside from a slight carry-over from the recession his first year, all trends started moving in a positive direction under his tenure and these graphs clearly illustrate that (2010 is when unemployment rates started to drop, wages slightly ticked up, etc.). I think its save to say that Trump is riding on Obama's coattails.
32
@Conscientious Eater When you start from nothing, it's easy to get big % increases in employment = big % decreases in unemployment which is what Obama got. His numbers are deceiving. Pres. Trump opened up the markets by eliminating regulations that hampered growth. Subsequently, this invited investment. This is why the economy, which stagnated at 2% growth, is now booming.
If Donald Trump is so successful, why are rural Trump supporters getting a $12 billion handout out of the rest of our pockets?
5
Give credit where credit is due. The economy has not fallen off a cliff, and unemployment has decreased under Trump.
Give credit also to Obama who walked into an economic hailstorm his first years in office with the unemployment rate at 10%, the stock market having lost nearly 50% of its value, housing in the dumps and banks failing. All after 8 years of GOP controlled House, Senate and Presidency.
So while Trump and his supporters do a victory lap over an unemployment that has gone down by 20% since his election, it decreased by more than 100% under Obama. The market is up 27% since Trump came into office and it was up by 200% under Obama. More wealth was created under Obama, than under any other President in history (measured by stock market valuation).
So this weekend while Trump is on yet another of his countless vacations since taking office, he should remember who made that possible. Obama.
150
@MN - Thank you for this clear and strong message on the positive power Democrats bring to governing. Too bad most Democrats are too dumb to use your message in their messaging this November.
1
I wonder how long Trump supporters will ignore the graph attached to this article, which shows continues job growth under President Obama. And I also wonder how long Trump supporters will ignore the exploding federal deficit under Trump. Under President Obama the deficit was a rally cry against anything piece of legislation amid to help the poor and middle class out of the recession. Deficit hawks cried that his policies would kill jobs, and stop growth. Instead, as the graph plainly shows, growth has continued from President Obama to the current administration. The difference being that Trump is now putting us further in debt at a time when we should be paying it down. Where are those deficit hawks now? We are now taking in far less in taxes and spending more on the military. And where is that big beautiful infrastructure bill, and the health care system Trump promised?
28
The number that jumps out is $14 an hour. Depending on the cost of living in Johnstown Ohio, that doesn't sound like enough to be a living wage. Granted, it's better than a kick in the pants, but not enough to pull someone out of his/her present station in life. I'd like to see Trump/Ivanka/Jared etc try to live on that. Gee, they might even have to learn how to go shopping in a regular store.
83
But they would need to get I.D.'s to shop as their father said.
6
@dave - Two-income couples are the answer. A wage of $14K is $28K a year. In a rural area, another $10-12K will put you into the 'able to get by' category, and another full-time job will put you into the middle class.
How many of these jobs are more baristas and how many are jobs that pay a living wage?
45
@Elizabeth Your question addresses one the shortcomings in the BLS report.
2
@Elizabeth of course any job paying something is better than no job and no pay
3
Is it? Why would earning poverty wages be preferable, especially if you have to pay more than you earn for child care?
4
Someone is cooking the books.
Published inflation rates at a fraction of a digit are someone's air plume.
What I see in 20% inflation at the hardware store, 12% at the grocery store and try buying a used car at $3000. less than a comparable one last month.
Is it full employment when both parents are holding down two jobs each and no time for family, or savings for anything?
The new tariffs haven't even taken effect.
53
Sure, I'll believe it when there is some transparency regarding how the data is calculated. Gig and part time work seem to be counted here, which no administration has ever done before. Too many lies and manipulations coming out of this administration to take anything at face value.
99
@notfooled - The BLS has used exactly the same methodology for over 50 years. They are career civil servants, and painstaking statisticians.
Apple is worth a trillion dollars, but, for the vast majority of workers, real wages haven't increased since, what, the 1970's?
I'm glad that unemployment is low, but, that figure does nothing to inform people of the quality of life of these workers.
Chain-gangs have 100% employment.
The problem here is that we may have had similar employment figures decades ago, but, back then 80% of everything wasn't owned by 2% of the population.
"I guess I picked the wrong week to stop being a billionaire!"
55
It is amazing to me how many of the most popular comments are from people who don't want to hear any good news. They so desperately want Trump to fail, that they would rather have a weak economy and high unemployment so that they can blame him. These same people actually hope that Trump is unsuccessful in his negotiations with North Korea.
24
@Dan M
Well, we're merely reusing Mitch McConnell's tactic of "Our only goal is to make sure he's a on'term president."
You do remember when that was the Republican's mantra, don't you?
13
Kind of like McConnell directing his party to not support anything on Obama's agenda????? Hmmmm
Look up the word hypocrite. And then look in a mirror.
8
@Paul-A Yes Paul I do, and that was wrong. My goal is to have my friends and neighbors employed, no matter who the President is.
1
Meaningless numbers considering they way employment is estimated. Using the old methodology that was done away with in 1994 the real unemployment rate is 21.5%.
19
We needed more jobs with no future.
10
@Rich Sohanchyk - All jobs have a future. If you are already employed, and have a steady work history, then other employers offering better jobs are willing to consider you.
This is what can happen you unleash the economic potential of a nation from the handcuffs imposed by a ‘you-didn’t build that’ President Obama.
7
@EGD What part of the charts showing steady improvement since 2008’s depression under both Obama and Trump don’t you understand?
7
@EGD, economy is certainly doing well, not because of Trump, but in spite of him. Trump's destructive policies will come home to roost a few years later, when there will be a democratic president. And y'all will be quick to blame the dems.
14
@EGD
Hey EGD: If you look at the graphs in the article, you'll see that these numbers are merely a continuation (and no better) of the trends that began under Pres Obama.
You do know how to read a graph, don't you?
5
Economy is booming, best GDP numbers in four years, record low unemployment... this is why Trump won the election.
Can you honestly say to yourself we'd be seeing these same results if Hillary Clinton were elected?
Absolutely not.
12
@Kerby
Well - yes, I could if Clinton had been elected. Almost all of this is built on a long recovery cycle started during the Obama years. Yes, there's some additional stimulus by charging up the national credit card by a trillion dollars or so but that vulture hasn't come home to roost yet, Like much of what Trump has done in his entire career, somebody else is going to have to pay that bill.
41
@Kerby
Hard to know where to begin. How about: yes.
11
@Kerby The economy would boom regardless of the current Presidency. This is the work of the Obama administration and his bureau heads. But Trump will surely claim the victory as his own.
3
Trump's businesses cook their books. Why should we believe the Labor Department, under his 'leadership,' aren't cooking their books? Has the NYT independently verified these numbers? Such is the level of corrosion that Trump Inc has brought to our national institutions that I now doubt the veracity of any 'facts' published by the US government.
25
@An Observer the Labor dept does not "cook its books" under any president.
11
@Linda L
Whether it does or doesn't, my point is that Trump has so tarnished the honor of the country as a whole, and has so much attacked and demoralized and politicized institutions that until now were thought to be above politics, that he has made people like me, a lay observer, wonder what *hasn't* been corrupted.
1
@Linda LThat's not what Trump said
its extremely hard to find a job that pays a livable salary. Most employers who are willing to pay you the salary that will cover your bills, demand a lot of experience and education. If you dont have it, you are doomed to take a miserable low wage job that won't be enough to cover your rent.
36
Trump has been president for 19 months.
Wonder how much longer liberals will find ways to credit Obama for the economy?
Let me guess...until there is a recession.
20
@Luciano Trump gets credit for not destroying it, as the trends have not changed. You are right though, if he destroys it, he is to blame.
4
@Luciano That's a good question. This administration deserves some credit where credit is due. But how long did conservatives find ways to claim that Obama presided over one of the worst economies ever? The difference there is we don't need to guess.
7
Luciano,
Do you also credit Trump with the sky rocketing deficit?
Or do you blame Obama for that?
23
Trump said, in 2012, that anything less than adding 300,000 is sign of a recession.
21
NPR reported new home construction is slowing, it is one of the early leading indicators of an economic slowdown. Add to that little additional buying power with wages almost stagnant, the dumb tax cuts, and $1 trillion in debt, we're headed into no man's land again.
A new makeup of the formula for another possible big recession, but don't worry, the Democrats wiil fix it, just like they did with the one in 2008.
30
As voting Americans, we are egregiously and willfully ignorant about the lack of correlation between a given administration and the economy that takes place during it. I kills me how much we all embrace unsubstantiated economic beliefs. Both Progressives and Conservatives keep trying to tether their, or their opponents horses, to economies. And it works! We voters keep falling for it!
Where's the science here? Why do we so happily drown out the views of economists who run apolitical analyses beyond the typical 8 year window of change that characterizes American politics, even less when legislation/obstruction from Congress is added to the mix.
I'm not saying a president/administration doesn't affect the economy, just that the effect is far far less than touted. Obama oversaw a long recovery. Bush oversaw a sudden crash. Clinton oversaw a bubble. Trump is overseeing a recovery/bubble/we don't know yet. SO WHAT? These economic movements all build over a long time, start in administrations previous, and have much more to do with global and historical trends than any administrative action.
13
Where is the real wage growth?
20
If one read the article before 8;30 one will know that last month added 220,000 jobs and it had been predicted that this month would add 196,000. Strangely, the fact that these numbers were disappointing is not reflected in the article. I might also note that the Dow has not increased since January of this year. If the market had been stagnant for this long under Obama I am sure we would have heard about that.
18
Average hourly wage is $27.05/hr, up 2.7%. unemployment at 3.9%. Thank you, America. Now get back to work!
3
@Charles Becker
I and others with four-year colleges degrees are not making that much.
2
@adak
Agreed. That's why today, a church in my area is giving away used clothing for middle school and high school students for the upcoming academic year. Guess their parents aren't riding the supposed financial gravy train either.
Besides, Trump takes credit for everything good, and denies any negativity in connection to his Presidency. God help America...
@adak,
I am sorry to hear that. I have a high school diploma, worked 300 days a year for 40 years doing dangerous dirty work, and now as a hobby in retirement (with no financial aid, paying full freight out of pocket, btw) I'm getting a four year degree.
There are only two conditions that make a four year degree financially worthwhile. Either graduate with distinction from one of the 100 highest rated universities in the nation, or get a professional and/or STEM degree (accounting, engineering, physics, chemistry, computer science). Avoid architecture at all cost (everyone wants to be an architect and they get paid squat).
Consider OCS; the Army will reimburse you for at least part of your student loans and give you a fine career and unlimited prospects.
The Tax Reform bill and getting rid of unnecessary regulations made this fantastic economy possible. The Democrats are going to lose in 2020 if they nominate a liberal extremist to be president.
8
@BobC
The unemployment rate dropped from, approx., 10% to 5% during the Obama administration. Perhaps you can point to the unnecessary regulations that were eliminated then to make that happen?
22
Next month will mark the 10 year "anniversary" of Lehman Bros. "implosion" and the start of the financial crisis and the inaptly named Great Recession. And now we've had over 9 years of a recovery without nary a true pay increase for the average worker. Yet, over 95% of the net income gains have gone to just 10% of the population while income inequality has grown at its fastest pace since before the Great Depression. And while the bulk of the recovery occurred during Obama's two terms, there are millions upon millions who bought Trump's drivel, hatred and constant lying to again vote against their self-interest 21 months ago. Trump has truly "delivered"....that is to his real constituency...himself and his family and the 1%. When will they ever learn?
136
Marty - to your point, between 1978 & 2015, average CEO pay rose over 900%. During that same time frame, average worker pay barely rose 11%. (Fun fact - There’s actually a display in the Smithsonian American History museum that shows this same trend). We need more pay equality.
1
Eight plus years of job gains with mostly crummy jobs with no upward mobility. It's a winners take all economy nowadays. That's true when either the Dems and GOP are in charge. There is no longer a rising tide that lifts all boats. Instead only the yachts are allowed to sail.
The major difference between the parties now is whether or not you get a safety net, a safe workplace, Social Security, medical care and clean air and water with your McJob. For the Dems, the answer is you do. For the GOP, the answer is you don't.
82
To add on:
Vote blue in November to reverse the assault the GOP is making on all of us not in the top 10%.
12
Relief from the massive bubble of regulations imposed by the prior administration, combined with tax cuts for business, is working. May we all celebrate the hard working Americans who have new jobs. good news.
7
@Joe yohka The data in the article show no noticeable change. You are using the Trump strategy: "Everything is horrible! Obama ruined it!" (Wait a day.) "Everything is wonderful! I fixed it!"
6
I work for a HUD-approved nonprofit agency that [also] provides the Homebuyer's Education class for low-income individuals and families wanting to use Down Payment Assistance (DPA) in the purchase of their 1st home. In my 10-years working in our Housing Program, never have there been so many people who are eligible for DPA been registering for our classes - many of whom are ready to go to lenders after completing the class.
3
Trying to figure out if that a good thing or is it a flashing warning sign that another subprime mortgage crisis is coming?
2
@Andrew - If they take the class, maybe they won't fall for a subprime variable-rate with a 5-year balloon payment?
@Andrew
Just like ANYONE else who wants to purchase a home, they must get pre-approved [from an affordable housing lender], meet the same debt-to-income ratios, and stay in the home for five years before the DPA is forgiven.
Whether using a city or county DPA, state bond program, FHA, HABITAT, or other DPA product, ALL of these existed before the subprime mortgage crisis and benefit the low-income community.
Let me help.
"From massive tax cuts for the wealthiest and more tax cuts for the wealthiest, to busting up families of refugees based on a phony crisis that doesn't exist, to dumping a deal with Iran that worked all the way through to dumping TPP and now going begging to get back in, to blustering and meeting with the DPRK once and claiming victory then ignoring their continuing to build missiles and processing more uranium...."
10
LFPR typically increases until Autumn then dips for the winter. Tracking participation since the recession we are still down about 3.5% and, while not the low during the 10-y period, the rate seems to be holding at just under 63% since '14.
Sure, jobs added while the LFPR holds will lower unemployment, but we could be witnessing an economy on the verge of overheating while people are still out of work. Increases to the FFR have not shown the classical upwards pressure on unemployment (even after factoring in lag time; 18 months or so) and, with more increases expected, one wonders if a surge in the LFPR that coincides with a bump to a 2.5% interest target might be the shock that starts a correction.
"Cautiously optimistic" has been the motto of 2018.
3
There are many ways to read a chart, I suppose, but if we look at the jobs chart with this article, we see that July of this year has lower gains than the July numbers of any year since 2013. Yes, the recovery from the Great Recession continues, but I don't see any reason for great optimism. And as the article states, the July numbers do not reflect the current trade war.
5
Thank President Trump for your job!
16
Thanks, President Obama for your eight years of brilliant leadership, excellence and honor. We remain grateful for all the ways in which this country continues to benefit, including the economy. It's hard to imagine what another president might have done in 2009...
148
@BK, whatever you have to tell yourself. If Ibama's eight years of regulatory morass are now causing hiring to pick up, perhaps we need to refresh our economics 101
1
@GM - Why? I thank God and my own intelligence and the support of family members and friends who helped me to get where I am. Trump has done nothing to assist me. In fact the Republican Party is destroying much of what we've worked for over the years. Also see @Liberty Apples :
"A trip down memory lane.
“Unemployment rate only dropped because more people are out of labor force & have stopped looking for work. Not a real recovery, phony numbers”
- Donald Trump, Sept. 7, 2012
Now the numbers are gospel.
26
A trip down memory lane.
“Unemployment rate only dropped because more people are out of labor force & have stopped looking for work. Not a real recovery, phony numbers”
- Donald Trump, Sept. 7, 2012
Now the numbers are gospel.
298
@Liberty Apples
Perhaps an intrepid NYT reporter can look up the current labor participation rate and get back to us.
Under President Obama, millions did drop out and others went on permanent disability.
3
159,000 jobs a nonth is not 2 million a year Donald. Sadly this s more typical of America under Trump than last month, Good but not great job nunbers
5
@GUANNA,
You are correct. It is 1,908,000 a year. Nice catch!
2
Guess the "good times" will never end.
2
“I’ve never seen such a steady stream of gains — there’s no volatility in the numbers,” said Ellen Zentner, chief United States economist at Morgan Stanley.
------------------------
Who can argue with Ellen here?
Steady stream of gains, huh? It is the economy, smart guy. As long as the Dems keep talking about impeachment and open borders,Trump will keep on winning.
8
What I read here is that the biggest items in a worker's or poor person's budget, rent or mortgage, are going up, as well as general inflation. Meanwhile wages are essentially stagnant.
And job growth is SUBSTANTIALLY under expectations, and quite a bit less than it has been in a long time.
A great economy for whom?
32
I would like to give Trump credit for not yet ruining the economy that he inherited. He was lucky to be handed the gift of the economy from President Obama. But as he continues to erase the progress we have made over the last decade there is still time for him to crash it. The tariffs are a good start. America is going down. It's just a matter of time and a few more bone head moves by the most inept individual ever to hold the office. We've gone from the most powerful country in the world to most stupid. Thanks Don.
89
Enough with misleading numbers. Judge Trump on humanity, habitation, humility. Is humanity--separated immigrant children better off? Give us those numbers. Is habitation/ Southwest Florida,red tides--better off? Humility? Is treatment of Press better off? Give us those figures. Rattling off statistical figures is easy. To diminish humanity, the environment, civility, cannot be captured with a calculator................
16
@That's what she said
From your mouth to THEIR EARS!
2
BLS stats have always been misused, mischarachterized, etc. etc.
3
I'm not impressed. How many of those jobs pay a living wage? How many are full-time? How many offer any benefits?
57
Times were good for many people in Hitler's Germany until they stopped being good for everybody.
39
To say that the "US unemployment rate" is 3.9 percent is misleading, to say the least. I checked statistics in my home state (New York) and found unemployment rates much higher. And there was not one county in Mississippi that had an unemployment rate of less than 4.0 in June; one was 14.4%.
6
@Anne W.
Sounds the numbers for Mississippi are being more accurately reported, or the real unemployment rate in Mississippi is on the order of 22%.
1
I suppose it's nice that the unemployment rate is low, but we are running trillion dollar federal budget deficits and interest rates are historically low. Is this a healthy economy or a constrained depression?
9
@James
The unemployment numbers are not an accurate representation of "employment" in the USA. This is one of the reasons Trump one.
The trillion dollar deficit is directly tied to Trump's tax cuts.
1
I do not trust the “figures” from Donald Trump’s Labor Department.
Although the numbers paint an especially rosy portrait of a national economy that is beginning to indicate promising and relatively long-term stability, I can’t shake the feeling that this is all smoke and mirrors for his red-meat base.
The president never acknowledged the turnaround from a near-catastrophe during President Obama’s earliest days in office. He spent the better part of eight years righting a ship very close to foundering—W’s two wars on a credit card and a huge welfare check to the already-rich, e.g., and no Republican ever expressed as much as a “thank you.” The reasons for their ungenerous failure to acknowledge his competency and diligence may be based upon several theories—or just one.
But this 45th administration is hungry for any kind of victory, given Russia and Paul Manafort and the forced separation of children from their parents at the border hogging the news cycles. One wonders how the labor statistics will look after the bolt of Trump’s “winnable trade wars” is shot home, and unemployment begins to inch up until it’s double what it is now.
No; I don’t trust these figures. After all, how many other lies has he told today—before this latest one?
13
@Soxared, '04, '07, '13 - The Bureau of Labor Statistics are career bureaucrats, civil servants who cannot be fired. They haven't changed a thing in what they do.
Trump is doing all the things that needed to be done. From tax cuts to illegal immigration to Iran he is doing all the right things and American companies and workers are also doing their part to create this stellar economy. The lowest unemployment numbers in decades, North Korea, etc. Trump is winning on all fronts and leftists like those in the media detest him for it.
9
@P McGrath Hmm.. Trump is winning on all fronts.
Well, let us explore that-lower cost and better health care, nope. Tax cuts for the middle class, well, sort of until they expire in 2025. Mexico will pay for the wall. Nope. There is many more of the "successes".
But, let us explore the taxes-there are now "hidden taxes" in the form of tariffs that will directly or indirectly raise the price on goods-directly if sourced from those bad countries, or, indirectly as domestic manufacture picks up and we still will pay for the higher labor, and in the case of raw materials, the tariffs. Yup. We won that one and we will pay for those tariffs with our lower taxes-until 2025.
The agriculture industry persons are just doing backflips over the loss of market for their goods. We won that one.
Lastly, there is no detesting of the grifter from Queens. We know his background, we are not enthralled by his rhetoric.
No, he is derided for his grifting and conning of the masses.
13
thank you for doung your part to help. Kool Aid sales are a small but important piece of the economy...
5
@P McGrath - "he is doing all the right things" , really?
Holding immigrant children in cages and losing 300 immigrant children. That is evil and criminal. With regard to Iran, thankfully all the other nations which were part of the agreement Obama implemented with Iran are keeping to their end of the bargain. What is Trump's plan. Bombing Iran?
North Korea has not stopped it's nuclear program and never will.
2
Remember. While our country is gaining jobs, it's also losing it's soul. That includes our founding principles, values, mores, institutions; our once valued status on the world stage as "The shining city on a hill."
And it's mainly due to an out-of-control emotionally unhealthy/unstable/impaired but bewilderingly powerful president and his co dependent congressional enablers who look the other way (each time he lies and shows his true colors at his grotesque rallies) for self-serving political purposes, rather than evoke the 25th Amendment.
That old Bible verse (metaphorically speaking) comes to mind: "What will it profit a man (a country) to gain the world but lose his (it's) soul."
Please vote, bad politicians are elected by good people who don't.
62
@Barb, unfortunately history shows us that, indeed, a country will sell its soul for power and a few extra coins each month. The bottom line line drives all. The ends justify the means (at least in the short term, which Americans live by.) I worked hard all my life and saved to achieve the comfort that I have in my retirement. I am sick to death of hearing the whining of those who feel left behind but must have the latest technology and take loans for exotic vacations, and eat out 5 times a week. And NO savings. One more sage quote, "You shall reap what you sow".
Yes, there are those who are truly left behind who barely eak out a living, working two or three jobs just to feed their families, with no disposable income to vacation or save. And NO increase in wages despite all this "winning".
Those are the ones I care about more than the 1% super rich or 9.9% who are living comfortably but feel their deserve more.
VOTE.
This the reason the Democrats have to stop messing around and get their act together. Being 'Anti-Trump' is not enough. Everyone agrees that Trump is a wacko, but the economy is the most important thing right now. "I know he's nuts, but he's making my life better, why should I vote for someone I've never even heard of?"
We have not given the average voter a reason to change their mind. Save your moral outrage, the voters don't care. Just answer one question: "How will having a Democratic President make my life better?"
15
@Bruce1253
Bruce i am curious how he is making your life better?
It's funny when people say that but only that?
2
I seem to recall a a saying about Reagan, that seems to fit Trump too.
"He made Americans feel good, while we were doing bad things".
4
@Bruce1253
We won't be polluting the water, stripping the oceans of fish, killing the reefs, and fouling the air. Any more questions?
7
This is a fake economy.
Starting at the bottom where a person can work a full time job and still not afford a place to live or food to eat, and federal subsidies only pretend that they go to the worker, because in reality they are subsidizing the bosses who get away paying cheapskate wages.
The tax cuts for the working class are getting swallowed by inflation and when the text cuts end in a few years, that inflationary price rise will still be there. These are the people who will be stuck paying the tab on the giant loan that funded the tax cuts to the rich. They will pay in increased fees or decreased programs. Note the change in the cost for a senior national parks pass and the discussions the Republicans are having to reduce Social Security.
Then you have the stock market, which is being kept afloat by corporate buy back programs, all subsidized by the recent tax cut, which is really a loan causing the national debt to rise. 2019 is looking remarkably like 1928. Pay down your debts folks, this market is not sustainable.
18
@Joe Barnett Are you saying that the supply-side, also known as trickle down also known as voodoo economics does not work? I am shocked. Shocked that such economics as touted by the GOP since the days of Reagan don't work.
But then, many of us are not surprised.
11
@Joe Barnett
I remember when a PE ratio of 20 was considered high for a stock. Now we have corporations valued at astronomical figures because their PE ratios are in the hundreds or even over a thousand! This makes certain people like Bezos hugely rich and allows them to manipulate the system to get even richer. No real relationship to reality and in the meantime, the average worker is still getting shafted.
3
@Julie Carter - But if Bezos tried to sell a significant portion of his AMZN holdings, the stock would drop like a stone. So is he really as rich as his nominal net worth would indicate?
Underwhelming, to say the least.
5
$27 + / hour average. WHAT!!! You need to report on what is happening in middle America, away from the urban centers where cigars are lit with twenties. There are millions living in what the census bureau identified as 'urban clusters', a shrinking percentage because of the lure of metropolitan bucks. Don't know of many in my community making $27/hr. It certainly is not the average. See real estate transactions in these areas, it's a tough way to make a living. Renting rather than buying is the norm. Cost of living never maintains level ground and the voice of the common people has been weakened. Tell us once again how 'the great American dream' worked, I've forgotten, it was so long ago.
34
@Vanman
hourly wage in my area is $7.85. Where are they getting this $27/hour wage? Are they using the millions paid to CEOs in the equation? "FakeNews" from "Fake Administration".
7
@Vanman - If you look at the IRS statistics, 20% of households in the US have an AGI greater than $112K - that's 23 million households. A wage of $27 an hour is only $54K. So, obviously, there are lots of people making high salaries, even if they don't live near you.
@Vanmanin most rural areas govt and public ed pay the most and as far I can see 27/hr is low for mid career government work. I have been in Ithaca NY area in Ovid and prison guards are treated like kings.
Almost Everybody's working, while their environment is under attack by Trump, their endangered species and parks are under attack and they don't have decent health care. Oh joy. Trump's approval is at 40% so that's good. He says it's 50% but not the polls I read. Maybe it's 50% among his fan base or among Republicans.
20
@Honeybee - According to the Gallup poll Trump's approval rating for July23 - 29 was 40%
In January, when the Democratic House approves a minimum wage hike (forcing the Senate to follow suit), will Trump veto it?
4
Big whoop. Just numbers, that don't reflect the reality of the situation for 99% of US. What will happen when the incredible ballooning deficit and increased spending hit the proverbial fan?
22
@YogaGal - They will come for OUR Social Security, Medicare and Medicare, just as they planned.
All while authorizing a nearly $1 Trillion dollar per year defense budget, and contemplating a literal $200 Billion dollar capital gains rollback GIFT to the uber wealthy (not the 1% but the 0.1%).
Can you say "Where is my pitch fork, and buckets of tar and feathers?"
5
What is very interesting about the data presented is that it is very clear we are still benefitting from an OBAMA ECONOMY. 2017 was definitely a result of Obama policies and 2018 is simply building on the economic foundation which Obama initiated in 2009. And don't forget Obama inherited the worst economic situation since the Great Depression.
37
157,000 largely low level jobs for people under 40 or so paid for by the GOP credit card. Its not a question of when but how hard we're going to hit a brick wall.
21
Population Control
Environmental health
Healthcare
Student debt
Affordable Housing
Livable wages
Money and Elections
All of the above issues could be better accepted if we had a believable democracy.
*order of concern not necessarily agreeable with the rest of you, but i'd say these are not going away anytime soon.
15
The official Jobless Rate, or Unemployment Percent of the US is wrong and misleading. The distortion comes from the fact that we keep 2.3 million people incarcerated, which are not counted, which is many times more that all of Western Europe, that has a population larger that the US.
As an example Germany with 83 million people has only 77,000 behind bars, France with 70 million has only 52,000 incarcerated people. China with a population of 1.4 Billion, more that 4 times our populations has 700,000 fewer people behind bars than the US.
If we add those 2.3 million people incarcerated and the 1.6 million unemployed that are also not counted because already they gave up looking for proper work to the officially recognized number of 7 million unemployed our total number of people out of work jumps to 10.3 million and the unemployment percent to 6.4. That is the real number of unemployed people in the US, not 3.9.
28
It's all meaningless numbers to me until wages start to rise. I'm actually making less money than I was a year ago, adjusted for inflation and despite tax cuts. Thanks for nothing Trump.
405
@Mr. Adams
Don't forget health insurance as a drain on paychecks: high premiums, high deductibles, no assurance of getting actual care.
16
@Mr. Adams
My company (an employer of thousands) increased its 401k match offered to employees by 34% after the corporate tax cut, resulting in an effective wage increase of millions of dollars.
1
To quote Spock, fascinating. But what about older, unemployed people with high tech skills? We aren't being hired or even considered. What about younger people who do not have a college education when that is now considered to be the equivalent of what a high school diploma was 50 years ago?
Companies are whining about being unable to find enough skilled employees. That whining is boring after hearing it for nearly 40 years. I graduated college in 1980. I had a degree in the sciences. I never had more than one job offer at a time and certainly no opportunity to bargain for a better rate of pay. I changed fields to IT in 1997/98 because jobs in research dried up. Companies were outsourcing and hiring immigrants then because it was "cheaper". Now, at the age of almost 60 I can't find another job. Not because I lack the skills or the ability to learn but because companies are looking for purple squirrels.
How many people will this country's companies waste or fire or downsize or refuse to hire because they aren't the perfect candidates any longer? How many people will they refuse to pay decent wages to because the CEO is more important than the worker? What sort of economy/country/society/policies are we endorsing when we let companies lie about why they cannot find people? Answer: one that doesn't work for the majority of people once the center falls apart. And it will.
268
@hen3ry I too am in that boat... it seems as though when I do get an interview they want some one who is 25 or 30 with 40 years experience. Pretty tough for that to happen! Most of the interviewers are fascinated by my wide knowledge but unable to believe I can actually do more work than the younger folks because I’ve learned the tricks of the trade!
57
@hen3ry I'm in that boat and am getting regular work through a specialty recruiting firm. the hourly rate is good and the jobs are 2-6 months, which is much saner than a week here and two weeks there, which I endured during a previous 'temping' period.
Still, w/o benefits its still a pay cut from my previous 'permanent' position.
4
@Patrise Henkel - The companies you contract with don't care about your age, because they don't have to pay for your health insurance. Your hourly rate is fixed, so they know what they have to pay to get the job done.
These business owners are hiring fringy workers to try to squeeze every last dollar out of this expansion.
They will be let go at the first whiff of a downturn, and the avalanche of unskilled, unemployed 30's and 40's guys will be unbelievable.
46
One possible explanation for slow wage growth is that these commentators are only looking at the official unemployment rate, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) U-3. This is the total unemployed as a percent of the civilian labor force. However, the BLS also measures the total unemployed , plus all marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part-time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force. Persons marginally attached to the labor force are those who currently are neither working nor looking for work bur indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the past twelve months. Persons employed part-time for economic reasons are those who want and are available for full-time work but have had to settle for a part-time schedule. Last month U-6 was 7.5 percent indicating significant slack in the labor force. The labor force participation rate in July 2008 was 66.1 percent.
5
@Dismal. The problem with your analysis is that comparing apples to apples this has always been the case. The official unemployment rate has always excluded persons who are unemployed and not currently looking for work. You can't simply ignore those people in the past and suddenly demand that they be included in the ranks of the unemployed.
2
@lhurney
1. The official unemployment rate is the ratio of those currently not working but looking for work to the civilian labor force, which includes those both working and the unemployed (including those looking for work)
2. U-6 is a more comprehensive view of both the labor force and unemployment.
3. The U-6 series dates to 1994 and is consistent.
Why isn't this article talking about seasonal, summer workers? 37K new jobs in manufacturing ; okay, but what about the other 100K? Could these by the berry pickers, grape pickers, farm support that we know longer wish to recognize? Suddenly we no longer have statistics on seasonal, farm employment - and that is the majority of the summer hires. I do, always, expect employment to go up in summer months. And by more than 2 people; and far less than $14/hour.
9
@PSJ
All labor force numbers are seasonally adjusted. The folks at the BLS understand seasonal employment. Ski resort workers may be currently unemployed.
4
@Dismal
Ski resort workers tend to be landscapers or golf course workers in the summer. And many of those landscapers, roofers etc put snow blades on their trucks in the winter and voila new job. That is the way it works in New England and Idaho and probably a lot of other areas of the country.
The following points may be of interest:
1) Government hiring slid by -13,000 jobs in July, not an insignificant number of jobs. Private sector hiring came in at 170,000 new jobs in July.
2) Several posts have discussed the lack of real wage growth in July. Since the CPI, year-over-year, was up by about +2.9% in June, and nominal wages grew by only +2.8%, year-over-year, in July, real hourly wages were essentially flat for another month.
3) Total average weekly wages for July slid to $933.23 in July from $933.51 in June. Overall, average weekly hours worked dropped to 34.5 hours per week in July from 34.6 in June. And, the average hourly wage rose to $27.05 in July from $26.98 in June. But, when combining this (Price x Quantity) computation in weekly wages, they actually declined.
For June: 34.6 hours x $26.98 = $933.51, and
for July: 34.5 hours x $27.05 = $933.23.
Now, factor in the increase in the CPI for July, and year-over- year weekly wages may have declined by about -2% [(0% increase in wages - 2% increase in CPI)= -2% loss in real wages].
[8/3 F 10:37 pm Greenville NC]
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@John Joseph Laffiteau MS in Econ
Fantastic!! Someone who can actually do math.
4
@John Joseph Laffiteau MS in Econ
Thank you for the insightful technical analysis!
Kudos!
2
@John Joseph Laffiteau MS in Econ - If you are an economist, you know that the average wage will be dragged down by new entrants to the labor force.
The correct way to determine wage increases is only to use those people who had a job a year ago.
1
So if unemployment is down why did the homelessness rate, according to HUD, increase in 2018 for the 1st time since 2010? As usual, unemployment numbers are not reported accurately, because we don't know how many people have stopped looking for work. There are estimates of those numbers though, and it would be nice to them reported on in the same stories.
21
@Lindsey
Most homeless are not in the labor force (looking for work) and thus, are not considered officially unemployed.
2
@Dismal Correct. There are many other measures of social health besides the monthly unemployment numbers. It's rather absurd that it gets so much attention in the first place. It's convenient that these are the numbers touted by every administration and seemingly serve to mask the structural inequity issues as shown by the increase in the homeless population. Regardless of politics, the unemployment #s are not effective economic or social measures.
If this keeps up, and there is no reason to believe it won't, don't expect some "blue wave" in November. More likely outcome is a red wave. Republicans pick up a few more house seats, and a Senate seat or two.
14
@jaco If this were real, and it isn't don't expect folks who are either disadvantaged by current policy, or know others who are, to continue voting for the current administration's party. some will, no doubt, but people change most when their well being is at risk, and for a great many it is.
14
The first graph is incredibly interesting.
Employment, apparently, is nonpartisan and does not fluctuate based on the federal government's attempts to implement health care and environmental reform.
6
@htg Exactly. It's a terrible indicator of social health and human welfare.
4
Wait until the 99% have to pay for the 1% credit card bill Donald and the Reverse Robin Hood Sunshine Gang are running up like there's no tomorrow.
Hello, right-wing Depression....now baking in the Republican oven with a delayed fuse.
This will not end well.
499
As I recall, the US debt increased under Obama's leadership at a much higher rate and with more debt than Trump .
7
The ticking time bomb is the huge unfunded state & local pensions.
Illinois, NJ & CT will be the first to go.
The fact is that liberal democrat politicians have promised benefits to public workers to get elected and the politicians will not fund the pensions because they will have to ask taxpayers for more money!
Can you provide a solution Socrates??
4
@Arthur Blank II
Actually it decreased somewhat. But it is the Republican controlled House that has the power of the purse, not the President, although Trump seems to have figured out how to pad his pockets and lifestyle with taxpayer dollars.
It is great news that 157,000 more of our fellow Americans have found jobs. It is even greater news when more African Americans and Hispanics have jobs than ever before. Of course the unemployment rate is going to slip as fewer and fewer American are left without a job.
Whether jobs that are currently being filled are decent wage jobs remains debatable based on which party is pipping in but the alternative of no job opportunity is certainly not a good thing. In fact if job security is not there then what good do temporary higher wages do for you.
8
Ack!
I haven't even gotten past the headline, but am still throwing up a bit in my throat.
Come on, man. Low unemployment is a good thing. It can't be anything but a good thing. Could it be better? Well, of course--everything could always be better. Still, the continuous "Yes, but..." stories when it comes to economic news under the Trump administration has become tiresome. It would be interesting to compare how the Times has covered unemployment stats under Trump versus how it covered unemployment stats under Obama. At some point, historians, or at least journalism Ph.d candidates (presuming such degrees exist in the future), will do so. Like I say, it should be interesting.
26
@August West
Yes but, yes but, oh yes but...
I expect this in every times article now. Balanced?
4
@August West
If you had regularly read the Times or the Wall Street Journal over the last few years, you should have seen that the actual news reporting has been consistent about the economy. What has been wildly inconsistent is what the GOP says about the president's role: Obama could nothing right (even though the economy recovered on his watch) and Trump has done everything right (even though the recovery that preceded his term has continued). Don't confuse news reporting about partisan politics with reporting about other facts. Regardless, by any reasonable, credible analysis, it takes more wealth than ever to move up, and wages for most working folks have not increased. The owners of the means of production are keeping more wealth, and taking it away from workers (and have been steadily doing so since, and because of, the "Reagan Revolution.")
6
@Chris,
I think you're probably right. On this latest economic news, the NYT and WSJ both covered it, but the flavor was different, even though both pieces had the same salient facts.
I agree that the WSJ is a cheerleader for Trump, just as NYT was a cheerleader for Obama. It's also true that the WSJ was almost always critical of Obama. The difference I see is that the WSJ sometimes calls Trump out--remember the editorial on fibbing when the paper whether anyone would believe Trump if he said that missiles had been toward Hawaii. The WSJ also criticized tariffs.
And that's the difference, at least, that's what I think. Trump is an awful president, granted. But I cannot recall a single instance when NYT has said that Trump has done something right. It's a steady drumbeat of everything he does is wrong. That tears at the paper's credibility and invites the sorts of attacks that Trump makes.
I'm not sure you're right about it taking more wealth than ever to move up. We had double-digit inflation in the 1970s and early 1980s, and wages, while they rose faster than they're rising now, did not keep up. With mortgage rates in the double digits, it was a lot harder for regular folks to buy houses then than it is now. During the 1930s, it didn't take more wealth than ever to move up, it's just that no one had money at all. This said, wealth now is being concentrated at the very top to a point unprecedented in our history, and that should be deeply troubling for every
But average labor wages continue to fall. More cheap cogs for the great engine.
36
Did you look at the third graph? Wages are not falling.
4
@Reasonable
Reading comprehension problems maybe?
3
@Pete Prokopowicz
@jaco
Year over year wage increase: 2.7%
CPI-U year over year inflation increase: 2.9%
https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/consumer-prices-up-2-point-9-percent-o...
'That’s not easy these days — shifts run from 5 a.m. to 2 p.m., and temporary workers start at $14 per hour.'
$14 an hour for 'temporary workers', who are in fact more likely to be casual workers? (That is, told at the last moment their roster has been changed, again, for that week, etc).
Surprise, surprise. At the paltry wage of $14 an hour for casual, temporary contract workers, this employer can't attract the quality of workers he would like.
36
@Colenso - Many factories use temp agencies as their hiring arm. Temp - to - hire is usually 90 days, along with a raise. Plus the guy said he's willing to look at candidates that had been in jail. Would you?
7
When will we hear the real story? The unemployment figures do not count those that have stopped collecting unemployment benefits. Nor do they count the under employed. Nor do they count those who have given up looking for work. Nor do they consider that most of those "employed" do not have any benefits with their jobs. That their wages are not a living wage. That what used to be considered a teenager's part time job is now being filled by adults trying to raise families with mortgages. I'm sick and tired of reading about this rosy economy when anybody I know over 50 is pretty much struggling. Those that were lawyers, those that were professionals, have been downsized over the last 10 years. Age discrimination runs rampant. No one will hire anybody over the age of 50 for any job. We see the one-off stories in papers such as this about industries hiring older adults. In reality it doesn't happen at scale. We work 3-4 part time jobs, get roommates, live in quiet isolation to make ends meet and try to hold on to some scrap of dignity as we move towards never ever being able to retire. In other words, for many of the 98%, the glass is half empty not half full. Sorry that's the truth.
554
@Blair Good points. Additionally it does not count the incarcerated (though that add jobs in the prison industry) and those who ar only marginally employable but get SSI benefits because they cannot find work. (there are areas in the deep south where over on third of the adults get SSI). Counted honestly, and including the underemployed the rate likely stands at a minimum of 15%.
9
The participation rate is flat. The growing realization is that not, as you say, people are forced to sit on the sidelines for whatever reason, but that the Boomers have left the field for good, many forced to start drawing Social Security early by the Great Recession.
To make the participation rate worth anything as an analytical tool, we need to figure out how to better recognize when people are retired.
4
I’m not sure if your often repeated claim is the result of ignorance or dishonesty. The employment numbers absolutely and unequivocally include those who have stopped receiving unemployment payments. That’s a fact.
3
We all have to remember that unemployment rates don't tell the real story. Being unemployed does not include people who have not found a job and have run out of unemployment insurance benefits, nor does it include those who are not registered with their local employment office, nor does it include those who have given up because there are no jobs for them. Nor does it include those who have found jobs that pay a lot less that the jobs they were laid off from.
Officially, anyone who has run out of unemployment benefits and still has not found a job is not considered "unemployed."
Lastly the employments figures when compared to the 8 years of the Obama Administration are nothing to throw a party over.
65
@Jeff, if you have a chance, read the BLS report. Under their Frequently Asked Questions, you will see the following:
6. Is the count of unemployed persons limited to
just those people receiving unemployment insurance benefits?
No; the estimate of unemployment is based on a monthly sample survey of households. All persons
who are without jobs and are actively seeking
and available to work are included among the
unemployed. (People on temporary layoff are included even if they do not actively seek work.) There is no requirement or question relating to unemployment insurance benefits
in the monthly survey.
7. Does the official unemployment rate exclude
people who want a job but are not currently
looking for work?
Yes; however, there are separate estimates of persons outside the labor force who want a job,
including those who are not currently looking because they believe no jobs are availa
ble (discouraged workers). In addition, alternative measures of labor underutilization (some of which include discouraged workers and other groups not officially counted as unemployed) are published each month in table A-15 of The Employment Situation news release. For more information about these alternative measures, please visit https://www.bls.gov/cps/lfcharacteristics.htm#altmeasures.
4
@Jeff: i agree with your view
and take the liberty to pun ...
if the employment figures
"are nothing to throw a party over"
they might be something "to throw over a party".
i know, unemployment is not a laughing matter.
we need a global minimum wage, to begin with.
and a WHOLE LOT of market-restructuring which
will never come ... unless the 99% keep advocating.
hard work.
Looks like more good news for everyone. Krugman and the NYT can't have this so expect the 'analysis' as to why this economy is bad and will crash soon. gotta keep liberals at the end of their chairs hoping for misery.
31
@Scott
Hey Scottie: until the benefits "trickle down" in the form of a living wage, and that all this employment benefits only those at the top, you will continue to read this accurate analysis.
30 plus years of Reaganism continues to mis-lead the masses and fail us.
11
@Scott Yeah, a metal fabricator in Ohio is hiring 2 people at $14 an hour. That works out to $28,000 per year, about enough to pay the mortgage on a rat trap in the once prosperous industrial belt. Sounds great to me.
@Scott This is the pot calling the kettle black. For instance, during the Obama administration, all of these economic data were Fake news and now they're not. During a White House briefing, Sean Spicer was asked why the unemployment numbers are meaningful now why they were not under Obama. He basically said that Trump was lying for political gain! The press just laughed - I gasped at his honesty!
1
Thanks Obama!
261
For what?
3
@Deb
That's funny. Either sarcasm or you are delusional, but funny either way.
4
@Deb
July 01, 2009 - cash for clunkers program launched. One of the greatest stimulus packages in economic history. There wasn't a car ad on TV at the time. The industry was like the proverbial deer in the headlights. This program and the firing of GM exec, Rick Wagoner, led to a steady rebound of the auto industry - one of the backbones of the US economy.
So - yes - thanks Obama!
2
Pssst.
Someone needs to tell Paul Krugman the economy is on a roll and unemployment is down, and wages are up.
Great news!
20
@Jackie Real wages (adjusted for inflation) are down. I could buy more with my 1960, 95 cents an hour than I could buy with minimum now, and likely with $15.
11
Yes. The Obama economy keeps rolling, although real wages are stagnant for hourly-paid and most salaried workers not in the investor class.
7
@Jackie: I'm old enough to remember when twenty dollars would buy a full bag of groceries that would last for several days. And I'm not that old, so there are people still alive who would scoff and say, "twenty dollars? I remember when a bag of groceries cost ten dollars." Now the same bag of groceries can cost forty or even fifty dollars in some expensive urban areas. Utility bills used to hover between twenty and fifty dollars a month. Now they start at around two hundred and go up indefinitely, depending on where you live. Water, which used to be practically free, can now cost hundreds of dollars a month. My parents bought a four-bedroom house for $35,000 - in California. I've owned one house in my lifetime and was forced to sell it at a loss after the 2008 recession, after my biggest client went bankrupt. My generation has been smacked around economically and we are hurting. People are approaching retirement age with no savings, no pensions, no job security, and with age discrimination rampant. Students are falling into a lifetime of debt and wage slavery. The jobs being offered are temporary, with no benefits, and insane, unpredictable schedules. This economy is bad for many, many people. But the rich are happy and trying to convince the rest of us that we should be happy for them, too. We are not buying it any more.
40
The main economic narrative is that Trump is borrowing with the intent to drive a little bit of additional GDP and employment growth, with mixed success. Otherwise, the economy continues to steadily improve as it did under Obama, having more or less fully recovered by 2014, when jobs regained their pre-crisis peak.
Trump has increased the debt trajectory for 2018-2027 from the $9.4 trillion he inherited from Obama (January 2017 CBO baseline) to $13.7 trillion (April 2018 CBO current policy baseline). That $4.3 trillion increase is nearly 50%. For scale, it's about 5 times the size of the Obama stimulus, which was about $800 billion.
However, job creation was faster in Obama's last 17 months than Trump's first 17 months (through June). These July numbers and revisions won't change that conclusion.
Further, growth in real wages have been near-zero under Trump because of higher inflation, mainly driven by energy prices. Higher interest rates are increasing mortgage payments. Faux trade wars have kept the Mueller investigation from 24-7 coverage while raising the GDP artificially about 1.5 percentage points in the last quarter; without the exports brought forward, GDP would have been a solid 2.5% or so.
We're incurring an awful lot of debt for these results. We would probably have been better off letting the Obama Boom continue without interference.
332
@David Doney
love your facts David. If Trump could read I am sure he would be exploding over not measuring up to Obama. Can you imagine what a better world this would be if Obama would have been able to run for another term!
3
All being financed by $1T in annual American Government debt in an expansion environment. What will they do if growth falters when they cant raise spending or cut taxes further?
113
@Andrew Why do another tax cut for the rich of course. How about change the rules with a change at the IRS to help the already super wealthy?
6
@Andrew
So the reduction in the thicket of governmental regulations and lawsuits brought against businesses has nothing to do with the job gains?
2
All economic news is meaningless to the vast majority of the country that is relying on wages to pay their bills. I’m starting to think they will never go up.
“Power concedes nothing without a demand, it never has, and it never will.”
- Frederick Douglass
186
@Corbin - I sure wish I was making $27/hour!
8
Reading this, I am reminded that I think that Trump and his ilk provide meager pay to workers, meager pay that workers use for their housing and for the food on their tables; provide meager pay to their workers as these types of employers threaten to lower their workers' pay or threaten to stop employing them unless the workers listen to him/them, and also do what they are told. This is called unkind, cruel, treatment of his/their workers.
Workers, out of desperation and implied and explicit threats and actions, believe Trump and his ilk, and follow them.
Due to this set up, Trump and his ilk have unnecessary and obscene amounts of money and wealth which they did not earn from the sweat of their brows, but rather earned by wheeling and dealing with the monies the workers brought into them by the workers' stressful physical efforts.
Trump and his ilk ways and means of investing money, in mixes of legal and illegal ways, for the sake of amassing riches, does not require much physical. What they reap they did not sow/earn.
The workers earned it.
1
@ Samantha S I work very hard and am good at my job.I think I deserve more than that...
1
I have heard that when someone's unemployment runs out, it is counted as if that person got a job...in which case these figures don't show much at all.
90
@Charlie Messing
You heard wrong.
3
@Margaret How so? Willing to hear but want sources. Factually, those not actively seeking employment through standard channels are not counted as unemployed. therefore, they are counted as employed.
1
@Virginia: It is true, it isn't counted as if that person has gotten a job. But they are erased from the rolls of the unemployed and vanish into the woodwork. Very few of the long-term unemployed are counted in unemployment statistics, which is why statisticians quoted in this article are only slightly surprised at persistently low wages. As the article states, many of the long-term unemployed are trying to reintegrate into the job market, and therefore the expected shortage of workers that is supposed to drive up wages does not materialize. There are probably thousands more long-term un- or under-employed who are just now emerging from the shadows. That will continue to keep wages depressed and employers still have the power to hire and fire at will, meaning that workers still have very little power in this economy designed by the wealthy, for the wealthy.
5
Why don't the labor 'pundit's' factor in summer employment figures when touting increases in employment? When I was in broadcast advertising, we couldn't 'sell' inflated numbers due to one-time only sportscasts, Olympic's programming, or emergency news events that caused an increase in viewership months down the road? With so many teens and young adults going to work during the summer months, numbers are due to be inflated. Best motto should be 'don't count your chickens before they hatch'. Find out 'who' is going to work - what demographic, and for how long.
17
@Townsend, if you have a chance, take a look at the monthly report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. They publish both seasonally-adjusted and unadjusted estimates of the labor force. As you say, the unadjusted numbers can get skewed in the summer and around Christmas. In general, I think most news reports refer to seasonally-adjusted figures.
Regards.
3
Wage gains of .07$ equals roughly 1700$ per year... woo hoo when you tax that at only ten percent it drops to 1630$ in your pocket but with inflation at two or three percent I’m guessing it’s closer to an extra 1k which isn’t enough to pay for most folks rent or mortgage for a month so while the republicans will crow about it I’m not going to the casino any time soon with my new found wage gain
48
@JD Seven cents an hour increase for a forty-hour week is $2.80 a week. For a fifty-week working year, that's $140 a year before tax.
6
Full time employee is estimated at 2080 hours per year, so an increase of $0.07 (i.e. 7 cents) per hour amounts to $145.60 per year. Take it from there.
2
And gasoline is up 40 cents a gallon. There goes your working class tax "cut".
3
I am jubilant that overall (net) 157,000 more people are now gainfully employed. - if they are being paid a fair/living wage for a fair day's work is a whole other debate.
Having said that the bottom line number is still 1,000,000,000,000. ( the yearly republican deficit )
That is what it costs to ''goose'' the economy while giving 83% of a tax cut to the wealthy and corporations.
Enjoy the bubble while it lasts.
606
@FunkyIrishman
This talks about quantity and not quality...
Read Michael Hiltzik in the LA Times...
Employers will do almost anything to find workers to fill jobs — except pay them more
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-employment-2018071...
Here in California, a salary less than $35 an hour means you can't rent an apartment, feed your family and pay car insurance and gas.
This is true, relatively speaking, everywhere else. There was a piece in the WSJ about a reporter's adventure with the home he bought right before the recession. He recently sold it at a loss, but he describes how his tenants lived, even with the $600 rent he charged to make sure at least some of his mortgage got covered.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/my-10-year-odyssey-through-americas-housing...
Context is key, and you're not getting it here.
6
@FunkyIrishman Totally agree, with the caveat that a "fair living" wage for a "fair" day's work is not fathomable for most of the 80% or at the very least 65% of total U.S. workforce which barely has more then 3 months of "savings" to cover their rent, food needs, etc., regarding a catastrophe or if laid off and thus, relying on far less in the respective State's (very low) unemployment weekly claim, plus has dependents, etc. Seems our jobs landscape is restructuring without a strategic training/apprentice plan like Germany's proven model. Especially, the 48+ age group/segment that makes under $90KHHI, its a paycheck to paycheck situation with going to Subway for dinner...no wonder Blue Apron meal kits strategy/distribution tanked in its margins/repeat biz.
1
@FunkyIrishman, good job, as always. A tip of the hat to you!
1