More jobs might be created, but wages are not going to increase and never will while American labor competes with Chinese and other third world labor.
The reason for this is simple: Chinese labor doesn't pay for comparable infrastructure that American labor pays for.
Nobody ever talks about this, but it's the elephant in the room.
Asymmetric trade with an economy like China's is never healthy for a stronger, more industrialized economy like the United States'. And labor always pays the price for it either in fewer jobs or poorer wages. Asymmetric economic competition is never offset by consumer savings in "less expensive" foreign-manufactured goods.
What we will see are continued stagnant-to-reduced wages in all sectors involved in asymmetric, "competitive" economic trade, and continued erosion of American infrastructure.
Traffic is getting worse in cities, rents are spiraling out of control, the new economy is like the old economy some groups have been doing well others are not. There is no empathy for those who are struggling. One injury or mishap can put you out of commission or a job - you have to invest in lots of training and higher education for desirable jobs, and there is not much support from the government. Private business rules America, along with the elites. We've abandoned values and opportunities to the dictates of the market, this article doesnt address the structural flaws of capitalism such as the vast concentration of wealth and monopolistic practices a handful of companies. Rest are struggling and we dont want to admit the harsh truths about our society, since that requires change and hurts our self-esteem.
3
How do you get people who do not read the NY Times and read newspapers to understand the complexity of the labor market data and not just the headline or the Trump spin?
1
Here is what unemployment numbers NEVER measure:
1. People who are working two or three (or more) jobs to make ends meet
2. People who are working part time jobs while looking for that one elusive FT job that will pay all their bills (see #1)
3. People who have given up on getting any job because they can't find affordable childcare to work several jobs at once or choose to actually raise their own children rather than work in dead-end meaningless multiple PT jobs with ever-changing schedules (see #1 & 2)
4. People who now partake in the Gig Economy and scrape it together, and are no longer looking for a 'regular' job (see #1, 2 & 3)
5. Companies who only hire PT workers to avoid having to pay benefits of any kind (see #2)
6. Companies who hire FT workers, but still refuse to offer meaningful benefits of any kind, and when they offer 'benefits" push such an extraordinary % of costs to employees that employees need to moonlight to make ends meet (see #1)
7. Rising costs of literally every basic item (not luxuries) that is required to live a decent life: food, clothing, fuel, utilities, insurance, and education all of which erodes any income from any job.
I don't think the average American realizes what they are really seeing when they see these "jobs created" numbers and the "unemployment rate" and it chaps my hide. We need to wake up and be educated about such things as the election is heading our way like an out of control freight train. Buckle up, Buttercups.
12
@JAS Resistance
Items 1-7 are the same today as they were 5, 10, 15,20 and 100 years ago. My Dad worked three jobs when I was a kid, it happened then, it happens now. People make decisions, child care has been increasing for numerous years so it happens. Regular jobs exist for those who are trained. Yet all that student debt yet less qualified applicants. How is that? PT Workers was an Obamacare (ACA) predictable result. Huge cost so employers have to cut FT workers. By the way, ACA took unisured from 18.0% to 10.9% at its most insured or 20 million or so. So the rest of us went through large cost increases (when an employer pays your health coverage you get a silent raise every year because Healthcare has enourmously risen since ACA), higher deductibles and co-pays. We would have been better off if they just took the worst ACA plan and gave it to the inuinsured at no cost and had the taxpayers pay it - would have been cheaper. Companies have to pay the benefits. As NY and other high regulatory states require more pay to people who are not worth more pay, they have to cut somewhere. All that being said, it is good that job numbers went up and that wages went up rather than down.
2
@JAS Resistance
And another thing, when journalists are describing the statistics using "average" this and "average" that, can they please, please, please use "median" instead. Average is just meaningless in the context of income distribution.
1
@Richard yes the unemployment and job creation calculations have not changed much if at all over the years. My point was not to say this is anything new *but* that most people are ignorant of the underlying facts of where those numbers come from. And let’s not blame everything on the ACA either. It’s a collective set of problems created by years (and years and years) political partisanship and stalemates and politicians on both sides being woefully out of touch with the every day challenges most of us face. It’s just unbelievably disheartening.
The reason the wages haven't increased? You Cant't Find Qualified Skilled Workers. Everyone is crying for a $15.00 per hour "Living" wage and you can't find a $50.00 per hour Toolmaker.
3
Sorry to see that the NYTimes comments sections are increasingly trolled.
I appreciated the article but thought Neil Irwin could have explained more about why things aren't great for American workers. He mentioned, as far as I could see, only stagnant wages. It's important to note that people who have dropped out of the job search are not counted. It's important to note the terrible toll taken on recent generations by rising housing costs and underfunded public transit systems. Important, too, are college loans that relegate recent grads to a poorer lifestyle than previous generations of college grads. It's important to note that manufacturers and large companies once felt some loyalty to their workers as those in Japan still do (encouraged by government policy). Job insecurity, lack of benefits, changes in the American economy have worn down American workers. These are the conditions that have brought on the depression, addiction and suicide, and other diseases of despair that have helped pare down the American life span for three years in a row now. We die younger than people in all other developed nations, according to all the tables I can find.
10
7 million more jobs were created while Obama was President
5
@Marion Grace Merriweather. Obama became President at the bottom of a major recession. Chauncey Gardiner could have created as many jobs during the eight years of his presidency.
And it took Obama until 2014 to bring the number of jobs up to the level it was when we entered the recession.
3
Thanks to Mitch McConnell.
4
For any non-liberal out there I will translate.
Good News: The Economy is doing wonderfully
Bad News: Trump and the GOP get credit for it.
There, I saved you a lot of words to get your message across.
6
@Don Twohig
So, if Obama gets all the credit for this great economy, will Obama get the credit for the downturn when it comes?
1
If Trump cured cancer, your story would be "Trump Causes Doctors to be Unemployed".
No wonder the media's credibility is at an all time low.
10
These job numbers were produced by the Labor Department, an executive branch agency controlled by Trump, the guy who allows young children to be caged by US.
The head of the Labor Department is Alexander Acosta, the guy responsible, as prosecutor, for letting Jeffrey Epstein get a slap on the hand for child trafficking and rape ten years ago.
Between 1933 and 1939, Germany's reported unemployment dropped from 8 million to around 300 thousand!--if you believe the information reported by the Nazis. (They included slave labor and excluded all Jews from their data and reports)
First question---are caged teenage children put to work changing diapers on younger caged children included in US employment data and reports?
Second question---why should I believe anything reported to US by "our" government?
10
No. No. No.
You're lying. I know you're lying.
My representatives in government, commentators galore, even the good ones here at NYT, my President, for Pete's sake, say over and over and over again that criminal immigrants are taking all the jobs. That there is really nothing for a good American to do.
We all know those who employ illegal immigrants would not report increased hiring to the government. I mean our President didn't, why would anyone else?
So your dubious numbers appear to be trying to create the impression that despite the fact our poor nation is drowning in a sea of unwanted bodies from The South, somehow there is work for Real Americans?
How stupid do you think we are?
2
Why does no one ever talk about the fact that wages are stagnant? My son recently had a job in Philadelphia making the same money I struggled to get by on 30 years ago. It's appalling. It doesn't matter how many jobs are created if they don't pay enough to live on. If your weekly wage should equal one quarter of your rent, which is advised, and the average rent is about $1400 per month, then a person needs to make a minimum of $35 per hour. Where is that happening?
13
It is both good news and bad news because even with jobs people are poor. The jobs on offer don't pay a living wage. So good news, you've got a job. Bad news you can't afford to live on what you're paid.
21
@Tom
I agree with you. I just hope you understand why. The Obama administration did nothing to stop the flow of jobs leaving the country to overseas factories. After 8 years in office, the number of manufacturing jobs was a net negative of minus 192,000 manufacturing jobs. The kind of jobs that pay good wages and good benefits.
In two and a half years, Trump's policies have caused an increase in manufacturing jobs. Manufacturing jobs have increased by 453,000, far exceeding most expectations. The biggest reason was corporate tax cuts which gave corporations room to stay put instead of having to go offshore to stay profitable.
The other big mistake Obama made was not doing much to reduce the number of immigrants entering the country. Both legal and illegal immigration needed to be addressed and reduced until the excess labor could be absorbed.
We are now finally at a point of balance and even approaching labor shortages. This is good news. It's the right direction and needs to be preserved. It is forcing employers to pay more and offer better benefits to attract workers. If workers like yourself are ever going to reach a 'living wage', this balance between jobs and labor needs to stay in balance. It would be better, to a point, if the supply of labor got even tighter.
Your next vote is a critical one. Every Democrat candidate wants less restriction on illegal immigration. How does that help someone like you?
1
The Good News: The Job Market Is Solid.
The Bad News: Democrats can't take credit for that.
5
There are a couple of very important differences between the Trump economy and the Obama economy.
Wages have actually gone up with Trump. He has turned around our manufacturing industry which always has higher paying jobs. Obama and his Globalist policies killed the working/middle class in this country. Lots of service related jobs, which are lower paying.
Obama's era never had a discussion of interest rate hikes like what has happened with Trump. Interest rates go up when the economy heats up. Obama had quantative easing where the Fed pumped 40 billion dollars a month into the economy.. It was a fake economy.
Lastly Obama is the only president in the history of the USA not to have a year over year GDP over 3 percent.
The first thing he did when he got into office was rescue the banks and he left homeowners wallowing in debt. And he campaigned on "main street" not "wall street"!!!
Trump will win huge in 2020. I made the mistake of not voting for him last time. To much unknown for me. But clearly the man knows what he's doing despite the desperate attacks by the Democrat owned mainstream media.
25
@Ari Did you forget that the entire economy is currently buoyed by an annual $1T deficit created by your man in office? If I took my credit card and ran it to max I'd be generating more jobs too. Obama's economy was steady, generated more jobs on average, resulted in rocketing stock market, a huge drop in the unemployment rate and the only thing that caused it to pause was the desperate attempts by the GOP to shut down the government.
43
@Ari
This is not really about Trump. Nor is it about Obama. Good things have happened economically under both administrations, not necessarily because of the policies of those administrations, but not necessarily despite them either. Some things can be directly connected to actions by those administrations, but the economy is complicated and a single president should never be given full credit nor full blame.
28
@Ari
Good points. All presidents before Obama drove the federal debt to more than $11 trillion, while Obama in his eight years added nearly $9 trillion to it. Further, Obama inexcusably told the public that the exportation of our manufacturing jobs (specifically to China) was the new normal. And, Trump removed 500 "feel good" regulations that were in force under Obama but that kept the economy from expanding.
12
A re-structuring of labor statistics is long overdue. The rule of thumb is that actual unemployment is about 40% higher than reported unemployment. This is because unemployment is defined as those "unemployed and looking for work", i.e. those in the unemployment compensation system. This system ignores discouraged workers of all ages (i.e. long-term or structurally unemployed), those in the "gig economy" who were never accounted for in the unemployment system (which is paid for by formal employers), and people who were forcibly "retired" early. Contrary to popular believe, the economy stinks. It's about time "economists" admitted it.
10
Yay! We get more paper jobs to support a paper economy that's advertised by a paper tiger and propped by free market interventionists that suppress actual inflation data by ignoring energy, housing, and food costs. Heads should roll.
6
These stories about the "great" economy, never add details. Then what do they really mean? The devil is in the details. As I can see. these jobs are glorified minimum wage, part time employment.
Wages are going up? Where, when and how?
Wages increased 6 cents an hour?On a $1 per hour is pretty good. On a $20 wage, its laughable.
Lets get a little meaningful detail.
6
Living wages with decent benefits? They're going away.
It's amazing that people think it's OK for income inequality to get worse as long as profiteers can keep taking value out of the economy.
This overheated situation is headed for the biggest of big crashes, and this time the Democrats won't be able to fix it.
Meanwhile, the planet is becoming less hospitable fast. Our exploitation is reaching its limits, and our wisdom is being replaced with otherblaming.
6
A Nobel prize in economics to the person who invents an index that reflects the economic status of Main Street, not Wall Street.
9
The climate change deniers' — the Kochs, Rex Tillerson and all the oil tycoons, airline and auto industry execs — biggest lie has been that alternative energy would ruin the economy.
I’d like to hear the lies they tell their kids and grandkids. How the heck do they think we’re going to get out of this alive? What do they think constant storms, crops under water, disintegrating infrastructure, and no one able to get to work are going to do—are already doing—to the economy?
3
The Economy is a hollow sham and The Market a false god.We Americans live in a house bought, as my Depression-Era dad used to say, "on time." We borrowed to furnish it, borrow to pay monthly bills, borrow to entertain ourselves. Someone else will pay for it.
One day time runs out for a nation racking up one trillion a year in national debt, without a care to long-term servicing costs. Interest rates will always be low, right? Wrong. The greatest sham in our history will all end as soon as no one wants our almighty Dollars. The sociopathic parasite currently in the Oval Office is only accelerating the inevitable, at best a return to the boom/bust 1870s-1900s cycle.
More likely, we'll see Great Depression 2.0, with decades of austerity and unrest. I'd say we deserve the coming scourge, but I do fell for younger folks. I hope Gen Z has some good ideas, at least as good as those of my New Dealer dad, because we elders who came after his generation have failed our nation, miserably.
3
The Economy is a hollow sham and The Market a false god.We Americans live in a house bought, as my Depression-Era dad used to say, "on time." We borrowed to furnish it, borrow to pay monthly bills, borrow to entertain ourselves. Someone else will pay for it.
One day time runs out for a nation racking up one trillion a year in national debt, without a care to long-term servicing costs. Interest rates will always be low, right? Wrong. The greatest sham in our history will all end as soon as no one wants our almighty Dollars. The sociopathic parasite currently in the Oval Office is only accelerating the inevitable, at best a return to the boom/bust 1870s-1900s cycle.
More likely, we'll see Great Depression 2.0, with decades of austerity and unrest. I'd say we deserve the coming scourge, but I do fell for younger folks. I hope Gen Z has some good ideas, at least as good as those of my New Dealer dad, because we elders who came after his generation have failed our nation, miserably.
2
"The Good News: The Job Market Is Solid. The Bad News: The Job Market Is Solid" It's headlines like that that make me hate contemporary journalism.
2
I guess, when an action is expressly forbidden by the Supreme Court, an executive order trumps the court - rock, paper, scissors.
Come-on Pelosi, start an impeachment inquiry. Do it for the kids locked-up on our southern border.
4
"f you look at people in the so-called prime working years — ages 25 to 54 — 79.7 percent were employed in June. That’s actually down slightly from February’s 79.9 percent, and below the 80.3 percent level at the start of 2007 and even further below the 81.9 percent record high reached in April 2000."
So, in essence, 1 out of 5 workers who want a job can't find one or are discriminated against in trying to get one. What will be inter4esting is the work force participation percentage for those over 54.
Also, where were these 234,000 created? I suspect most were seasonal summer jobs or retail hiring on for back to school sales. 17,000 jobs, in manufacturing, is not an example of a robust economy. Nor are average wage increases barely above inflation at 3%. And, nor is rising unemployment, because more people are looking for work.
As fro me, 1 July I decided after 1 1/2 looking for work to give up. I just hope my small nest egg, equity in my house, and Social Security will last until I pass away. At, soon to 64, I am tired of receiving letters that I have great skills, but I am not a good "fit". I grew tired of competing against the under 30 crowd, and immigrant imports who would work for 20% to 40% less than their American counterparts. Finally, I was tired of blatant age discrimination.
I am am enjoying my retirement taking care of a pair of Mongolian Gerbil companions. They are smarter, more loving, non-materialistic and more friendlier than my fellow humans.
11
I kinda half agree with your analysis.
The good news is the the job market is solid (for June).
The bad news is:
1-We are running up trillions of dollars of debt on the backs of the average working stiff that has to be paid off with interest.
2-The above was caused by the corporate welfare tax cuts which did very little in the long run to stimulate growth other than to help corporations buy back stock.
3-College grads are the new debtors. In the old days it was home owners with mortgages, now these graduates can't buy homes since they are saddled with debt.
4-At any given time 20-50 million Americans are not insured (depending on whether the republicans gut ACA) and the rest of us pay the highest rates for the worst results re our peer countries.
5-An insane trade war is going on that threatens a world wide depression.
6-Baby boomers are aging and medicare and SS are going bankrupt with massive more debt coming.
7-We are saddled with an ego maniac demagogue moron named Trump who has turned America into a third world banana republic, not trusted by friend or foe.
The end will come, the only question is when. It could be July or yrs. from now.
8
The bad news is people have to work 2 jobs to make ends meet. But, hey, the stock market is doing great, so what do the wealthy care.
😢
3
Count on Mr. Irwin to find the dark cloud inside the silver lining. The problem is not just that the numbers aren't weak enough to deny Mr. Trump a second term, but the realization that the long-anticipated disastrous effects of his trade policies don't actually seem to be showing up on a macro level. Democratic candidates should take note that the path to sure defeat is taking a stance against an approach that has been designed to put the interests of American workers, well, first.
5
In any assessment of the health of the economy, please include the negative long-term effects of our huge budget deficit. Ignoring the latter is irresponsible and misleading and may encourage even more legislative action that benefits a political party’s short-term narrative but ignores the resulting long-term harm to our economy and wellbeing.
15
It would be super helpful if these numbers were accompanied by changes in poverty rate, especially child poverty, as well.
17
223,999 additional poorly paying jobs were created in June. While someplace, someone found a well paying job they like, it is certain that the person hired is under forty years of age.
30
Job numbers and unemployed rate are lagging indicators.
According to some of the financial and economic experts, 2Q earnings will not meet expectations. Some estimayes suggest that as much as 80% of companies may miss their marks.
If these predictions are true, will those companies hold on to their workers by using their Trump tax cut windfalls or will they shed workers in a new york minute?
My hunch is there will be layoffs.
The company earnings of the next 3 quarters will tell the story about the strength of the economy.
10
They'll continue laying off folks, and the markets will rally on poor earnings while expecting rate cuts because everything about this picture is super healthy.
3
I feel that this article is leaving out a mention of the current (expected) trend of massive numbers of baby-boomers retiring and the workforce does not have equal numbers of replacement workers. The number of people "fully" employed would be less compared to previous years. A huge problem for SS, but that's another article.
16
Yes, these job numbers are reassuring to the people who have the most to gain---the investors on Wall Street who, incidentally, don't need "a job." The irony...
20
Call me paranoid...because I am. So much lying from this administration. How do we know that 224,000 jobs were really created?
34
@Norm Budman Actually, every jobs report has been revised upwards during President Trump's tenure. This figure is probably low, again.
1
How many of those jobs pay 47.00 dollars an hour to be able to live in a large urban center?
34
Why is quality of life in America based on how many people have jobs ? What about the fact that rents have tripled or worse in the last 30 years.There are thousands of homeless people living in squalor in all our big cities. These people are so disabled that most of them will never work again. Job numbers don't represent an accurate picture of what is happening in America.
69
@Todd. Agree! And whether homeless or middle class, none of the job statistic announcements explain or include the labor force who lost well-paying jobs and have had to accept replacing them with deep pay cuts. We may have more jobs but they they don’t offer a realistic or “real life” wage for many.
3
With an unemployment rate this low, plus the job numbers, wages should be going up.
But they are not.
It’s not a good economy for working people
51
@maria m. Actually, they are by a rate of 3.1%...way better than under Obama.
The Old World is over.
Science is in its infancy and will change every little thing and most of the big things.
Clinging to old ideas is down right dangerous.
Better decide what your core values are and let go of everything else.
Forget everybody works all the time. Ain't gonna be the case.
8
@Tracy Rupp
I work plenty, make 140K a year but the cost of healthy food and the drive to it; costs at least 28,000 K a year. and the cost of happiness gets more and more elusive each and every year Trump is our President. He is killing well meaning great thinking middle class nice people. He is Quixotic in a Nation who could care less. He panders to the next level of the upper class of any nation (corruption is his thing). The more enlightened the less smart.. What a foil of the 40% we have cultivated. Give them Corn and a wide open 1950's built Highway.
2
Strong jobs report.
Yet, to me, it comes with an asterisk.
I am thinking about myself .. color me selfish.
Do I have a job? Yes. Check.
Did I get a pay raise? Yes. Check.
Do I like my job? Yes. Check.
Can I switch jobs if I wanted to? Yes. Check.
Yet, what I have and have saved could be wiped out in a medical emergency.
However strong the jobs report and economy are, to me there is always an underlying sense of disconcert.
I had high hopes on Obama on single payer, he let us down.
Many democrats are promising this, I so not trust any of them.
Trump is the only one who fights to keep up his campaign promises.
I believe if anyone can get us single payer system, it will be President Trump .. I hope he is listening.
5
I don't see any flying pig...
3
@Bhaskar I don't think you're listening. DJT has given absolutely no indication he favors single payer, indeed, quite the contrary.
3
in Conn the only jobs anyone wants are government jobs..I hear young guys at gym traveling all over state paying entry fees to apply for police/fire. For example, in my town we had 100 fire in 1960-100 now; police 100-100, Board of Ed 1000-1000. State has 50000 in 1960- same now. Average state pay is now 77000 plus pension and benefits, teachers at 80000. Companies come and go like GE, UTC, banks and manufacturers go out of business. Govt workers my age (60) are either done or on a glide path to pension. This is 18% of all workers and even private sector spouse of public employee has great benefits and a secure household. State is going broke but the workers sure are not. These "gig" jobs are not worth anything; know many that have them and very bitter but have to keep going.
11
My granddaughter was studying Sociology and I said, thinking of FL that it was a terrible paying job until I saw that in CT it is $60,000 a year.
1
@Rich Murphy that is why all the Conn people are moving to Florida..even govt workers are moving to Florida and living large on the taxpayer
Strong jobs report.
Yet, to me, it comes with an asterisk.
I am thinking about myself .. color me selfish.
Do I have a job? Yes. Check.
Did I get a pay raise? Yes. Check.
Do I like my job? Yes. Check.
Can I switch jobs if I wanted to? Yes. Check.
Yet, what I have and have saved could be wiped out in a medical emergency.
However strong the jobs report and economy are, to me there is always an underlying sense of discomfort.
I had high hopes on Obama on single payer, he let us down.
Many democrats are promising this, I do not trust any of them.
Trump is the only one who fights to keep up his campaign promises. I believe if anyone can get us single payer system, it will be President Trump .. I hope he is listening.
Our economy is in real trouble. It seems nothing will change until the rich hurt. Then it will change to help them. We are doomed.
13
As has been noted: really hard to get off on this “economy is doing great” stuff. Nobody I know - no one - is having an easy time of it right now, at whatever economic level. Most are really struggling.
37
@James and yet restaurants, in my area at least, are always full. I would expect that in times of hardship the first expenses people cut would be luxuries like eating out.
1
@JTCheek
You'd think so. But I remember visiting Argentina during their economic disaster in 2002. Restaurants were jammed. Go figure.
2
Democrats should ask that if the economy is so good, how come there are budget deficits of trillions ? Shouldn’t that deficit be paid off to keep America great ? Or it is the job of the next democratic president ?
27
@CM exactly. Democrats should run on a platform of fiscal responsibility. Raise taxes and cut spending to reduce the deficit. Obama started this with the Simpson-Bowles commission but didn’t follow through with it’s recommendations.
There's always a strong June jobs reports, with construction jobs increasing substantially...so though there are upticks in other sectors, the news isn't extraordinary.
If you read this paper often, you will have read that several other economic factors indicate the strength of the economy is very - very - tentative.
When I hear these jobs reports my first thought is...
...well, I guess the American voters will face their greatest test in modern times in the 2020 election; will we choose empathy, integrity, truth, reality, and our humanity...the very values upon which this nation was founded?
Or will we choose...our love of money?
13
The author ruined his entire argument with this quote;
"Inflation is low enough that this does signal a higher real income for the average wage earner"
Do you know what happens when people have more money? They spend it and when more money is spent the bigger the economy gets.
2
It’s a shareholder s economy . The turning point is the stock market , it dictates the rest of the economy.
To maximize profit they promote free trade even when there is no free trade.
2
Again, with the "unemployment numbers"! Just because someone is employed, doesn't mean they're making a decent living. Moreover, a lot of people have to work two jobs (or more) just to stay afloat, if at all. All these numbers do is enable the justification of policies that only work for the top tiers of workers and investors.
The real truth is that most Americans do not have the earning power, and job and financial security they did 40 years ago, thanks to "trickle down" economics which are still in force. Read the article in this paper about how insecure even people earning $100 to $200K a year feel, and then say the economy is working.
News flash: It isn't.
27
@Kingfish52 I agree with you. I made a separate post saying that these articles about job numbers are useless unless you indicate what these jobs pay.
17
@Kingfish52
.. is it really 'trickle down economics..' that is the problem...--or is it that competition in the global economy naturally keeps wages low..for some jobs..
...40 years ago the U.S. didn't have the global competition that it does today... --
--Why pay someone $20/hour to make sneakers in the US, when you can get 'em for $20/day in Vietnam...
3
@mike That's exactly what "trickle down" economics is - making it easy for companies to move jobs offshore where it's cheaper. But what if we instituted a "tax" (it might be a combination of taxes rather than a single one) on companies that sell products and services here that makes it prohibitive to make those things offshore, but economical to make them here? And what if we changed the tax code to reduce taxes on long term investments and long term capital gains, and jacked them up on short term profit-taking? And what if we taxed every stock transaction made so that our biggest source of profit isn't the trading of stocks but the creation of things of value and purpose?
"Trickle down" economics is meant to enable the accumulation of wealth to the top. As long as oursystem is set up to do that, the rest of us will be forced to settle for the "spillage".
3
When employment is a record highs, and the number of job seekers is also rising, it means that people who had completely given up on the idea that they were employable now have hope that they can find a job.
This is not bad news. Its good news. It is giving people hope of upward mobility by working.
And, of course, the juxtaposition of health of the economy, interest rates, and multiples applied to corporate earnings to influence stock market prices today came into play. I remember, a few years ago. I used to joke with my broker that the market went down today because somebody got a job.
2
I want to know what kind of jobs these are? I know several recent engineering graduates without jobs. I also know foreign students getting master's degrees and getting jobs. The low level tech jobs left the country 20 years ago and what's left are competitive coding or sales jobs for our undergraduate graduates.
9
The people who pay the most attention to the job numbers are the people who benefit the most and don't work for a living--Wall Street investors.
8
@Ives Maes im pretty sure the person with no job and no income benefits the most, but hey
We need three or four million new immigrants - legal or illegal in this country fast or incomes are going to start rising. This is horrible news that so many people working.
10
@Mkm
With unemployment so low, the only way to raise gdp is : ? Immigration
3
Every administration has done the same for ever.
The last administration was no better...maybe worse...
5
@JAC As you are apparently unaware (which anyone who claims to be informed would be), be edified by report. When Obama took office, 800,000 private sector jobs were being lost EVERY month, a result of the incompetence of the Bush-Cheney-Greenspan cabal. Over 4 million jobs were gone before the Stimulus saved America from Great Depression II. By the time Obama left office, there was a net gain of 11 million private-sector jobs during his two terms. Look it up if you don't believe me. http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0500000001
10
@JAC The last administration had to clean up the economic mess left by the Bush administration. Remember the Great Recession?
7
These jobs numbers are grossly misleading, as they increasingly say nothing more than that we have a gig economy with easy proliferation of millions of low-paying, temp jobs that appear and disappear every month. They do not indicate Americans are making living wages to afford basic needs-- Americans more and more have to cobble together 4 or 5 temporary jobs to (barely) make ends meet. This is why the US birth rate continues to plummet to record low levels and more Americans die from suicides and opiate overdoses, making the USA the only advanced nation with a falling life expectancy!
One of my top engineering graduates a few years ago is emblematic of this. She was magna cum laude, in the very top 2% of graduates, yet because of US companies' lobbying for the H-1B visa to bring in foreign cheap labor, she has had to work as a subcontractor for years to "pay dues"-- no job security and often no health insurance. On top of this she drives for Uber and does a variety of freelance jobs posted on the online sites. In the misleading record of government job stats, almost every month she and her husband are "creating" new jobs. but none add up to a good or stable wage to start a family on.
It's striking that the one meaningful stat for Americans-- how much their income actually affords them amid cost of living-- is not considered at all by the BLS. Politicians prefer sweet sounding stats to paint a misleading picture and hope they'll fool enough people who won't notice.
86
@Radek im in my mid 30's and alot of my friends are in the gig economy, but its by choice, they get to work when they want and dont have to go to a 9-5 if they wanna go fishing they can. If they need beer money they turn on the app bam 3 rides and they have 30 bucks for beer. No obligation to them this is freedom and they feel like they work for them selves. Unfortunately the people that suffer the most are the one working in high cost of living areas like LA San Fran NY they have a hard time because of a large amounts of unskilled mostly foreign labor. Im from Santa Barbara and the surfers don't want jobs they want to surf and fish. The gig economy is a choice if you choose to live in San Francisco you know the high cost then you are going to have to work 3 jobs but the trade off is living in the city where things are happening. But if they moved out of CA or NY they could make a living. Life is a choice and you can always move.
1
Dont you need a masters or PhD to get a proper engineering job?
I read in this article that the jobs numbers are similar to the roaring economy of the 90’s. Why does this economy not feel as stable? Although I personally am OK I know many Americans are teetering on the edge-if one setback strikes they won’t be able to bounce back. More people are in worse debt. Many jobs don’t cover the basic necessities. It doesn’t seem like a healthy economy. Are the powers that be trying to stay positive to built up confidence and perception? But we all know the truth.
15
@Anna
These jobs numbers are about 40% less than the numbers of the roaring Clinton 90's
I think that's the source of your confusion
3
The inverted yield curve is really interesting. With the ECB and BOJ supporting negative interest rates, I wonder if the traditional rules of economics and interest rate patterns apply anymore.
Also, I suppose it never really matters how good these job reports are. As many of these these comments explain, there are still those who are unemployed and those not getting their fair share.
3
I don't see the reasons why we should be euphoric about the numbers. While these many people got hired, how many of them work at more than one place? Do they have enough food on the table or are they haunted by the fear of what will happen if they get fired? Do these people have a roof over their head or are they living in the basement of their family or friend? Can they afford a vacation for a week or so to heal from the wounds resulted from hard work? Do they have savings for old age, unexpected medical crisis, etc.? Can they buy good food, if not organic, or does their economic standing forces them to go buy from places like dollar general stores or stores where the majority of things are sold for a dollar? Can they purchase healthy foods? Do they have time for study and sober reflection, etc.? The article is almost mum on these issues.
21
@Paradesh Just because you ask the questions doesn't mean the answers are what you want to hear.
Historically, most previous occupants of the White House have exercised some restraint when talking about good Federal job numbers or the stock market performance, possessing a fundamental understanding that these measurements don't tell a complete economic story and can mask less rosy trends upon closer scrutiny. Donald Trump, on the hand, always in campaign mode and perpetually seeking validation and adulation, treats the job reports and stack market averages like television ratings for his own reality show, written, produced, directed and starring only Donald Trump. Trump's chest pounding and hyperbole about the economy doesn't change the harsher reality of many Americans working harder for the same or less wages while living paycheck to paycheck. Those Trump tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and corporations have not improved the economic well-being of most working Americans. However, if you were already wealthy, what a gift those tax cuts have been to your personal bottom line!
16
A bit of fundamentally good news causes the stock markets to drop as though they were a derivative instrument. This is another clear sign that market values are now a bubble. Tonight I'm Gonna Party Like It's 1929.
9
FDR created the minimum wage to be a living wage. Less that $15/hr are slave wages.
The unions fought for 40 hour weeks and I yet most people I know work far longer hours for no extra pay.
Our parents bought houses and supported families on one salary. Many of them didn't even have a college degree.
This is a rigged economy for the wealthy and no one else. We need more FDR policy and less wealthy business predators in our gov't. Vote!
40
Life is hard. That fact will never change. The rich and the poor have problems, different in kind of course, but no person has the wealth to have a problem free life.
3
@Douglas
"no person has the wealth to have a problem free life."
But some people have to work harder to create problems in their lives.
Keeping your position in society can be so draining.
1
Getting on the Forbes list is sooooo hard! Think of all the lies Trump had to tell!
1
Even though the economy is good, it must be portrayed as bad since it’s actually the thing voters care about the most. We can’t let Trump be re-elected so we must make sure to always spin the positive things as negative.
#resistTrump
6
Trumps trillion dollar mostly corporate tax cuts was supposed to give us 4 percent growth and pay for itself as right wing media will have you believe; unfortunately, it seems to have run out of steam and we are in a huge budgetary hole even when the economy is supposed to be at its best-- a far cry from the late nineties when the economy was thriving and we had budget surpluses.
11
My 40-year-old nephew, who has a high school diploma, worked 14 hours at 2 minimum-wage jobs on Tuesday. His wife also works. No children. No vacations, etc. Still, his car was repossessed because he couldn't pay for the car repairs and the car payment. That looks like full employment but is this the new American dream?
33
@Phyllis Seriously?
Three jobs . . . no children . . . and can’t make a car payment?
Jeez.
The horror of living in today’s America.
I don't see the reasons why we should be euphoric about the numbers. While these many people got hired, how many of them work at more than one place? Do they have enough food on the table or are they haunted by the fear of what will happen if they get fired? Do these people have a roof over their head or are they living in the basement of their family or friend? Can they afford a vacation for a week or so to heal from the wounds resulted from hard work? Do they have savings for old age, unexpected medical crisis, etc.? Can they buy good food, if not organic, or does their economic standing forces them to go buy from places like dollar general stores or stores where the majority of things are sold for a dollar? Can they purchase healthy foods? Do they have time for study and sober reflection, etc.? The article is mum on this and the numbers do not provide us enough information.
4
At some point we need to rethink which statistics are meaningful to a real working economy. Financial traders making billions when the stock market is high does not translate to a good economy. Low unemployment when jobs and wages are poor does not translate to a good economy. Global corporations making billions and paying no taxes does not translate to a good economy. It will be interesting to see how this disconnect plays out in the upcoming elections. Let the incumbents brag about the amazing economy while regular folks are struggling to stay afloat and let's see where that gets them.
9
Endless negativity in these comments despite strong employment numbers. Numbers don't tell every single nuanced story, but they are key measures of job creation and wage growth. This economy is providing more jobs for more people than ever. That's great news and sure beats the alternative. Is every single person better off. No, but momentum continues in the direction it needs to go to keep making life better for everyone.
This article doesn't mention some impressive unemployment figures showing women and minorities making significant gains. If this was a Dem. administration, the media would heap praise on these numbers, but this is clearly a half-empty kind of crowd.
11
@Bruce
"[The media covering this] this is clearly a half-empty kind of crowd."
What's half-empty is the picture of a life full of employment, and not making enough money to live well.
6
Stats are like the Bible: You can spin them however you want to make your point. Are these full time jobs that pay at least living wage and benefits? That’s the difference between this report being good or bad. From my own experience trying to get ahead of a potential phase-out in a year or two, all the listings I find in my field are either contract positions or they pay half what I’m making now. And as I near 50, even those jobs will be hard to land. I doubt my experience is unique.
23
Yes these broad brushstroke headlines are at least positive on their face. Better than major declines or a sharp stick to the eye. But as several contributors have asked here, what are the quality of these jobs? Are we counting people that are working in 'gig' economy jobs like driving for Uber or delivery drivers? The truth is that for broad swaths of workers these paltry gains after decades of decline or at best stagnant wages and eroding benefits this is likely too little too late.
Making life in America great again would entail going back to the policies and practices that were in place when that could be said with a straight face in the post WW2 era. Stronger labor unions, higher taxes on extreme wealth and corporations were the norm. Now they are considered blasphemy. As long as we maintain the supply side, ownership Reaganomics society ushered in during the 80's NOTHING is going to change.
9
@CaptPike66: the current system counts a person as "employed" if they worked ONE HOUR in any given month.
One lousy hour.
So yes, these phony numbers include LOTS of gig workers, temps, holiday workers, summer jobs and so on to inflate the numbers.
A legit system would ONLY count full time jobs that pay a living wage and offer health insurance and paid vacations.
16
On stagnant wages
In high wage islands (US, Western Europe) wages of those exposed to competition with low wage countries (Mexico, China, India) MUST FALL TO THE GLOBAL AVERAGE (roughly that of China) under free trade, unlimited outsourcing and free immigration of those willing to work for less
If you want it different, support tariffs to level the playing field. That is tariffs
You can have cheaper foreign products from low wage countries and low paying jobs for Americans, or you can have more expensive foreign products and better paying jobs in the US but you CANNOT have both
10
@Woof
There will come a time when Americans will not be able to afford those cheaper foreign products.
It's actually happening right now.
2
"... employers don’t seem to be bidding up the wages to get workers, and not all of the people who might plausibly want to work are doing so."
Those are the key issues. If employers are not bidding up wagers then anyone off the streets can do the work. Those are not well paid jobs. Moreover, the workers that are permanently on the sidelines are another indicator that new jobs are not well paid. Those folks are drawing safety net income rather than contributing to the economy.
Politicians love "low unemployment" and would prefer that no other statistic is cited except "high stock market". Neither of those tell the story of people who simply can't pay bills with any available job except by working 2 to 3 jobs.
Moreover, the addition of 17,000 jobs to manufacturing out of 224,000 is only about 7.5%. That is not a breakthrough. Manufacturing jobs are still going overseas because that is how manufacturing companies maximize income for shareholders. That is their only goal and government won't do a thing as long as politicians can take credit for the "fake" (incomplete) statistics.
The "fake news" is the story Trump wants told.
20
Jobs are always plentiful. It is just how much it pays and would you like to take it. If you have no other choices due to lack of meaningful skills or other reasons, then you have to take regardless how much it pays.
The really unfortunate thing is that many people even with jobs still cannot afford a decent life. Numerous reports have already stated that a significant percentage of total population don't have enough saving to handle even a minor incidence.
Our leaders should be quite thoughtful that our economy is still in recovery mode and there are plenty of room for future improvement.
16
If you dig a little deeper the jobs report does not reveal how precarious life is for millions of Americans. Many live paycheck to paycheck, or have 2 jobs, or can't afford their health care costs. Millions are one unfortunate event away from losing their home or job, with no cushion to sustain them.
Andrew Yang has no chance to be the Democratic nominee, but his platform of a universal basic income for all should be debated. How about a universal minimum income instead? No one should have to live below the poverty line in America, especially children.
20
@Eric
Agreed.
People are completely willing to work and pull their weight.
Pay them well and an enormous amount of the problems we face will evaporate.
4
It is not Donald's administration nor the GOP tax cut that creates this solid job market and thereby the economy. It is Fed low interest rates and further cut to interest rates signaled by the Fed. It looks like the economy is not over heating yet. The former is so preoccupied about his legitimacy as president for the past 30 months.
6
Despite the appearance of good numbers, we are in a very long if slow expansion. I am still concerned about a recession sooner rather than later.
9
This headline would never have appeared if these numbers had come out before 2016.
I'm not a Trump supporter, but it's absurd to say that 200K new jobs added in a month is bad news.
And FYI folks, wages are going up too, not down. Maybe not as much as everyone wants, but all of this pessimism seems politically motivated to me.
The only bad news I see is that first term Presidents get reelected when unemployment is going down. There's no other precedent. Get ready for 4 more years of Trump.
21
@Paul; wages are not keeping up with inflation. So this is not the entire story. Once the tariffs which are in effect additional taxes on us, hits harder, we'll see even higher cost of living.
14
...except that they did in fact have the same article in 2015. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/03/upshot/the-new-jobs-numbers-are-weaker-than-they-look.html
Almost exact jobs numbers too.
4
@Pete
Good catch Pete
I've been pointing out the Neil Irwin double standard on the jobs numbers for the last 2 years
Every month, the same ruse
2
Until we start seeing wage gains that consistently beat inflation by a significant amount, the official unemployment numbers are pretty irrelevant. A lot of people are sitting on the sidelines right now who just don't consider current wages to be worth wasting time on.
In my case, if I were to lose my job there is zero chance that I would accept even a slight pay cut when looking for a new job. If I couldn't find something that paid more than my old job I would just retire, and I'm only 45.
I don't think retirement at 45 is very common, but I DO think there are a lot of people in the 50-55 age range who have just given up on working since they can't find a real job that pays anything comparable to their old one and refuse to accept a job working minimum wage at McDonalds or working as a Walmart greeter or whatever.
These are people who likely made $50-100K per year or more and have chosen to just opt out rather than waste their time working for 30% of what they used to make.
In my case I make a six figure income in tech, but most of the tech jobs being lost lately are being outsourced. I'm not going to compete on price with someone in india willing to work for less than minimum wage with the same qualifications. Same goes for anyone who spends their day working at a computer which is a significant share of the white collar jobs out there.
18
The race to the bottom only benefits the gilded, dynastic, obscenely wealthy.
Unemployment numbers have nothing to do with my friends who have gone on countless job interviews since losing their great jobs in 2008. And will never work again. Have gone through their retirement savings. Living in their elderly parents’ unheated attic. What are they supposed to do? Working at a supermarket, minimum wage, no benefits.
21
@Lilly "The race to the bottom only benefits the gilded, dynastic, obscenely wealthy. " ... and con artists like Trump and his family.
3
@Lilly wealth cannot be obscene-
A couple questions come to mind:
1. When we add jobs and hire for them, how many of these are second or third jobs for the same person?
2. When the wages increase, how much of this is due to the legislated minimum wage increases in progressive cities/counties?
18
A trivial search lands you on the Bureau of Labor Statistics web site and that shows only five percent of Americans work two jobs.
3
What the unemployment statistic does not show is how incredibly competitive the job market is for job seekers.
It is far far easier for an employer to find a worker than it is for a worker to find a job.
The online job boards, Indeed, etc have made it very very difficult to actually get hired! These job boards have shifted most of the power in the marketplace from the job seeker to the employer.
For example I am in the product development field. if I place an advertisement online for an engineer, a product manager or a project manager, I will receive about 300 resumes in the first 2 weeks of placing the advert, and about half are qualified and 25% are very qualified.
Yes, the unemployment rate is low, but the reality is that there is massive, massive competition for every job opening. There are literally 300 applicant for every job. So landing a job today is still really really tough.
39
@idealistjam
Unfortunately, that unspoken word, "age," and age discrimination is very much a factor. Well-qualified people over the age of 55 are out once their age is determined.
Also, many jobs that deal with face-to-face information is now replaced by online sites.
One example is a university job with a one-on-one student guidance for dissertations and theses, it has become obsolete. Students now get that information guidance online.
12
@idealistjam There is actually a shortage of skilled labor that pays well. No idea how the shortage will be solved for many years, because too many clueless, unskilled people are being produced by our declining educational system. Just as people are now leaving expensive cities in search of a more affordable life, they also need to leave lower-demand job paths. Most people I know have relocated multiple times to get a better job.
3
@Bruce
Given the intense competition from job seekers, employers have no incentive to pay according to value provided, just to market pricing which means they are willing to take someone less qualified if they are cheaper.
The numbers from the Labor Dept do not accurately reflect the real world. They are examples of lies by omission. How many added jobs were full time? How many were a living wage? The number of Unemployment applications seem to decrease every month. That is because so many have already used up the benefit and are now ineligible. These reports are useless without those details.
51
@Judith Stern The stats may not be perfect, but what would you suggest? And some of the questions you raise are within the reports, just not given by the news media. Really, no average citizen wants to read such eye glazing material.
@Judith Stern So you would agree that Obama's 5.4% unemployment rate claim at the end of his term, that this newspaper and the Dem party hooted and hollered showed the strength of the economy under his leadership, was not only a fraud, but much much worse than we have it today under Trump. After all, they are sill using the Obama era formula for figuring unemployment. So no matter how you calculate it, the jobs market under Trump is 30% better than under Obama, using exactly the same scale.
6
Bottom line is that the US economy has been living off debt since the first internet boom crashed to earth. That's not a good omen for our future.
18
You miss the whole point. What is happening this year is not the big picture.
A 2018 report by the EPI (Economic Policy Institute) in D.C. has a horrid statistic on worker wages.
For the last 18 years - 2000 to now, workers with some college work have not gone up a single bit! Not one bit! Productivity has gone up in general but not for these folks.
For people with a graduate degree, wages for that period have gone up only 0.6%.
In other words, good ole capitalism; productivity goes up for years but the worker gets nothing. Stagnant wages. Capitalism always goes wrong for the worker. We see that for over 200 years of studies on capitalism. We have not only a failing capitalism again -- but a failing country with horrid disparity in wealth as we all know. And millions living from pay check to pay check. Make America Great Again? How's that coming along. From comments by others here, you can see it is not coming along well at all. People with several jobs; people with temp jobs; people working one or two days a week (they are considered employed!) Low wages on top of that.
53
@Frank: if my income was the same as in 2000….I'd be doing cartwheels in the street.
In 2000, my husband and I earned (together) $97,000 -- not a fortune, but a comfortable living in our Midwestern suburb.
We owned our own home, plus a rental that brought in bit of income.
We took a nice vacation every year. We had two fairly new cars, with two (onerous) car payments but it was no trouble paying for this. We had cable TV!
Today we have none of those things. Our income is HALF what it was, though costs have increased at least by 35%.
The rental house had to be sold. My car is now 17 years old and has 165,000 miles on the odometer.
We could NEVER manage a car payment today -- not even a modest one. We can barely keep our heads above water as it is.
No cable, no smartphones, no vacations….EVER.
I buy our clothes at the Goodwill store. We rarely can afford to go out to eat, and then it's pizza or Chinese.
Our retirement savings are decimated and my husband lost his pension.
I don't think we are alone. The 2008 crash by ITSELF set people back a decade or more in savings, retirement income, jobs, etc.
13
@Concerned Citizen
For perspective, in the year 2000, I earned by US government accounting, zero income as a Peace Corps “volunteer”. That year was probably the happiest I’ve been in a long while since returning to the US. But I had people to share a meal with regularly, people asked ME how I was doing. America doesn’t care about YOU. Newly arrived immigrants will learn this soon enough.
3
@Concerned Citizen: Yours is the most touching comment I've read in a long time. You represent to me the good people of the heartland, honest and brave and un-complaining. I personally haven't been beyond the coasts since the 1960's, but now want to make a pilgrimage.
Thank you.
Does adding all these people to the payrolls do anything to offset the tax cut ?
3
@Norville T Johnson: Good question. If they are low-paying jobs, they won't pay much in taxes if anything, but if they are good jobs, yes, it would divert money from wherever it is now, into the taxable stream... (and of course it will be boosting local economies)
2
@John.
Thanks. I wish krugman or someone else would let us all know the impact of these jobs and the impact it has on social security implications and on the federal budget.
They all cannot be minimum wage jobs (which would help but not as much). So many months of job increases may actually have a positive impact.
I’m aware that there are many other statistics that can be culled from this data but a high level impact would also be useful.
1
Exactly. This is why Conservatives say the tax cuts will pay for themselves. Not holding my breath though.
1
If unemployment is is so low, why do so many Americans live below the poverty line (12.3% in 2017)? For children the poverty rate is even worse (21%).
Those crazy radical socialist Democrats (Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders) are right - there are millions of people and families for whom the American economy does not work.
52
The good news: some very important thing is great.
The bad news: since Trump is the President, that this very important thing is great - is awful.
9
Yo Neil, it was strong data. Let the economy take a victory lap. You will have plenty of time to be downbeat later in the year.
5
The bad news is not really that the job market is solid. The bad news are the low wages and the discrimination against elder people with great experience, but white hair.
23
Right wing politicians have successfully sold the public on the notion that if you lower taxes for "job creators" that new jobs will occur and wages will rise, but if you raise wages for people at the bottom, jobs will disappear and wages will drop. 40 years of nonsense and there are still buyers. Sad!
17
I suppose anyone over the “prime” years of 54 are sub-prime. Which makes senses as an recent article in The NY Times highlighted how ageism rules the day regarding employment in the US. If you are over 50 years old, good luck finding a job that pays over $10 hour. I liked this quote from the article; “not all of the people who might plausibly want to work are doing so”. Ya think?
30
The 70% top marginal tax rate come from the school of inequality studies. Piketty, Saez and Zucman are real economists devoted to studying real economics not the musings of noted hacks and snake oil salesmen like the most aptly named Arthur Laugher whose spelling is contested by my spell checker.
Conservative economic beliefs and liberal democracy cannot co-exist. Time does not stand still and in times of revolutionary change ideology should not replace common sense. A transfer from the industrial economy to a knowledge economy requires strong preferably democratic governance and preparation for future needs.
5
Any number here can be lauded, and the realities of 21st c. insecurity and underemployment should be mentioned. Just don’t tell me the Federal Reserve Bank has anything to with anything but the gradual debasement of our fiat money. It’s apples and oranges. Financial assets are in bubble territory again, and we will learn what THAT means, again.
3
Older workers comprise one of the groups with many people still struggling to find good work that reflects their experience and expertise. Hire people over 50 and yes, over 60, and see how much they have to offer: loyalty, work ethic, imagination, maturity. And yes, tech skills as well as good old-fashioned resourcefulness. After you’ve made the smart move to hire them, be sure your culture is age-inclusive and makes space for everyone to be heard. If you don’t know how to do that, ask us.
19
So the economy is good, job numbers are up. So what? Is anyone looking behind the curtain at the long-term repercussions of the economic policies of Trump? Deregulation. What does that mean for clean air and water down the line? Tax cuts ballooning the deficit. What will that do to us? Sweeping climate change under the rug may be good for the bottom line of oil companies now, but what about in 10 years?
I don't look forward to being around when the party's over. And an extra couple thousand bucks a year isn't gonna buy my complacency.
24
This is a very good, sound write up of the conditions. Thanks.
Most months the article on these numbers gets an angry comment from me. I wish they were all this well done.
3
I get frustrated when people talk about how great the economy and jobs are doing. Which jobs in particular? How many people are using “gig” work, which lines the pockets of huge companies like Postmates on the backs of workers making as little as $3 per delivery, to fill the gaps or try to cobble together a job?
I have a lot of education and a lot to offer. There are no jobs out there for me. Everyone seems to want someone already fully trained, already experienced. Where are all the real entry level jobs?
And why do we still need to know someone who works at a company just to get an interview?
These are important questions.
119
@Katie -- Great questions. This article is far better than usual, but even so it leaves these things unanswered, and we need those answers for real understanding.
18
@Katie
Hear ya...I am now a stay-at-home parent by choice. Since we are in a period where environmental regulations don’t much matter, my skills are sadly no longer needed. But I refuse to put my family in debt just to say I have a job doing nothing that much matters to anyone now or in the future. We choice austerity. My new favorite quote from an SNL skit “I am just a Gen xer, I sit on the sidelines and what the world burn”. Don’t support the gig economy, it’s all just for convenience anyway.
8
@Katie It really has not changed that much over the decades, needing the connection to get an interview or experience. It was never fair, so many of us in 1980 all started at minimum wage and worked our way up into better jobs with better salaries, but it took years. It was and still is, hard work for most Americans without the rewards we all deserved. Our efforts just fill the pockets of the owners of the corporations and CEO's.
15
All of this is a bubble about to burst with civil unrest coming down the line.
People working 2 part time jobs to equal a full time job is not sustainable. These folks often work without health benefits, 401K etc.
Their schedules are in flux so often it’s hard to find childcare and they don’t get PTO.
It’s time that our government steps in to create meaningful laws that hold corporations accountable
At this point, $10 an hour unless supplemented by tips, commissions or bonuses isn’t enough...pay should be federally mandated at $17 an hour with
2 weeks paid vacation mandate
5 days of paid sick pay
40 hour work week - no more shift splitting.
Unless you are looking for part time work, you will be a FT employee who gets full benefits mentioned above.
39
@Christine -- It should. I see no signs of that happening. People look to me as if they are keeping their heads down.
8
@Christine
Add pension plans, health insurance that covers pre-existing conditions, preventive care, full coverage for women including both birth control & pregnancy termination, and Medicare supplements, drug coverage...
easily affordable for all levels, increased premiums for those making above $400,000.
14
The problem with inflation is it omits the cost of housing - which has really been the elephant in the household budget room for a decade now.
60
@DJ Monet
That's EXACTLY correct.
If you're spending 50% or more of take home pay on rent how on earth are you going to pay for everything else and save for the future?
32
@DJ Monet
If housing, food, and gasoline aren't counted in the inflation calculation, I wonder what is? Every year we're told that we don't need a pay increase, or social security or pension increase because inflation is almost nonexistent. Those of us who live in the real world know very well that the price of almost everything keeps going up.
24
The economy couldn't do much better than this, but of course since Trump is in office doom and gloom will rule the day in the media.
18
@M
The "economy" might be doing well, but what does that even mean? It's a bunch of numbers of paper. Unless something substantial about one's personal situation improves, it doesn't mean squat. How many people are actually living with substantially less long-term financial worry than they were 5 years ago? This is not about Trump. This is not about Obama. It's about how we are all fooled into thinking that something good is happening everywhere or everyone when the "economy" is "growing".
10
@M: So you're saying that this is the best that Donald Trump can do for those people who are spending 50% of their income on housing and barely scraping by on everything else? That sounds to me like those people have a good reason to vote for someone other than Donald Trump.
7
@M; if you live in this country (which looks like you do), you know first hand that things are getting more and more expensive (ie inflation) no matter what they tell us and don't even start me on the cost of housing. If this is what you're imagining of the best economy then you might not be seeing the bigger picture.
3
If supply and demand works for labor as the times is implying, and wages are only slowly rising, why does the times keep pushing for ever higher immigration numbers? Seems it would be in workers interest to restrict the h1bs and immigration in general to take the downward pressure off wages.
16
@Al
Among other things - a (presumably short-term) shortage of Americans with expertise in some specific area or simply willingness to do certain jobs can constrain economic growth.
The other thing that will do more than constrain economic growth is a shrinking population, which we would have without immigration.
If we do not like our current ruthless politics and the unfortunate prevalence of a zero-sum game mentality, imagine what will happen to our social fabric if we reach a point where it becomes clear to everyone that the economy has stopped growing and will not start growing again anytime soon.
2
@Al. I don’t see the Times “pushing for ever higher immigration numbers”. The Times does point out how refugees are abused with inhumane detention and separations instead of processed in a rational responsible manner. The Times has run stories about how H1B visas are gamed by companies like Disney to hire lower-paid foreign workers and fire Americans.
6
@Al I look forward to hearing replies to Al's observation. If tech companies couldn't bring in H1B workers perhaps they would be prepared to train some U.S. citizens.
5
Truth is, the push for a rate cut is driven by political self service and greed. Focus should be on wages.
13
The "Jobs Market Report" is fake news. No one can make a living earning $10-15 an hour part time or even full time.
Why your monthly healthcare insurance bill can it be paid.
What is this nonsense?
36
Creating an economy that works for more Americans has stalled.
What improvements can be made before our current strong economy slows or even plunges down?
9
If one considers how wealth is created in an industrial economy, it’s by selling huge amounts of things to huge amounts of people. That holds for every kind of widget, household products to vast telecommunications systems to navies. When the average person lives on a tight budget, the economy’s future growth is hobbled. The huge inequities of wealth are limiting the potential for growth. As happy as businesses are to be profitable with low labor costs, the whole economy will not grow quickly enough to undo the stagnation of wages that we have been seeing.
22
What you say is true regarding the economy in isolation. The problem is, we live on a planet where this kind of thinking is literally destroying it. I think a, more is always better, economic expansion at any cost, an ever increasing army of jobs, consumers and economic output is no longer a viable long term way of thinking or acting. The problem is, no one has given the slightest thought as to what to replace it with.
13
@Al
Nobody has with any seriousness considered what kind of economy may support the kind of benefits offered by modern life without the need for infinite growth to maintain it.
Environmentalists who offer solutions basically offer a human population of less than a billion living in small isolated communities living on subsistence farming, and probably living far shorter lives as a result. They find a simple solution to one problem but resurrect problems that earlier generations faced due to the circumstances which they wish to recreate.
3
@Casual Observer
Add the ever rising housing costs to wage stagnation and you have a recipe for disaster.
How does a society keep housing costs reasonable when there are greedy developers looking to accommodate millionaires and billionaires at the expense of the middle class?
15
i wish they or you would break these numbers into the skill set individuals have. For example, the market for engineers is crazy right now, but retail is flooded, can you explain that with numbers? I feel like there are really 2 or 3 job markets depending on your skills.
22
To criticize these numbers, and the last several years of growth, is to reject the government's metrics for prosperity, period. And that's fair - other metrics paint a different picture, of course, but I do fear that were a Democrat in office, we'd be cheering these numbers as a sign of success. I hire lots of people, have for years, and subscribe to every service that reports on wages, job growth, retention strategies and workforce trends. And as a lifelong Democrat, it pains me to say that I've never seen it better for workers - skilled and unskilled - than it is now. Wages are rising, retention is falling, we're even waiving drug tests because the market is so tight. Unheard of. The key seems to be motivation - tight as the labor market is, applicants still need the basic skills and motivation to be seen, if they want to be hired. We've a lot of workforce potential that is untapped because we're doing a bad job of training young people basic skills. That's where the focus ought to be, because that's where the inequality starts and later become entrenched.
17
@MWR
What we do is load ambitious young people who go to college with a mountain of debt and refuse to hire them at a wage they need to pay their debt off. Lousy.
12
This report, and the Times' account of it, draw a conclusion that the economy is in good shape -- but do not include critical pieces of information about employed workers, which would allow us to agree or disagree with that conclusion.
There is an assumption in some circles that when people are willing and able to find work, they will be able to feed, clothe, house, and educate their families. High employment numbers may produce a sigh of relief, based on the belief that if Americans are working, they are doing OK.
However, numerous reports in the Times and elsewhere make it clear that low wages, part-time or "contract" employment without insurance, and exorbitant costs for housing, medical care, transportation, etc. etc., combine to make it impossible for many employed heads of households to take adequate care of a family. They are NOT doing OK.
How many, or what percentage, are in either category? The report is silent.
Before we can decide to what extent the economy is actually "strong", we need reports that combine overall employment figures with more detailed breakdowns of what workers are being paid, compared to the real costs of living in their locations.
If we had such information available at regular intervals, we would have a more accurate basis for drawing conclusions about the true meaning of employment figures for the American economy.
27
@Judy. I agree with you that just because people are employed it doesn’t mean they’re living the American Dream- far from it. And it would be helpful to have the information you alluded to, a more accurate picture of what it actually means to be employed and how far it actually gets you-or doesn’t get you. That being said, although this article did not contain that data I didn’t come away thinking everyone is doing great because employment is up. This article does louder to the going backwards in terms of actual increased wages. There’s your big clue. If someone is making $12 an hour and gets a 3% raise that comes out to $743 a year. Certainly not enough to change anyone’s standard of living.
9
I voted for Hillary and will never vote Trump, but I have to admit the economy is good and some of the credit should go to this administration’s policies. I worry the Democratic candidates are pushing for too much change when things are actually looking pretty good here.
16
@RML: Well, not so much this adminstration's policies, except to the extent that they haven't totally ruined the economy: they are allowing the trends of the last ten years to continue. Imagine how much better we could be doing if the administration was taking any positive action in the areas of research and training, renewable energy, infrastructure, health, housing and education, and working on serious international agreements about trade and the environment. Instead they are focusing our attention on militarizing the southern border, confusing their supporters about the climate crisis, and the nature of international trade, and so on...
14
Which policies? Too easy money? Huge tax breaks not reflected in wage growth? An end to essential financial and specific business regulation? Will wonders never cease for we wee folk?
6
@RML; I hear you. Fair or not, I think the perception will be that some or all credit goes to the current admin (which I don't agree with). It'll make it tough for Democrats. But elections are not until next year. So we'll see.
2
Clearly the jobs report should only show employment with measurable benefits. There should be gradations. Wages and benefits below poverty level and wages and benefits above poverty level would be a good place to start. Then perhaps income for a family of four that includes purchasing a home, health care and access to education. The minimum american dream. Where one lives obviously impacts what that number would be, but whatever that number is in Manhattan or Poughkeepsie would be included in the count.
I have a feeling that an awful lot of what is considered a job by governmental standards is not on a measurable scale of survivability.
19
@HT
Exactly. College students home for the summer to earn beer money are probably included in these numbers.
6
I did the calculations for working at Walmart 120 hours per month at $11/hr. Total monthly income less taxes would leave $1120 per month to live on. Great for a single person living with parents. Not so great for the rest. Single people are taxed more and have little to show for their work.
21
@Suzanne Wheat
120 hours is not a lot, and at that income one would qualify for the EITC which might cover approximately the entire tax bill considering the standard deduction will also apply.
I do agree that the EITC could be more generous for single people, but even the modest bump (about $500) can be a big deal at that income level.
1
@Alan. I was in Walmart one day chatting with the manager and asking why there were no cashiers at the check-outs. He said, "I can't get workers" and he offered me a job. An employee told me that workers left "because of the hours." When business is slow in the stores, workers are sent home so at the end of the week not enough hours were worked to get by on. I am 72 and live on Social Security and a pension. The Trump tax cuts killed me this year. I am single and have no deductions for tax purposes. The EITC is great but better paying jobs with benefits would be even better.
2
@Suzanne Wheat: at that level, you would qualify for food stamps.
Also, you are not figuring in 40 hours a week and if you earn $11….you'd better be working more like FIFTY hours a week to get by.
I know Walmart may not give you full time hours, but it is easy to find two part time McJobs.
BTW: TARGET is now paying $13 an hour to start. And this is the RUSTBELT! they have a big sign outside the door.
I am sure Walmart must be paying close to this to compete, as they are almost next door.
That's $27,500 a year ($13 an hour, 40 hours a week), which is far from rich but not poor in most of the US.
From reading the comments in this column, it's clear that Americans aren't being fooled. Once nobody but the rich have any money left over from paying for necessities, well, I'd like to hear the plan. I suppose the rich will simply move to Switzerland, France or New Zealand. America as an idea will be dead. Everyone can't start their own company. Everyone cannot become a billionaire. Let's stop pretending. Most people are average and just want a decent living which should be the norm in this country. It was once and we'd like it to be again. We can dream but from what I've observed, the majority of people in this country are on the way down no matter what education they get. It's seems to be very much a winner take all society.
79
Some manufacturing jobs. What else? What kind of jobs are these? Can anyone support themselves in this ruthless housing market on these "jobs"?
22
The number of jobs has nothing to do with the quality of the jobs.
Are we talking 224,000 jobs earning $11.50 an hour as a telemarketer for 35 hours a week and zero benefits?
Or 224,000 jobs earning $25.00 an hour as an autoworker for 40 hours a week and excellent benefits?
98
@Heather: LOL, what do you think?
The auto industry is a pale shadow of what it was as recently as the 1990s.
Steel is mostly gone.
We've send 85% of our manufacturing OFF SHORE to China, India, Mexico …. which is why THOSE nations are thriving and have a big new middle class.
THEY HAVE OUR JOBS!!!
1
@Concerned Citizen
You are partly right. But the issue was that US wages were becoming too big a component of costs. If the companies did not off shore, they would have automated even sooner which still means most jobs lost. So the auto industry off-shored and the coal industry automated since they could not move the mines. Now the workers in China, India, and Mexico are starting to face the same threat from automation since tech have made it cheaper and cheaper to automate.
Measure of a bad economy?
Too many fulltime employees can't afford paying rent and eating the food prepared by their main employer - McDonalds. That requires a 2nd job.
And forget about healthcare.
70
Productivity has no chance to become more efficient when the unemployment rate is low. That's why the Soviet Union collapsed. You didn't have to look for a job because the job came looking for you. People didn't feel that sense of aliveness that comes when you have to work harder to keep your job than you do to find one. When the "ich muss sein" feeling wanes we all get bored and lack the motivation and desire to compete. "Hey, so fire me...I'll have another job in less time than it takes for me to argue." Economics isn't always about the money. It's about what people do for it and why. By taking away the need to sharpen the competitive edge, the low employment rate put us on the track to a social collapse like the one that turned the Soviet Union into Russia, with a national economy less than Italy's.
3
@Maxine and Max, you mean like the oligarchs who murdered their way to the top of their collapsed industries? They seem to be doing so well that they're now buying up luxury real estate and our corrupt politicians. The national economy there works for them, even if not for their actual working stiffs.
5
@sj
Not so extreme: A socialist society where getting ahead doesn't imply murdering the competition. Murder is a very mediocre thing to do for it means you can't really defeat the opponent fairly, like building the better mousetrap or even doing art. Money is really last refute of the mediocre. However, when jobs feel valuable they coax us to think outside the box and to develop in ways that are unpredictable. Not only aren't Americans in touch with the intrinsic value of work, but the job market only enables the lazy side to settle for less and less. I love my job because if I don't do it better every day, I lose everything I've worked for up to this moment.
1
I recall trump saying in 2016 that the numbers reported by BLS (among other federal agencies) were bogus. What about now?
20
@Brad
no kidding he said all those numbers were " fake news , propaganda "
DJT went on to claim it's " more like 42 % "
now it's our " beautiful economy "
shameful ...
3
@thostageo
agreed!
Within the me first paradigm, no one is going to give an inch.
8
"But just because the employment numbers take some of the 'imminent recession risk' off the table doesn’t mean they signal all is well in the American economy."
Verily, all is not well.
1970: "The oceans are in danger of dying." Jacques Cousteau
2019: Oceans are dying.
If your culture's relationships with the sky and ocean are deadly, all is not well.
In fact, it reduces these reports as more status-quo safe, symptom-surfing fluff; i.e., this story resembles a doctor writing to parents about their teen's acne when the kid has terminal brain cancer.
Jobs doing what?!
Jobs generating an emerging consequence:
Arming the sky and ocean with weapons of mass extinction.
Mr. Irwin, can you please get fundamental?
14
@anthropocene2 stick to the topic- there's plenty of open space for environmental discussions
1
Someday the lack of buying power by everyday Americans will have it's effect on the economy. You can't roll all the wealth to the top without eventually having an effect.
31
@Heidi
Perhaps the bigger issue will be that people who have some buying power might realize they do not really increase their quality of life or sense of satisfaction by buying more stuff or taking expensive vacations.
A meaningful description for most of these "new" jobs would include their pay and benefits relative to the cost of housing reasonably close to those jobs. Those factors alone would tell one just how "good" these unemployment numbers might be.
Add the cost of health care and cost of transportation to/from work and the picture would get more accurate. Add the cost of education to be qualified for those "good" jobs and the picture would get more accurate still.
Certainly having more jobs available in the United States is better than fewer jobs available. But has long-term financial security for most people gotten better here? Doubt it.
71
@Chris Totally agree. In this era of applying metrics to anything and picking apart granular data points about everything, it is time to start examining changes using the kind of criteria - to begin with - that you present.
6
@Chris. Why isn't food included in the cost of living numbers?
7
@Chris. Let's not forget the cost of child care. It is as much, if not more than, housing.
I jumped for joy when my last child no longer needed after school care. I could finally pay all my bills and begin to save.
7
There are people in my neighborhood who are working full time and living out of their cars. I hear from friends in San Francisco that some people working full time in there are living in homeless shelters. I guess the fact that they are employed at all makes the job market "steady and solid."
140
@Martha Shelley I live in the SF Bay Area and you are so right. Just because people have jobs doesn't mean that things are good. I work in tech so I am doing ok but when I first got a job in 2008 rent for a 1bd that I shared with a roomie was $2200. As a new college grad making a pretty decent wage I spent half my paycheck for that rent (to share a 1bd 1ba apartment that had no garbage disposal, dishwasher, washing machine or parking). That same 1bd would now go for over $3k but starting salaries have barely budged.
I volunteered at a school in a very bad neighborhood and single moms were working multiple jobs and getting assistance from the government and still barely getting by and living in a very high crime dangerous neighborhood. Sad!
1
My, oh my, how the elite try to get us to focus on number of jobs created - and ignore the quality of those jobs and the on-going flatlining of wages.
Interestingly, liberal news outlets do this, even when Republicans control most of the government, which goes to show how congruent both parties' agendas are when it comes to the economy - the domain that matters most to the working class.
95
I am at a loss to understand how this good column does any of that. Would you mind pointing to examples?
4
The biggest economical problem we have is the continuing growth in wealth disparity between the top one percent, and everyone else (i.e. most of us). One way to help direct more of the economic growth going to all people is to cap the tax deductibility of the total compensation of a given company's executives at no more than 30 times what the lowest paid full time employee gets. That way, anything on top of that comes 100% out of the after-tax company earnings, which might give corporate boards some pause in awarding obscene pay packages. And, if they don't show restraint, the corporation will pay more taxes, to pay for schools, streets and other things that need funding. BTW, such tax laws can also be applied to State taxes, so one doesn't have to wait for a political change in DC.
58
@Pete in Downtown
Why the focus on evil CEO's Pete? Why then is it fair that Oprah makes 500 times more than her maid? Why is it fair that Taylor swift makes 750 times as much as her Roadies? Is it fair for Beyonce to make 1000 times what a back up dancer makes on tour? Is it fair that Tom and Gizelle make 1500 times more than what their gardener makes?
Please Pete, tell me why company executives, who are already beholden to a Board for oversight, need to have their salary's capped but not anyone else?
11
@Pedro
Because their salaries are unrelated to performance? Their level seems to be more about the top-tier of corporate ownership and governance being the same people - hollowing-out companies and moving on to the next pension fund to raid, than long-term results.
If you can explain why the Sears executives deserved to pull millions out of the pension reserves to compensate themselves as they ran the company into the ground over several years, please go ahead.
40
@Pedro. Let's take your example: Oprah. Last I looked, she has her own media production and distribution company. In fact, there are very few top-earners that are not executives or owner-operators of companies. While I agree that the crazy salaries paid to a couple of dozen sport superstars are just that - crazy -, they are a tiny fraction of the top earners. Most of those are, in some form, involved in business, and often running it. But, I also wish we would start taxing capital gains just like regular income.
3
You can fit a straight line to the unemployment rate from 2010 to 2015. Projecting the unemployment rate to now it would be around 3.2% instead of 3.7%. The rate is changing. The inflection point under Trump is going in the wrong direction.
Stagnant wages also don’t bode well for the economy going forward. It is a slow slowdown.
14
@Don I don't believe that analysis is correct. Unemployment figures do not go in a straight line but bottom out at some point (of course they can't go below zero, but in general the flattening out occurs as one approaches 4%). 3.7% is incredibly low by historic standards, and many economists look at 4% as full employment because in a healthy economy there are always some people are looking for new jobs
12
Can we please agree, once and for all, the economists and their predictions should be condemned to the trash heap? And that NOTHING in known economics allows these blowhards to say "what" and "when" at the same time on any economic fundamental? (Could editors please take note, and push back bit more at these so-called "experts"?).
I'd have more faith in a daily Astrology column in the NYT.
16
If employment and wages rise while the stock market falls, I'm all for it. Wall Street did quite well when Obama was president, but most workers were much worse off. A reversal of that would be a welcome trend.
10
@J. Waddell Perhaps workers should buy stocks to similarly benefit? One can create an investment plan at any of the big firms with less money than some spend on cigarettes each year ($100 a month is a good start).
6
@Dr B The amount that most people can afford to invest will never provide for the kind of benefit that is going to those in the investor class. The time it would take to accumulate enough wealth to see a real benefit to ongoing income is so long as to belie the idea that said investment will balance wealth inequality, and that assumes continuing positive returns as well as scrupulousness on the part of the firm investing the workers funds, neither of which have proven reliable. When you combine that with all of the other expenses those in the investor class say people should "just save for", such as education, health care, retirement, home ownership, as well as depressed wages, your proposal becomes a Sisyphean task.
10
@J. WaddellThat will never happen. In good times, the rick take all profit, in bad times, the poor take all losses.
3
The captain of the Titanic felt the same way. Sure, there were some warnings. But, "So far so good."
13
It's difficult to tell from the distribution of jobs, but we'd go there first to see where people are employed:
https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/employment-by-major-industry-sector.htm
The manufacturing sector has lost jobs over the last ten years and is projected to continue to do so over the next ten years. With the lack of unions, along with the increase of service sector jobs, wages might not go up as much as they did in the past.
Healthcare, business services and state governments employ the most in the service sector. It's possible that making money in services is driven by cheap labor costs as opposed to manufacturing something that adds value.
A lot of the research on the effect of automation on jobs is predictive, and given today's low unemployment rate, it's hard to assess its influence on employment. It might lower wages.
Job mobility is down over the past ten years; again, this is difficult to research; the lack of mobility is greatest in the 18-24 year-old age range. Lack of mobility could contribute to lack of wage growth.
But as many of us will note, the huge growth in wealth of the top 1% of the population in the last ten years doesn't seem to benefit the wages of the rest of us, as does the lowered tax rate for the wealthy which reduces the nation's ability to tap into their vast wealth for social benefit.
At any rate, our economy starts to look like a pyramid, the bottom of which is getting bigger. How long can this situation last?
53
@Charles
The situation you describe will continue---and grow even worse---so long as we continue to elect corporate democrats and any republican.
4
@Charles. Agree! Trickle down economics is a bad joke, as the top one percent have found ample ways to seal in their wealth, so there's little to no trickling down happening. Time to return to "a rising tide lifts all boats". Let's start with raising the Federal minimum hourly wage - $15 in 2020! That'd change the lives of millions of Americans for the better.
5
I am not convinced that a “ robust economy” exists except for the top 1% who are heavily invested in the booming stock market.
The average American is not heavily invested in the stock market, and has not even seen appreciable wage gains in a decade. The average American worker is struggling to pay the bills and hopes s/he doesn’t become seriously ill because the job(s) they have don’t include health benefits.
The average American is on the losing end of the huge income inequality which continues to exist thanks to the Republican tax bill. Only the wealthy and corporations benefit from that policy.
The average American will continue to fall economically farther behind due to Trump’s “ trade war” because prices are increasing for many things . Not having savings will push the average American into greater financial misery.
No, I don’t see a “ robust economy” for the average American.
Please enlighten me.
129
@Eliza Bee
If you are invested in a 401K or an IRA or have a pension (or expect to get a pension) that is NOT funded by the Federal government, you had better hope the markets do well. Most State and Municipal workers AND; yes, even college professors and administrators, have or will have pensions that are funded by stocks and bonds. As the markets go up, so does the value of YOUR investments. You better hope and pray that Sanders, Warren, or Harris don't get elected, because they will surely wreck the markets if they are.
3
@Joanne Whitmire The current boom won’t last forever. If it ends during a Warren, Harris or Sanders presidency, some will blame the incumbent. But as another commenter noted, presidential influence on the economy tends to lag. Both blame and credit assigned to incumbents tend to be inflated.
Baseline for the market rise is the trough of 2007, the direct result of lax oversight by the administration of George W. Bush. The boom was well under way by the time Obama left office in 2017. Trump’s trade protectionism and corporate tax cuts have helped extend it, but at the cost of adding tens of thousands to the ranks of the working poor, who in some cases are seeing their taxes increase despite stagnating income. Neither protectionism nor the continuing degradation of wage labour is sustainable, any more than the promotion of home ownership via cheap, bogus credit was under Bush.
Only one thing is guaranteed: when the market slide begins, Trump — the notorious bill-dodger — will say he had nothing to do with it.
1
The economy is working for the richest.
A minimum wage increase is a short term fix - and ultimately creates wage push inflation, that wipes out the benefit.
What is needed is a MAXIMUM WAGE DIFFERENTIAL: The mostly highly compensated in any organization cannot make more than some factor (say 30 times) the lowest compensated.
54
@cosmos
But that's socialism: government controlling the private sector.
Capitalism is grab-and-go, dog-eat-dog, big fish eat little fish. It's just an economic system without the burden of ethics, which can be added, but they will always be an add-on that can come and go.
Capitalism has no theoretical problem with one person owning all the wealth. It's just an efficient accrual system that works gangbusters for many. Sure, inequality is rampant, but capitalism has no truck with that.
7
@Jim Muncy
Jim. As I see it, the problem is we have Crony Capitalism, not Capitalism as it was envisioned by Adam Smith. Or .. if you prefer, just like Marxism, it has a flaw.
Capitalism demands COMPETITIVE MARKETS (not "Free Markets"). The goal is to create Value: The best and widest array of goods and services at the best prices. This requires competitive, not monopolistic, markets. To the extent a market is monopolistic, it MUST be regulated in the public interest. These two things are the only way Capitalism can work. We currently have neither mechanism in place.
Why aren't we still reporting the people missing from the job market? It plays into why no one is seeing salary increases. Trump had a lot to say about the "actual unemployment rate" when someone else was in charge, where are those people now? I'm guessing still unemployed but not collecting unemployment.
36
@Chris Hinricher
The 79.7% of prime working age employment is a direct measure of full employment. Yes, the unemployment rate alone hides discouraged workers, but other stats do directly address "actual unemployment rate". Not record good, but very close to record good.
5
At this time, in this cycle, the data are ambiguous. Th Fed is faced with the problem of lags in information and lags in policy. Their problem is forecasting what lies a year or more ahead. Steady goes the ship.
5
Our government is mostly controlled by the rich, and make policies that make them more money at the expense of the rest of the country.
It’s no wonder that people feel insecure and powerless.
It has been so long since we had a reasonable minimum wage that being exploited seems normal.
It’s not, and it’s wrong.
Companies can treat their workers like slaves and hoard more money for themselves.
Being fair used to be an American value.
Greed has taken its place.
123
@Grove
Yes, better to have our government centrally controlled by commissars whose every decision is decided upon what they think is right based on whatever their utopian ideal is at the moment regardless of reality ... not to mention what is most likely to get them that dacha in the countryside and the larger apartment in the block reserved for Politburo members.
12
Or perhaps we have publicly financed campaigns so that no one can use their money and influence to buy legislation?
45
@JW Yes, better to have oligarchs who literally kill the competition and dictate what wages people will earn, as well as buy our politicians to assure that the laws punish the workers and help the rich.
30
"A really positive development would be for more Americans who have been on the sidelines of the labor force — neither working nor looking for work — to find employment."
Face, these people will never work because for some reason they don't need to or want to. I know a guy like this - He is a good carpenter and has been trained in HVAC but hasn't worked a real job in 10 years, does a few odd jobs now and then and the rest of the time he spends in his mothers backyard collecting junk and who knows what along with his group of likewise deadbeat friends. Meanwhile the construction industry in our area is begging for workers - if you breath they will take you - but people like this are simply not employable any more.
10
@Joe Rock bottom (Econ prof). Your friend's example is interesting. I think he might be counted as self-employed (which makes him count as "employed") rather than outside the labor force.
13
@Joe Rock bottom
Is it fair to extrapolate a handful of personal acquaintances in your neighborhood to millions of Americans?
23
@Joe Rock bottom Sounds like my father. The man could have undiagnosed depression or other mental health issues (Oppositional Defiance Disorder can make it hard to follow a boss' directions).
1
When the entire stock market is dependent on a meager
half percent interest rate cut, and strong jobs growth indicating a strong economy is discounted, things seem out of wack.
15
If the economic picture is fantastic by government measurement, but not fantastic in people's day-to-day lives, then the pushing of the "everything is fantastic" narrative may have the opposite of its intended effect in 2020.
10
Suddenly everything is upside down. For the tiny minority hugely benefitting by the rising stock market (yeah I am along for the ride in my own small way) good job numbers are a bad thing. I remember ages ago in the pre-Trump era when such numbers would have fueled a rally. A big shout out to the Roberts Court. We are doomed.
8
The problem is, the disposable income is now eaten up by medical and educational cost, so no matter what the numbers look like unless we have handle on medical and educational cost we are in a perpetual recession and no spin will change it.
174
Well, cutting taxes and increasing the deficit better work, otherwise we would be in real trouble.
The question is what happens when interest rates are already very low, deficits and high and the economy goes in the tank- what are they going to do.
40
@Hugh G
Not to worry.
The rich will be fine !!
That’s all that our corporate corrupt government is concerned with.
40
It’s bad news for the democrats running for president.
18
@Brewster Millions It's bad news for everyone except the ultra-rich. This ain't about politics - this is about class warfare, and the middle class and poor are (still) losing.
30
What I fail to understand is why I keep hearing that inflation is not increasing. Have any of these people gone to a supermarket lately, filled their car with gas, made a large purchase, or paid their utility bills lately? Guess none of these folks actually put food on a table to know that most of us have been seeing higher prices in a wide range of places.
In addition, why don't we see a breakdown of what sectors and pay scales these jobs reflect? Yes McDonalds is hiring but what about those wanting or needing something better?
Seems we're getting a lot of non-specific information in these figures.
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@steven23lexny Actually, the price of gas has never been lower. I pay 8 cents a KW/hr of all renewable energy, I used to pay 14 cents 15 years ago. Texas electric competition. Food is a bargain compared to almost any place in the world. Don't make "large purchases" unless absolutely necessary. Not wanted, necessary. Cut your cable, except for internet. Shop at the Salvation Army, etc. If you have a mortgage, pay it off ASAP.
Of course the price of some things have gone up. Some have, and then gone back down. It's always been this way. Best to step aside from what you can, figure out how to cut costs, then enjoy your new freedom.
3
Many people still have trouble raising $500 if a quick emergency happens!
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@Jay Many of those same people have Air Jordans, video games, bass boats, new trucks or chrome rims on their cars. It's all about choices. Trump can't fix bad choices.
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@TL
Get out of your SUV and walk the neighborhoods of the "many people" of whom you speak. You might learn something that would change your mind.
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@TL
Blaming the victims is another bad choice.
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I wonder if the June up-tick is a seasonal thing involving students coming into the labor force. If so, then the quality of these added jobs probably isn't that great. Let's see where we are in September before drawing any conclusions.
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The number looked at is seasonally adjusted, which while tricky is based on decades of procedures.
There are a while lot of raw numbers in the dozens of BLS reports available for all of us to read.
6
the CPI vastly understated inflation. I'll give you an example. Average Car prices have more than doubled since 1990 yet the Auto Component of CPI is just 9% over that period. This is due to the hedonic adjustment in CPI whereby we have adjust for car quality over time. However, For people below the mean income whose wages barely grow at 3% a year this means that although cars are 'cheaper' they can't affors a car any more. There are studies that 'effective' CPI for lower income people is of the order of 8%. Lowering rates willmake the problem worse.
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@Miguel Bilbao I think you are correct in spirit about cars, but not in fact. It's my understanding that as things like air conditioning, automatic transmissions, air bags, now all the new lane assist, and collision avoidance systems are given a value and then deducted from the car cost! But the CPI still looks at a much more base car from years ago. As if you can buy such a car, even!
1
"A really positive development would be for more Americans who have been on the sidelines of the labor force — neither working nor looking for work — to find employment. But progress on that front has also stalled."
Two words: age discrimination. Which is hard to prove, and even harder to prosecute, but anecdotally (and from personal experience) this is rampant in my cohort of over-40 women. An entire segment of people willing and able to work have been sidelined. And then once one does get "lucky" and gets hired, often that means accepting a job title and wages not commensurate with experience.
Also, there seems to be an immense downward pressure on wages, with the exception of tech and finance. Why is that? The wealth is being hoarded at the top. Wages for the rest of us are stagnant. The recession is coming.
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I guess this wonderful news about jobs is further reason to bash President Trump. After all, he and his policies have nothing to do with the increase in jobs, but he will be 100% responsible for any reduction in jobs. Figures.
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@Mon Ray, presidents don't control the economy. with that said, trump has spent the last three years taking credit for the economy, and will subsequently take the blame for a recession.
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@Mon Ray
His policies might have an effect if, say, he used his bully pulpit to denounce, or for that matter investigated, age discrimination and stagnant wages. That way the numbers might even be better and he probably would get credit for trying to help the working men and women of America, and those trying to enter the workplace, rather than pushing through a massive tax cut that mainly benefits the rich.
22
Have you ever noticed what Trump says about Obama?
1
My guess is that many people who finally found a job after being laid off at the height of the recession are making less today then they were 10 years ago, and probably with no benefits as is my case. There are more jobs available today but how many pay a living wage and offer benefits?
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@Gabriela M
I'm making about 40% of what I made back then; I don't ever expect to do any better as I am 59.
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@Gabriela M
As a psychologist, I am making less now, working more hours than I did 30 years ago.
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@Raye
How can that be? College, especially with an advanced degree, was supposed to be a ticket to easy street. Yours is yet another example of how the American dream has turned into the American nightmare.
As you are someone who probes the mind
perhaps you can answer a question for me. When are people going to wake up?
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The Upshot claims "In other words, the American job market is steady and solid, and not flashing any reason for panic."
The "reason for panic" is that insurance rates continue to rise faster than income; college debt continues to rise faster than income; home prices and rents continue to rise, putting more and more Americans in a position to pay more and more for housing.
Incomes for most Americans have fallen since the Great Recession, while only a tiny number of Americans have grown incredibly rich.
Yes, there is "reason for panic." And it is plain to all Americans.
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@Sean
And that's why people support the president? Make America great again? Huh?
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@DaveB
Oops, I think you missed the memo: The slogan is now "KEEP America Great," implying that Trump has already returned the country to greatness.
9
If only it were indeed plain to all negatively-effected Americans.
13