Wage growth at fastest pace since Great Recession, and we get a boring headline and story gets buried?
Booming economy is good for ALL Americans, especially minorities.
Please don't downplay good news for partisan purposes.
4
My firm hires lots of people. Mostly highly skilled. In my little corner of the economy, the labor market is tight and wages are rising. Job offers are getting rejected at an increasing rate as candidates find better offers. This is real. I'm also a Democrat and I think that impressions like this - what's happening on the ground - will be credited to Trump. It's simple association - he's in office and times are good. It doesn't matter that Bush tanked the economy, Obama saved our butts, and what's happening now is because of Obama's steady hand. People have short memories and live in the moment. This is a problem for my party because even I have this little, subversive whisper in the back of my head that says, you know that if they win, the Democrats will restart the regulation machinery and raise taxes, and the economy will slow. If I'm thinking this, and other moderates are thinking this, and all Republicans are thinking this, I think that's a problem. It's always the economy.
15
There are no denying the numbers, but do these jobs offer a livings wage? Are the salaries commensurate with what a white, middle class, high-school or collage graduate earned in the 1950's?
My gut says no. My gut says these are false measures of success. The health of the economy is one thing , but what of the health of the workers in that economy?
These are not Marxist ideas or Communist ideas or even socialist ideas - this common sense.
With the astronomical rise of wealth inequality in this country we need a different measure of success that a corporate one. After all, is this not supposedly a country to be of the people, governed for the people and by the people?
6
In other words CEO wages are up.
15
Thank you President Obama, for the recovery that started in 2010.
14
Thank you President Trump! Rising wages, record low minority unemployment and a booming economy are entirely due to your policies of tax cuts and deregulation! We The People demand Tax Cut 2.0!! MAGA!
7
President Trump inherited a nightmare economy from Obama. President Trump fixed it for the benefit of all Americans!
3
Can anyone image how Trump will handle a financial crisis? The man cannot handle good times. He is going to rob the country blind. Unchecked Trump and the senatorial majority which represents only 18% of the population.
7
The fed will start taking the punch bowl away. Probably headed for a standard interest rate driven recession next year
3
Wage and salary increases remain a paltry disgrace. But, of course, they have to pay for the obscene tax cut given to the wealthy. What a country!
8
This is only possible after 8 years of a real president Obama repair of the disaster of 8 years of George Bush the economy doesn’t turn on who’s in WH but rather by the policies of the WH and it takes time now as we watch Trumps policies will soon prove to be disastrous
6
A sure sign of the sugar high of phony tsx cuts
What goes up will crash
Hard
9
Ten thousand retire every day. 201000 - 300000 = -99000.
1
How many Americans still need to work two jobs, or more, to make ends meet?
10
Although I am happy that wages are rising, the real issue is whether the wages are living wages. Can the employee afford rent, health care costs, and transportation - all basics without which they live in actual poverty. Other advanced countries have a starting minimum wage of $17-18 along with humane government policies that result in affordable health care, affordable childcare, accessible mass transit infrastructure, etc. We have a long way to go.
15
Thank you Obama, for turning the economy around and starting a market expansion that continues to this day!
7
Short memories. When Obama's economy was floundering, he and Democrats routinely blamed Bush. Now that the numbers look better under Trump the same folks credit Obama? Can't have it both ways. The buck stops at the top either way.
7
Um, things did sort of crater under Bush, if you review your history.
13
The current president inherites the ecocomic legacy of his predecessor. Obama took over G. W. Bush's mess, cleaned, and turn the ecocomy over. Trump picked up Obama's economic ascent and inertia. You are right that you cannot have it both ways, but that argument does not apply here.
10
This article does not represent my reality or that of most of the people I know, spanning from working-class people juggling two jobs to professionals with 20 years of experience.
The only people in my circle who are doing better work in the banking sector.
8
How about al the very rich that are paying way less taxes now while real people can barely pay for health care? How about states like WV, Oklahome and Kansas that are solidly Republican that cannot pay teachers as they vote for even more Republicans? Blame all problems on: Liberals, China, NATO, and Mexicans.
5
So the bottom line is: look at the graphs that Trump's Labor Department is producing, and you see NO Trump dent AT ALL.
Nothing.
And all experts agree that his first tariff increase isn't producing any effects yet, whereas tariff increases corresponding to what he promised on the campaign trail weren't even implemented yet.
That explains why there is no Trump/GOP trend visible here: they simply didn't pass any major piece of economic legislation or implement any major part of Trump's economic agenda yet.
And they probably won't ever do something serious, when it comes to the economy, in the near future either, because why would they? They told their sheep that this kind of economy was very bad, when Obama created it, and GOP voters believed them, and now they tell them that the exact same economy is very good and caused by Trump, and GOP voters once again blindly believe them, and even use it as an excuse for the utter absence of moral character in DC today.
We should all thank Obama and the Democrats who sacrificed tons of political capital (and many even their jobs and career) in order to pass the Recovery Act and to cut Bush's record $1.4 trillion deficit by two thirds, all while developing stable trade and international relationships. Because without what the GOP has shown was the foundation for a decade-long steady economic growth, HOW would the markets have reacted to so much turbulence in DC today ... ?
12
How much do those robots earn at the customer call centers ?
And last week I called a federal government agency and finally gave up after waiting 50 minutes to speak to a human.
4
@John Taylor the robots cost a certain amount to purchase. I’m sure there are ongoing cost such as electricity, maintenance, upgrades, etc as well. Whatever the costs they are less than the artificially high minimum wage imposed by the far left in violation of the laws of economics. The left’s artificially high wages are driving the demand for robots exactly as predicted!
"There are lies, damnable lies and statistics." That statement is true because there are so few people who really understand statistics and what makes them more or less valid. Especially in the media there seems to be a complete lack of understanding about how to report on statistics.
5
Great to see the Obama era economic policies continue generating positive results.
Too bad to see GOP and Trump era policies continue to reduce manufacturing and agriculture jobs.
Of course, international trade and security relations are also at all all time low.
12
Question: if it’s still Obama’s economy, why didn’t it tank after Trump reversed all his policies?
10
@Ed Give it time. If you look at the dow on a graph over the past ten years, you can see that it has slowed down considerable after President Obama's budget ran out last Dec. Inflation has taken most of the wage growth and the Republican attack on health care is causing that industry to take even more.
12
@Ed
Which economic policies did he reverse? Trump inherited a red hot economy then he threw gas on the fire with a $350 billion stimulus in the form of debt financed tax cuts for the 1% and additional military and social spending.
That $350 billion is the same amount that Obama invested in getting us out of the Bush recession. And we didn't get a single road or hospital or airport constructed from the Trump give away.
15
@Joe Barnett Interest rates have been rising for the past 3 years...that hurts borrowing and spending. Consumer confidence is high right now and is driving consumption...how is THAT a result of an Obama policy as he's been out of office 2 years now?
2
Enjoy higher wages, more jobs, employer confidence while it lasts. When impeachment proceedings begin businesses will panic. It wont be a rosy picture.
4
There is almost never a connection between what happens in Washington DC on a daily basis and what happens on Wall Street.
Even IF the Dems win the House, they will not win the Senate (they could easily lose seats). Impeachment proceedings will simply be a way for Dems to vent and put a halt to any further Trump action requiring the support of Congress.
Wall St. could easily rally after the Dems take back the House, as it will cause paralysis in DC, which will translate into status quo = stability. The stock market's favorite state.
@Daphne Sanitz Why would businesses panic? It's the House and senate that run this country. Along with the independent Federal Reserve.
“This is the strongest labor market in a generation of workers,” said Andrew Chamberlain, chief economist at the career site Glassdoor.
Isn’t this what Trump promised and ran on? Democrats respond with denial when they’re not trying to take the credit for it. According to Obama, it’s still his economy. Then the credit for Obama’s economy should go to Bush even though there was that little slip up known as the collapse of the banking system in 2008, Did Obama take credit for that? If there was any blame, Obama certainly wasn’t having any of it. That’s why not one single bank executive went to jail. Now one wonders if he will take credit for the next collapse. This hypocrisy has to stop, but I guess it’s okay if Obama is the one dishing it out.
8
@Ed you obviously have a reading problem. Obama never said it's still his economy. The article is more nuanced than what you understand with that one line.
How about reading the last two paragraphs at the end of the article beyond this one:
"Christine McDaniel, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and a former White House senior trade economist, said it was still too early for the effect of the tariffs to show up in the data."
3
US debt ($21.3 trillion) and household debt ($13.2 trillion) are at record levels. How long can we keep borrowing to extend our spending spree? It's equivalent to getting cash from a new home equity loan. The borrower feels flush after getting the loan but reality sets in after the first payment.
11
A few comments,
Fattened? 200,000 jobs is the average gain in a recovering economy that Obama started 10 yrs. ago. That is like saying my stomach fattened after I ate an average healthy meal. Part of the addition is due to the near term trillion dollar corporate welfare give away by the republicans on the back of those 200,000 workers and everybody else that will have to pay the bill with the ballooning deficit.
Some states and companies have mandated a $15 minimum wage. Trump and the republicans did not do this, democrats cried out for it. The rest of the states and companies are just catching up.
Last but not least, I don't see good paying blue collar jobs coming back in any meaningful manner (unless you consider corporate welfare deals like in Wisc.) now or in the near future. My step kid was laid off from an ad min job at $25 an hour and nwt she can't get one for $15 an hour.
11
@Raul Campos- Thank you for your reply Raul, a few points,
1-Yes it took longer but the recession was the greatest in modern history.
2-Yes, he added to the deficit, but that is what was called for at the time to stimulate the economy. It has been done since modern economic theory has been followed and the people got the money, not millionaires or corporations.
3-Trump is adding trillions in the near term to the deficit but billionaires and corporation are getting it mainly to buy back stock and the average worker will pay for it with ballooning deficits.
2
That's why conservative pundits called it the Great Recession through 2016. No matter how you twist it, the country was climbing out of it by 2010 with a steady if too slow growth quarter by quarter. The GOP dominated Congress after 2010 didn't exactly cover themselves in glory either even as corporate profits reached record levels. You have to wonder what Trump and the current congressional make would have done if they faced what Obama did in 2009: the worst situation since 1933, with 750,000 jobs a month going down the drain and 2/3 of the American auto industry giving off a death rattle.
1
"and average hourly earnings rose by 10 cents"
That comes to $4.00 a week, after taxes that will get you a subway ride, one way.
5
According to this chart the highest growth seems to be in 2015. The wage increase noted is an average. Does that average include the very large executive compensations that have been dispensed? Where exactly are the jobs if manufacturing has declined, etc.? It appears as I read through that the job growth is in early hiring for seasonal workers and raising their pay to retain them. It's a fairly convoluted article. Sure would appreciated a more concisely written piece.
2
As someone who has worked on and off in the service sector, I haven’t seen wages improve. I was paid the same in the mid- nineties as is the going rate now.
If that’s the case in Massachusetts I can only imagine how bad it is other places.
6
What is one to understand?
The article cites a dozen or so professional "economists" who can do no better than express some personal views on the matter--mostly self evident generalizations. Do we need an economist to inform us that conditions vary by region? Or that knowledge is tainted by color viz., "left-leaning economists".
The future for "jobs" (wage labor) does not fare well...either in numbers or in customary preferences. BLS data speaks for itself. (Table 1.4 Occupations with the most "job growth", 2016 and projected 2026)
Jobs were meant for an industrial period that required human labor in provision of the essential components for individual and civil society life. Jobs have since become primarily the means for income.
And as source for necessary income we create jobs for ourselves from all manner of excesses and disasters. Nearly 20 percent of the GDP ($3 Trillion) and 13 Million jobs are in health care, and mental disorders are the costliest medical condition in the country. Substance disorder, diabetes, obesity, video-game addiction and purposefully hurting one-another contribute billions to GDP and jobs.
Cannabis is the future growth industry with manufacturing jobs. Meanwhile the private security service industry is valued at $44 Bil. and provides 800,000 jobs. While school campus security has become a multi-billion sector with growing employment.
Maslow had us destined for "self-realization" and Keyenes for leisure.
3
No matter how well things are going, there are always those who are malcontents and do everything within their power to rock the boat until it overturns.
As reported yesterday in the Times, if the Dems get a majority in Congress, they plan on launching investigations into all aspects of the Trump administration. But they don't want to publicize that before the election, because if they do, voters who don't want the boat rocked will come out on Election Day and defeat them. So, if that is the case, the Democrats tacitly admit that their agenda is not popular with the electorate as a whole, and if their agenda is known, they will be defeated.
I wish Schumer and his cohorts will come out and tell us exactly what their economic plan is if they are able to take control. I doubt they have one, other than maintaining a large pool of illegal alien workers who fall outside the law, and therefore can be overworked and underpaid in an alternate shadow labor market.
10
@RM Ahem, 3 million more "the electorate as a whole" voted for democratic policies in 2016 and they will do so again in 2018.
4
@XManLA
Then why don't they want to publicize their secret agenda of endless and pervasive investigation?
@XManLA
Bill Clinton was elected in 1992 with only 43 percent of the popular vote, and re-elected in 1996 with 49 percent. He never got a majority of popular votes. If we are going to be making up new rules for past elections other than the ones provided for in the Constitution, Clinton should have run in a runoff against the elder Bush, and also should have had a runoff against Dole.
1
The observation that “Over the past year, for example, roughly 68,500 ZipRecruiter postings for administrative assistants attracted over 8.1 million applications, or 118 responses on average for every job” has a sad undercurrent.
Administrative assistant applicants are 90% female. Many of them may have been excellent in academics in childhood but misguided to irrelevant majors like Women’s Studies, Gender Studies, languages, and other humanities majors in college that do not provide them with skills valuable in the job market.
Soon there will be a survey that will show salaries for women are only, say, 70 cents to a dollar compared to men. And, President Trump and his alleged misogyny are to blame. Men with less proven academic abilities compared to women are more likely to pursue vocational training or military service making them more competitive in the job market and more earning potential. Getting degrees in irrelevant majors may prepare them to cry victimization but it will stigmatize them for life and depress their ability to earn competitive wages.
2
@Appu Nai Wow, a whole lot of assumptions there about 'irrelevant' humanities majors. Fyi, I have just as many male as female friends with those useless majors and we've all done quite well for ourselves. Because those majors taught us how to think critically, something that it may surprise you is considered an asset by many high-wage employers.
And when important jobs that traditionally employ more women, like teaching and nursing, are valued as much as those vocational jobs men do that require less education, then we will stop complaining about wage disparity.
15
@Appu Nair administrative assistant jobs got nothing to do with college majors or irrelevant women's studies. I can't believe in this day and age a man would write such misogynistic nonsense. The article clearly mentions lack of typing skills and being able to speak on the phone. Not everyone is trained to speak properly to business customers. It takes training. When I was in high school in those days they had typewriters. I learned to type in one of the classes back then. My school was a former all girls high school that switched to allow boys in. So I was lucky to learn typing skills. You should ask yourself what are the 8.1 million applicants applying for 68,500 jobs what kinds of jobs these people have now when Trump is constantly bragging about low unemployment? Remember when he was running he said that the unemployment numbers were phony and actually higher? Now he no longer says that. The fact is there are still people who dropped out and can't find work. Or much older people who are out of the job market and maybe discriminated against. The only people who stand a chance to get jobs are those with licenses and skills in demand like nurses. And it takes time to accomplish that. As the article says many would like to go back to school but do not have the money.
2
Getting excited about economic growth essentially funded with tax giveaways is absurd, as is crowing about 3.9% wage growth when wages are already so depressed after five decades of real shrinkage.
This is non-news except to economists and statisticians, who are prone to believe that even such discouraging results are indications as "Good times are here again!" A more objective view of the economy would discover not just pockets but growing regions of economic despair ... yes, right here in America.
More Trump OBM shell gaming.
12
Obama had a 1.6 GDP his last year. Overall he had the worst recovery from a recession ever. We were told this was the new normal.
Now the economy is as good as I can remember. Factory hiring is at a decade high. Wages are going up. My taxes are down and I'm pocketing 300 more dollars a month.
But all CNN and MSNBC talks about is "Russia". What a bubble they live in. Most Americans simply don't care that much.
11
@Ari nice repetition of Trump's claims about GDP except you are cherry picking only the metric that fits Trump's claims -- however since World War II, the American economy has typically grown for about five years and then had a contraction. The expansion under Obama was already over seven years old by the time Trump took office.
Also, the average pace of job growth in this recovery had already topped what happened during the 2001 to 2007 expansion under President George W. Bush with the economy gaining a net 11.6 million jobs, the unemployment rate dropped to below the historical norm before Trump was in office. Average weekly earnings for all workers were up 4.0 percent after inflation. After-tax corporate profits also set records, as did stock prices. The S&P 500 index rose 166 percent. You got 300 dollars a month, whoopee doo, meanwhile Trump's budget is spiking the debt to rev up a economy that was already revved up.
20
@Ari Obama also had several quarters about 4.0 GDP, including one at 5.2. So let me know when Trump achieves that, or even an annual rate above 3.0.
And $300 more a month? What tax bracket are you in?
Some of us talk about the environment and the incalcuable harm Trump is doing to it while others just don't care.
It is great there there are more jobs and that manufacturing is coming back and more people own homes and fewer are on government relief etc. But have some of our forgotten "company towns" been rebuilt or revitalized? Little is said about that. Old abandoned factories and mills could be renovated bringing new life to the old company towns. While such an effort would certainly be expensive and wages not as high as folks would like, it could be an answer to the immigration problem. Out of the shadows, and properly registered, they would provide the bulk of the labor at a decent wage to rebuild. Dreamers with college could provide management. Many dreamers have degrees in medicine and engineering. All could earn a path to citizenship via sweat equity. Families kept together. Assimilation. And understanding. And the economic growth could continue. It would continue.
With all that possibility lying before us yet stifled by a rabid political left and right, the question must be asked: Is the glass half full or half empty?
1
What’s a REAL living wage??? Not 15 dollars an hour - not 18 dollars an hour - try living on either of those amounts and pay for a decent place to live, healthcare, auto insurance, groceries, utilities, maybe a movie out once a month, clothing, gas...good luck! How wonderful that corporations are doing well, as are the richest among us. Sadly, I don’t fall into either category.
21
Whole Foods want a union in their ranks so they can get more money for hour working. More than 75 percent of Disney employees can't afford to pay the rent. Have to vote in their city to force Disney to pay 18.00 an hour. The wages moved higher for the CEO's than for the workers . Typical way it turns out when the GOP are in charge.
12
@MF and who controlled the Congress for most of Obama's presidency? Remember Mitch McConnell and his tactics filibustering anything Obama wanted? Or the House of Representatives voting to repeal the ACA over 45 times? Had Obama got a congress like what Trump has now he could have done a lot more for the American people.
2
@MF Obama was busy fighting the worst economic collapse in America since the Great Depression, promulgated by George W. Bush and his criminal banker buddies. Trump is getting a free ride, being dragged on Obama's coat tails.
1
Trump, an animal, woke up the animal spirits
=======
Animal spirits is the term John Maynard Keynes used in his 1936 book The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money to describe the instincts, proclivities and emotions that ostensibly influence and guide human behavior, and which can be measured in terms of, for example, consumer confidence.
2
More jobs. Lower wages.
5
"... Wages Moved Higher in August
NO. That is NO
Real wages (nominal minus inflation) stayed flat
22
The economy works for Wall Street ; and not for tout average Jane/Joe on Main Street .
10
In response to medianone who wrote
"Unionized jobs, with higher pay, steady hours and better benefits are by far the most coveted." --- If this is true it makes you wonder why there aren't more people advocating for, and joining unions.
The answer is: Industrial unions became powerless after Nafta, as the response to demand for wage increases was to move the factory to Mexico.
Public worker unions (Teachers etc) are in a better position. But then they are not classical Unions, with workers on one side, the owner of capital aks factory owner on the other side. Rather, they resemble political lobbying groups, in that they have a say on whom sits on the other side of the table. Their power waxes and wanes with the amount they can raise for campaign contributions.
Unfortunately for workers the financing of the Democratic Party has been taken over by Wall Street (google top campaign contributors to Charles E Schumer), or look into the fundraising of Andrew Cuomo.
So both industrial and public Unions are withering.
Disclosure: Prior to going to University I was unionized, worker. plating bumpers, then moving to a company making centerless grinding machines for automotive camshafts.
4
@Woof Unions also are perishing at the hands of Republican state legislatures passing "right to work" laws that actually are "right to work for peanuts" laws. Plus the recent Supreme Court ruling that essentially extends right-to-work on a national basis. The owners of the means of production have the means to dictate public policy via lobbies and lavish expenditures on elections.
11
This is an antiquated, outdated and misleading measurement for the state of the economy. It's a number that get's paraded by politicians every month and while many want to believe what is claimed, it's just not what it purports to be.
7
@M.Dziak Yes, it's rather disappointing that the Times' was unable or unwilling to get beyond sheer statistics to describe what's actually occurring, both on the books and off of them. Here it's just parroting Administration lines, maintaining the pretense that meager gains will improve the lives of the vast majority of Americans. This is basically just publishing White House press releases and random opinions among the rich, corporate managements, and politicians on one or another gravy train.
The really depressing part of this op ed is not the content itself it’s the usual bickering going on among the commenters myself included, Democrats thanking Obama for setting up a recovery Republicans patting themselves on the back. Fact of the matter is neither of them have control over the economy or even their own decisions, the whole thing is a charade. The Fed controls the economy to a great extent. Both sides are nothing more than paid lackeys of multinationals and financiers both domestic and international, they pick the winners and losers , they determine who we bomb next, they determine who we sanction and what countries suffer. The only answer has historically been when those powers are removed or dealt with in a bloody, brutal fashion. I wish it weren’t so but it seems to be the human condition, force and violence ultimately seem to be the only deterrent to greed, we saw that in the French, Russian and Chinese Revolutions, we saw it in the Second World War and the attendant atrocities, I hope history isn’t getting ready to repeat itself but with hedge funders, tech titans and the Uber rich buying themselves “ bolt holes” the world over I hate to bet my life on it.
7
Wow. What a surging economy the US has at present. Soak it up. Well done!
6
Every jobs report should talk about the kinds of jobs created. The headline should not just be the total number. The implication is that there are plenty of good jobs being created, so the economy is doing well.
But that's not the case. First, can we see the division between part-time and full-time jobs? Jobs being added are low-paying service sector jobs, not better-paying manufacturing jobs people lost in the recession.
Here's a political point I would make if I were running: if the economy is so hot, are YOU seeing it? Is YOUR pay going up? Are you fully employed? If you aren't seeing a hot economy at your kitchen table, then where is it?
29
After tax corporate profits for the S&P 500 are up 16% - which essentially reflects the enormous tax cuts recently enacted by the Republican Congress.
Wages are up less than 3%, which means essentially flat when adjusted for inflation.
Some 'trickle down.'
18
@chambolle This gap as it grows will be the death of our democracy. As an Australian economist once opined, a very few have billions, even trillions of dollars to influence the economy and public policy, while everyone else has mostly debt and but one vote to elect someone very likely to toadie up to the rich.
4
Hundreds of billions of dollars in deficit spending led to the recovery from the 2008 financial disaster. Obama was president then. Similar amounts are accelerating the recovery now. Donald Trump is president now. It's time to stop arguing about who's responsible for our great economy and start realizing that we fund economic growth with massive debt. Both presidents and both parties are responsible for our near-bankrupt fiscal situation. Nobody should either be celebrating or pointing the finger in the opposite direction.
6
@Charlie Reidy respectfully, au contraire ... there isn't a lot of spending. There's less revenue. Less revenue is causing the surge in deficit.
12
@Charlie Reidy The situations were completely different. Government SHOULD spend when in a recession as in Obama's case. It should not deficit-spend when economy is doing well--unless it's an investment, like infrastructure.
17
@Susan The money that has been spent to help individuals has been spit in the bucket. We need a new New Deal. You know who’s hiring lots of people right now in Colorado? Amazon. Warehouse jobs. Corporations have not helped workers in forty years - they’ve gutted benefits and wages are flat. I agree that deficit spending is essential to heal the economy for everyone.
1
In addition to average wage growth which includes the raises for the ultra high wages paid at the top end, I would like to see median wage growth reported. And/or report wage growth by employed population deciles, 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, 100%. Then I would know what people like me are making and what raises we are getting.
15
Still, the wage increase is below inflation, so not something to shout from the rooftop, outside Trumpettes.
12
If we are using 200,000 job gains a month as the benchmark for success, that level has been reached in 50% of the months since Trump became President, compared to 50% of the quarters since the job recovery began in 2010.
On an annual basis, 2017 was the third worst year since 2010 for total job gains.
As for the effect of upper income and corporate taxes, the two years following the Obama Administration rollback of W Bush tax cuts saw the 200,000 mark exceeded in 17 or 70% of the 24 months, compared to 4 or 44% of the 9 months since the Trump tax cuts took effect.
GOP tax cuts aren't about workers.
20
Damn another good job report. I cant wait for the day that we enter the next recession so that I can say I was right! If only China would win this trade war, it will be good when those Trump supporters lose their jobs and get what they deserve! Of course I won't be affected by any recession because I'm an educated woke liberal. I want America to fail because it will prove my point that America is an evil racist nationalist place that deserves to crash and burn. When it does I can join the ranks of global citizens who have no need for things like homes or even nations. I will travel from gig to gig and enjoy the diversity and multiculturalism of other people who have homes and cultures and nations.
18
@Jacqueline You are so wrong. I'm glad you are doing well and this report coincides with your experience. Others rightly point out that it does not match their experience. Still others point out that anything beyond a purely cursory glance at the numbers shows a somewhat different story. You only make sense to your own cloistered choir.
I don't imagine you or anyone wants others in our country to do badly. I can assure you that 'liberals' want everyone to do well, probably even more than you do. That is exactly why they are liberals.
7
If this is such great news, why is the market dead as a smelt?
8
@Douglas Lowenthal: Because a good stock market will eventually push up interest rates which created the “ great market” to begin with which will in turn encourage the risk off alternative of putting your money in safe investments at a fair return and expose the great market for what it really is, a ponzi scheme no longer dependent on making things that people want and selling these items at a profit, rather now it is based on financial engineering, disruptive business models and vulture capitalists takeovers destroying what was built by the prior generation.
6
The Obama recovery continues!
16
Against all adds I may say !!! @Maxie
1
Hmm.. In the era of cognitive deficient pathological ideological illogically old foolish rich self-enriching treasonous liars, as Trump, who will never get used to the fact that our modern total Surveillance society works superb on their own lies too, I'd take any of their "Alternative Truth" including ALL their dubious fabricated numbers about the supposed health of the U.S. economy as what it is: Religious conservatives' alternative lies.
But, you all will see then when the ongoing fake economic curtains come crashing down, what I meant right now.
Until then: Happy profiteering and fake "growing" till that pathological BUBBLE bursts too. As usual in gambits.
Best,
A.E.
2
Great point!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!¡!!
If I were Donald Trump, I'd be on my knees every morning and evening thanking God that President Obama left me such a strong economy.
25
Only someone on the left side of the political spectrum can find an economic report concerning employment that is objectively positive as a negative. Intellectual honesty is dead. Or, perhaps, all kinds of intellect are withering away . . . .
14
@JDB
throwing out non-verifiable non-mathematical Alternative fake economical garbage, after perpetually being caught as LIARS and after Trump-crony are trying to crash and crush the entire world-economy, is not growth nor success, you conservative "genious"-AstroTurf.
Besides, creating and running a violent homicidal criminal mass-internment and "Russian" NRA-armed mass murderers Police-state and religious hyper-militarism are not job-creating, just Fascism and Nazism FYI. Try reading up on those two terms.
Godless Best,
A.E.
Projectheureka LLC;
1
@JDB Note how often those who attack others' positions on issues, primarily because of their political affiliation, are those on the right. It's a well-known technique for insulating one's own (in our current situation, Republican) party comrades from thoughtful critique.
1
The economy has picked up under Trump and it represents business moving their money out of safe havens into equities and well as into production, releasing some untapped potential. It represents the dominance of anti-tax and anti-regulatory attitudes amongst people in business. While they want a strong and vigorous court system to protect themselves and a strong government that keeps things stable and predictable and provides an open and always available infrastructure, they oppose constraints of any kind upon themselves and unions and paying any taxes which do not directly benefit themselves. Trump is giving them what they want and it makes them willing to invest in the economy. But when unemployment reaches below 4% it is supposed to represent full employment but the details in this article clearly show no such thing. Too many people are competing for each opening for this to be true and wages and salaries are not rising fast enough to indicate full employment. Providing incentives with fixed rather than variable costs is another clue of weak demand.
The consumers in the aggregate are not consuming more than they have been, and that is why employers are still able to find employees willing to take what they are offered and why so many are applying for every one job openned. The economy is not growing fast enough to enable all who want to work to earn enough to be consumers who demand a lot more. The way we measure the economy is really not telling the whole story.
5
The real issue is wages. Jobs are important but most of us haven't had a fair raise in awhile and/or no raise along with vacant position huuring being frozen.
11
@Rose
Indeed there are various things obviously very wrong with the whole Trump's crazy-town' "employment & GROWTH"-Formulas, when these extreme cronyism-and instituted discriminating-based and fatalistic rich-to poverty-divergence within the American working-class are the usual resulting reality:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/04/teacher-pay-study-droppe...
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/aug/16/ceo-versus-worker-wage-...
P.S.: The oldest colluded Mathematical lies are often more effective than the theoretical and linguistic lie: Most of our religious "Common sense" people just don't know THAT much Mathematics sadly.
Best,
A.E.
Projectheureka LLC;
1
I love how everybody just takes Labor Dept reports at face value as if they aren't subject to pressure from the Trump administration to have "good news" ahead of the midterms. So easy to change measurement metrics on the fly. Maybe the time for Pollyannaish trust is over.
4
The job numbers are good but not great. The loss of jobs in the industrial section is the canary forecasting the impact of the tariffs this administration has and is imposing on imports. As usual, this is the first report on August job and employment market, this will be revised.
We need to watch the stock markets to see if the rosy economic predictions of this administration are on the horizon.
2
Thank you Mr. Obama!
10
The numbers are strong enough as they stand; any upward revisions would likely paint an even brighter picture of the longevity of the Obama recovery.
7
It is quality, not quantity that counts, and the statisticians (and media) are not getting it. Talk about false news! How many of these 210,000 jobs come with benefits, pensions, labor union protections? How many are "big box" store jobs, part time, or hard labor? How good is the economy for the middle class, really? In reality, the Trump Tax break has done little for the middle class, barely paying for higher gas prices at the pump, and higher food prices at the supermarket. That is the real news.
8
Walmart, Amazon and all other corporations that pay their workers so little they have to rely on taxpayer-funded food stamps is not acceptable since the economy is booming for these corporations. A living wage is needed not more low paying jobs where you can't pay your basic living expenses. Who are the "real" welfare queens in the country?
19
@Amazon Warehouse Worker Hourly Pay. The typical Amazon Warehouse Worker salary is $13. Warehouse Worker salaries at Amazon can range from $10 - $19.
How much more per hour do you want unskilled workers to make?
5
@Jacquie - Even Walmart store employees have been doing better the past couple of years, averaging about $13/hr for full time workers and $10/hr for part-time. Its not where it needs to be, but the improvement should be recognized.
7
@Tara Enough that someone working 40 hours a week doesn't need to rely on food stamps...
5
Very good numbers. Very good article.
Yet the commentators are mad about it. Amazing.
You comment on the disparity of salary offered and requested. This depends on who is calling in for a job.
I had a young person call in for a job, did not send a resume or show up, she cold called. She has not worked in my industry at all, no experience or knowledge, had an MBA in some Liberal subject.
Yet she wanted to work from home, part time, not come in to the office at all, on her own hours, and 40K starting salary because of her MBA.
So yes we were hiring, and I would definitely consider some one new and unexperienced as I can train them better. Yet I cannot give some one 40K for not even showing up to work. She got real upset when I told her no, if she came in she was in the same boat as the rest of the staff. She told me I did not know how to deal with young workers, and ‘the work place nowadays’; I’ve been in my industry 20+ years, and have run 2 companies; yet I was the dumb one.
So I wished her good luck. So yes there is a large gap between offer and request, but come one, be realistic about it please.
13
@Shark
"MBA in some Liberal subject"
All of the MBAs I know have completed postgraduate work in business.
12
Of course we have a robust economy. Irresponsible tax cuts and deficit spending will stimulate the economy every time. But they were not needed. The economy was already good. The boom will inevitable be followed by a bust and these tools for trying to contain the damage are now taken away from us. You can't add more deficit spending on top of the huge deficit that is mounting every day. Trump and his Republican enablers have hobbled this country for years to come.
8
As a Democrat, I'd like to take a moment to thank Donald Trump
for not ruining the years of solid job creation Obama started back in 2010, after the last incompetent Republican drove America into a recession. Also wage stagnation is still a massive problem for real Americans who didn't get handed a "small $12M loan" to run an existing business.
10
Seasonally adjusted?
Imagine a household that decides to go on a summer spending spree, use up its savings, live well until the money runs out. Life will be great until the reckoning.
This administration cut taxes (temporarily for the middle class) and provided other windfalls for corporations and the wealthy. The many principled opponents projected an initial euphoria followed by a reckoning as the deficit soars by $1.3 trillion and hypocritical Republicans demand reductions in Government spending meaning poor and middle class health insurance, social security, education et. al, state and local budgets. Add mind-numbing tariffs that hurt American industry and exports while depressing international growth. Then there is national divisiveness, declining international prestige and hardening dictatorships, hostilities.
It is not the swamp but the US Treasury that is being drained. The reckoning is coming so enjoy the goodies while they last...
3
@Chris Parel - Consumer spending is what's fueling this economy. Eventually people will run out of money and will be sitting there with bills to pay while facing an inevitable recession once the consumer spending stops.
2
10,000 baby boomers retire each day x 20 days per month.
Some (perhaps most) must be replaced.
What is the mystery about these job reports?
3
"Unionized jobs, with higher pay, steady hours and better benefits — such as airport baggage handler positions — are by far the most coveted, she said."
But, but, they said unions were the evil keeping everyone from being rich!? How can this be?
14
I remember in 2007 wondering how housing prices could keep going up they way they were. I certainly didn't predict the recession, but it just didn't add up for me. I have the same feeling now. There is a lot of chaos in the US and world, yet economy is surging. Maybe it's different this time . . .
2
When Obama saved us from another Great Depression, followed by an incredible streak of economic gains over many years (which Trump now takes credit for), every good job report was reported as "Yes pretty good numbers BUT ..." followed by carping about e.g. not all jobs were high paid. Magically, when Trump takes office, all of that carping has disappeared from the statistics headlines. What gives?
7
President Obama borrowed money to get the economy moving. Trump is borrowing more money to keep the economy moving. The real take away is; we have an economy that depends on debt. It's hard to get excited about that.
4
@Charles did #45 borrow ? I think he is giving it away, since the corporate tax rate has been slashed.
3
@Wayne Tikkanen
did #45 borrow ? Both borrow and give away, I assume. He certainly knows how to play games with other people's money.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/deficit-projected-to-top-1-trillion-startin...
So now people only have to have 2.75 minimum wage jobs to keep up. More jobs and no one in Congress or our president will even dare raise minimum wage. For shame.
10
Obama made jobs happen; Trump takes credit. Vote. Ray Sipe
5
Despite a rising stock market, hefty corporate profits and a low unemployment rate for employers it’s a buyers market where labor is still willing to take what it is offered. That is not how rational markets with rational agents is supposed to work unless something crucial is being ignored. That crucial factor is demand for the productivity of the employees. It’s weak because all the demand is easily served by the status quo, growth is not as great enough to significantly increase the need for labor nor increasing their share of productivity. Even the most selective jobs have eight applicants for every open position. How is this possible? Who are the consumers who are providing the profits for the corporations? It looks like our country’s ability to offer all an opportunity to improve themselves has vanished.
However, it places Republicans’ policies in the scarcity frame where many must endure poverty so that some may enjoy high culture, the ancient justification for inequities of wealth and power. Who needs freedom when one has everything one wants assured by a ruthless dictatorship?
8
Of all the Conspiracy Theories being batted about, how about the apparent Divine Conspiracy that has Trump in the White House simultaneous with a strong, continuing, up-swing in the Economic Cycle?!
This underpenning of his claims of Success can only fortify his potential continuation in Office come 2020. If he’s still around.
So a Divine Conspiracy is the one that concerns and fascinates me. Say what you will, but The Donald is steadfastly running the gauntlet with the flabbergasting extraneous support of his Timing!
Shakespear could only drool at such a storyline.
Russell Ward
1
Please always factor the inflation rate into wage change numbers!! Nominal figures are misleading when inflation is increasing. Geez, c'mon!!
5
Let’s not overlook these two parts in this report:
“The combined 93,000 jobs that the government originally reported for May, June and July was revised down to 62,000”
“Overall job growth for June and July was revised down by 50,000 jobs, bringing the three-month average gain to 185,000”
Are we entering a cycle of pre-announcing great job numbers, taking credit, and then quietly revising them down a few months later?
16
PBS News last night had a segment on companies complaining that they are unable to hire enough workers. The wages offered were $11/hour, rising to $15 (if you were lucky). If workers are so hard to find, why is it that wages are still so low, and often lower than they were 20 years ago for the same work?
The poor wages has a lot to do with having no bargaining power, or the inability to bargain personally; whether in or out of a union. The lack of manual workers is another matter, however:
We've convinced our youth that they all need to go to university to get a better paying job. That's now ingrained in their psyche. So, after four years of college, with professors telling them they're brilliant, and can do anything they want --the world is their oyster -- why would they take a shop-floor factory job? Their arrogance, that which was taught them, not inherited, has made them unprepared to accept such jobs. They want a swivel-chair in an office with a nice view.
I was stunned recently by an article in Smokejumper Magazine that said that Smokejumper bases could not reach their numbers this year. In past years, they used to get scores of applicants for every position. Too much like hard work, I guess.
I grew up during a time where people actually enjoyed hard work and got satisfaction from it. It's just a frame of mind, after all. A frame of mind that has been eroded from our youths minds thanks to the immediate demand for a university education and promises of Shangri-La.
11
Or maybe after paying six figures to get a degree they need a job that pays a salary that enables them to pay their loans back. Factories aren't entitled to a college educated workforce.
9
@James Devlin - maybe our secondary schools aren't providing the real experience about what current manufacturing requires from workers - lots more tech and less grunt work (although there is off the floor). Schools need . the modern tech tools in their "shop classes" to point out that career path - rather than sending folks off to HE with ill defined plans.
5
What will the September numbers look like? Tariffs have to be bitten in Middle America. Just bought Pork Loin at Costco... $1.59/pound. Yes you read that right.. $1.59/pound. Lot’s of pig farmers are loosing lot’s of money. I am not sure you can survive when you slaughter your Sow’s.
On another note.. my husbands company is going through another “retirement” cycle effective January1. The party is almost over. Hold on to your hats and your non adjusted for inflation pay increase.
9
"201,000 jobs were added In August......here's why that's bad."
4
During the Great Recession, employers across the country took the opportunity to purge their payrolls of expensive workers over 50 (or 40). They effectively jettisoned many of them from the productive economy because the same age discrimination (along with the recession) made it impossible to get a new similar job. Some were fortunate enough to get a much lower-paying job in the service sector or the gig economy, but many were forced into premature retirement. They are the Discarded.
The economy improved. But not for the Discarded, who are handicapped not only by age but by the stigma of long-term unemployment. And who could have ever imagined that experience and knowledge would become a liability? The official unemployment numbers conveniently ignore them, as do our elected officials (who don't want to offend donors that originally purged the Discarded and now refuse to hire them).
But those elected officials zealously seek to deprive the Discarded-- who have no chance of getting another full-time job with benefits-- of their health insurance. And their tax cut for the wealthy has already increased taxes for many of the Discarded: When health insurance premiums and copays are already $12,000 or more, the lost personal exemption becomes significant. And that's on top of the "premature distribution" penalties for tapping retirement savings.
The question, then, is how rosy do the official employment numbers have to get before the Discarded become employable again?
28
We'll know when the economy has really improved: when the hungry are fed, the homeless housed, the sick healed, and decent long term health care isn't an elusive dream for anyone.
36
Where in the world does that Socialist Utopia exist or for that matter has ever existed.
9
@Candor Norway; Finland; Sweden - and they do have thriving economies.
2
@Candor I a country where people can own four mansions, yachts and private jets, and still have more money than they could spend in a lifetime, why is it so impossible for you to believe that we cannot afford to accomplish these reasonable goals. Why isn't utopia a goal? It certainly is better than the third world nation economy that we are headed toward.
@paul: And yet, full-time Disney employees in Anaheim are living in their cars or in rental homes with five or six roommates. How is that anything to crow about?
28
I think the caveat to this is a headline further down the page, "Educators across the country are taking second jobs to make a living." What's the use of the jobs report if you need two jobs in order to make ends meet.
35
What was wage growth adjusted for inflation? Negative again, no doubt.
9
Inflation has been tame for some time. Yeah gas prices have fluctuated lately as they always do (thanks a lot Trump!).
1
Incorrect! Inflation is currently wiping out most of the recent nominal wage increases.
4
@Bill - Have you looked at the interest rates on your credit cards lately?
Trump policies win... again.
10
@obummer
BLS is cooking the numbers. Trump said so many times. Many.
7
It’s like you can’t or refuse to read graphs.
5
What policy? He hasn't done anything but destroy, and those chickens have yet to come home to roost.
5
Too many economists, businesses, and politicians continue to ignore the fact that the real cost of living now demands that most workers make a minimum of fifty to sixty thousand dollars a year in order to have any chance at a middle-class life, and that's if they don't want to buy a home, and if they don't have student and credit card debt. Business systems have been engineered to depend upon low-wage labor, and rigged to channel most of the benefits of everyone's labor to a small percentage of the population.
41
Again, a triumph for President Donald J. Trump, the scion of New York! These numbers are what happens when a man who knows the business of business, the top graduate in history from the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business, is sitting in the Oval Office. This is why Americans elected Trump to be the nation's Cheif Executive! These numbers frustrate the Left, proving that their argument for the overthrow of capitalism wrong. Americans want to work, make money for themselves, not for the group. Yes, the Left is wrong and the Right is right! I support the President. I support Trump. Thank you.
12
@Southern Boy - I suggested you look at the charts in the article. In spite of taking out a $2 Trillion loan that we have yet to start repaying, wage growth is not even keeping up with inflation.
18
@Southern Boy
That Wharton urban myth is too funny. He'll release his transcripts about the same time as his tax returns. Like, never!
4
@WeHadAllBetterPayAttentionNow @SouthernBoy Facts don't matter to these people. Has Trump been President for 95 months? No, he hasn't. Something tells me that Obama was getting nearly as much praise from @SouthernBoy for the 70+ months of job growth. The problems that persisted in Obama's economy continue into Trump's as well.
Can't we be just be happy about the series of good economic news? It's a combination of Obama and Trump. Responsibilities don't shift on election day but they don't linger indefinitely. At least Trump hasn't destroyed the economy.
3
Chris...give Trump and the Grand Old Poison some time to work.
It took Bush-Cheney seven years to destroy the American economy in 2008.
Show some patience...Republicans never disappoint.
28
@Chris
Yet, Chris, Yet.
Trump has not destroyed the economy yet. He has laid all the ground work for blowing up our national debt by reducing taxation and pushing inflation and interest rates up. His economic model is to borrow then declare bankruptcy and leave the banks with all the loses - but that doesn't work for a country. When the party of the rich stop we will all feel some serious pain.
19
Your use of the term disappoint implies you’re looking forward to a bad economy to vindicate your views. Strange priorities. Also, Reagan and HW presided over relatively strong economies so apparently republicans do sometimes disappoint.
4
Sounds like it's time for some more tax cuts for billionaires and the simultaneous gutting of Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, SNAP, education and the ACA.
Let's Party like its 1929 and 2008 !
The only thing Republicans are good at is collapsing the economy....give them time....they're working on it.
35
It would be useful to have a breakdown of the data by geography.
Cities such as thriving cities such as SF, LA, NYC vs the hinterlands, decimated by globalization and movement of factories to Mexico
In NY State, the hinterlands are Upstate NY
From Syracuse.com/business-news
Unemployment rate rises in Central New York
Updated April 25, 2018 at 11:01 AM;
"Syracuse, N.Y. -- The unemployment rate in the Syracuse area rose to 5.6 percent in March, from 5.2 percent in the same month last year.
The national unemployment rate fell to 4.1 percent, from 4.6 percent in March last year.
The number of employed residents fell from 292,000 to 285,100.
The area's civilian labor force - the total number of people working or looking for work - has been shrinking. It fell from 308,100 in March of 2017 to 302,000 last month."
https://www.syracuse.com/business-news/index.ssf/2018/04/unemployment_ra...
1
How about that growing trade deficit though?
Trump appears to be making it worse, despite his efforts, best or not. He would say that they, foreign countries, are stealing even more from the USA. Only he won't because it doesn't fit his narrative.
5
Union jobs are the most desirable. Companies can't find workers. Companies, politicians, and the Supreme Court try to squash unions.
Go figure.
14
@danarlington I listen to a story of an employer in Wisconsin who couldn't find trained or good workers for high teen an hour jobs. He scratches his head. When I work in a union factory while in college my salary per hour approached
somewhere around 25 dollars an hour in 2018 dollars when adjusted for inflation. They never had a hard time finding workers. Tehy 25 and hour with benefits there will be lines around the corner.
7
By traditional measures, the national economy's doing fine. One can certainly argue over what the "traditional numbers," don't measure very well at all, or whether this represents some big honking difference from the national economy during Obama's two terms, but overall, we're doing okay.
So why'd Trump's Council of Economic Advisors--you know, the Council that a bunch of reputable businessmen quit?--need to jimmy the numbers?
3
I wish you would also include the nominal increases in hourly earning as such figures are adjusted for inflation. The 2% inflation target promoted by the Fed, on average, pretty much eliminates any wage increases.
5
So the huge job growth that President Obama started still hasn't stalled out in spite of Mr. Trump's bumbling in the international trade arena. Great! Wage increases still aren't keeping up with inflation, when will the market start to recognize the value of labor with higher wages. When will the labor shortage be so serious that it will send employers out knocking on retiree's doors?
8
Probably never. Big corporations have long decided labor was the enemy.
6
Quote: 0.4 percent monthly increase in average hourly earnings relieved some of the anxiety about sluggish wages. “Four-tenths is a lot,” Mr. Gapen said.
What planet are you on? Please provide details. Where is this wage growth. I've seen it my paycheck. Have the working class really seen wage growth? I don't think so.
All the billionaire and millionaires got tax cuts (essentially a wage increase for them) and corporations got a tax cut. The working people of this country get nothing. Wages have been stagnant since the 2008 crisis and 0.4% is "a lot"????
16
So, your specific paycheck is an indicator of lack of wage growth in a country of 325 million people? Wow, we should just fire all the economist and publish your paycheck detail every month.
8
@MB All Americans git Trump'd regressive Tarriff/Sales Tax and have the honor of giving an additional 4-5 billion in farm welfare to American Farmers becasue of Trump. Sorry not the win win most Americans expected
2
So, Trump policies are intend to increase manufacturing jobs yet there is a decrease but, he wants to take credit for the low unemployment rates?
5
Too many comments are attributing this good news to Trump or to Obama. It strikes me that only the most simplistic of analyses would attribute specific trends in the economy solely to a president. Let's just accept the news this article gives and accept the fact these trends started before 2016 without making it all about who the president is or was. The economy is affected by many things, only one of which is the administration in the white house.
12
Dems need to ask each voter is they are satisfied with their wage growth under DJT. I know what the answer would be.
2
@MB Totally satisfied. My famlies take home pay is up. Bigger bonus expected. Very happy here. Concerned democrats will take it away.
12
What line of work are you in?
6
@miken: Well, I'm on track to have the worst year ever in my twenty years of being a freelancer. Why? Because 98 percent of my clientele is located in Europe, and throughout the year, long-time clients have been sending polite emails, saying that they are sorry, but they would currently prefer to work with someone who is not in the United States. Trump has alienated all of our long-time allies in order to cozy up to authoritarian dictators.
On top of that, he is trying to dismantle the ACA, so my family and I might not have insurance next year! How any business can plan with this kind of insanity in the White House is a mystery. I cannot wait for him to be rousted out of office. I have a family to support!
14
As with every article on jobs and the stock market, it is written from the perspective of the owners of the political economy, and they're talking about how well the farm is running. The herd is up, we got more working in the fields, profits are increasing as a result, if not especially because wage growth has lagged so well.
The larger the size of the pool of workers, the greater the income for the very few in charge of it all. Glossed over in this account is the real fact that living on $8 to $18 per hour is not good pay in 2018, and that's the kind of jobs that bounced back after the 2008 recession.
Just look at the picture at the top of the article, and ask yourselves: "Who owns the livestock, the hired hands and the robots?" This article is really about those owners chatting up amongst themselves how well the farm is running and turning a profit: that tobacco filed looks beautiful.
9
After the financial collapse ten years ago we were at bottom.
Any improvement from then is obvious....so lets not count it.
The real expansion started around 2 years ago.
That's when small business started hiring again because of consumer confidence and rising stock market.
All groups from the poorest to the richest are benefitting this time.....including minorities and women.
Most here will choke before they admit that, but it is a fact.
7
@Joe Paper
And how many of these are part-time without benefits? Because that still leaves peoplel in a significant lurch.
1
@Joe Paper
Yet, you will not give any credit for this current economy from the hard work of the previous administration. I wouldn't want you to have a cardiac arrest in an attempt for you to admit that.
3
@Tim
Timmy, Be more open minded. Things are surely much better than they were.
You are smart and know that.
More attention needs to be given to the trillion dollar deficit. Trump and the republican congress have 'juiced' the economy for some people, at the expense of everyone else. History tells us what happens next.
165
Where are the statistics that tell the tale of all the breadwinners who must now hold two or three jobs with no benefits in order to make ends meet? Touting these low unemployment numbers does not give a true picture of what’s happening to working class families. They’re working more jobs, harder and longer, and paying for their own medical insurance and not paying into social security.
130
@Deborah Lyons Wages are up, did you miss that? How do you, "not paying into social security" if you are being paid and not above the threshold for SS?
The facts are the economy is getting stronger due to less government regulation and interference, and you would prefer more government control. I know I can spend my money better than the government.
6
@Cliff Go ahead, Cliff, get excited about a 0.4 percent increase in wages if you like. Deborah and others such as myself prefer reality.
@Deborah Lyons Hey Deborah, the part about people working more jobs and more hours is simply not true. Ocasio-Cortez said it and it was quickly debunked by outlets like Politico.
The problem isn't jobs, it's wages. And lack of fringe benefits. Counting in pennies and dollars makes little difference in the lives of many. Affordable medical care, housing, and college, infrastructure, good schools, these are the things that matter to many middle class wage earners. Also, employment opportunities for those over 50, which is becoming a necessary for many. Four tenths is nothing to crow about. People are working low paying jobs and are fighting to keep their head above water. And they are angry at a system that is rigged again them. Sadly, this entire shell game will end when the younger boomers/GenX start to retire with little saved in their IRAs. That is when the entire absurdity of tax breaks to corporations and the wealthy will end.
69
If the job market is so tight and businesses can't find enough skilled people why are so many people over the age of 45 or 50 unable to find decent jobs if they are downsized from a job? Why are employers not willing to train anyone and why are they looking for the perfect match instead of realizing that people do not stop learning at the age of 25?
We have a mismatch in this country in terms of where jobs are and where people are living. We have another mismatch in terms of how much it costs to live and what employers are willing to pay. Employers want to pay entry level wages for years of experience. They don't want to hire enough people to prevent burn out. And Trump and the GOP with their attitudes have nothing to stop this.
This so-called recovery has left more Americans than ever behind the 8 ball. We have at least 2 generations that may never be able to retire, many who cannot afford medical care, and a sizable number who cannot save and live paycheck to paycheck even though they don't want to.
Those 201K jobs are not good jobs if they don't offer security, advancement, and decent benefits. But we know that.
42
We are celebrating because some jobs are now paying $15 an hour? Really? How does one live on that with the true cost of living? True cost of living is when all expenses are factored in-not just those cherry-picked over a three month period (July through September) by the government. Interesting in itself that the government chose those months to compile the numbers instead of, say, the depths of winter-December through February.
21
In spit of Trump, the economy continues the upwards trajectory started by Obama's recover.
Given enough time, he will surely mess things up as he has done so often with his own businesses.
He has done little to help the middle class except to increase the burden of debt on the shoulders of their children.
His deregulation has helped only the rich at the cost of the environment and our health and welfare.
The rich get richer and the rest of us can go to...
Everything he and his fellow Republicans are doing now will come back to bite them where the sun don't shine, soon enough.
Hopefully the Democrats will be able to undo the mess they are creating, after the November elections.
9
More terrific economic news. Record low unemployment. Continued solid job growth. More minorities employed full time than ever before. Inflation under control. Tell us, Democrats, liberals and progressives, what do you have to complain about now?
8
Uh, reality? Like the reality that the news isn't better than it was during Obama's last four years, and wages are still essentially flat?
8
@paul. No one can complain about this kind of economic news. However, I can complain about the fact that Donald Trump is given all the credit for an economy that had been taken out of recession by Obama and had been picking up steam for years before he took office. It is so easy to build on success, so hard to give credit where it is due.
14
@paul
Most folks still can't afford rent despite working decent full-time jobs. Ever wonder why there are working class homeless folks in certain parts of the country?
9
"And in August, the sector shed 3,000 jobs. Most of those losses were in trade-affected industries like automobiles and transportation equipment."
President Trump's trade wars are an attack against America. I'm looking forward to his impeachment next year.
3
95 months of growth. Either Trump's math is off or someone besides him deserves some of the credit.
19
"Four tenths is a lot." Really?
Wake me when I can afford to buy a house.
59
@Occupy Government You can probably afford one in Tracy or Fairfield...or a huge one in Austin or Des Moines.
@Ian
Problem solved. Now let me look at the job market in Des Moines...
Take a look at the misery index and you'll get a more accurate accounting of the state of the economy - the misery index is gradually creeping up to 2014 levels.
https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_misery_index
For Dow Jones, the economy is great - for Doug Jones, not so good.
44
What it means? Not much to the average working American, unless we also get some decent pay with full time employment and benefits.
23
The quality of jobs created is not clear. In jobs
report every job from cancer research to administrative assistant is considered the same. A distribution of jobs by wage level might shed more light on the economic gains of the employed. Jobs in retail , warehouse, nursing assistant or home health care, restaurant/bar are o.k. but nothing to crow about.
7
@s.khan All the data assures us that the demand for those high skill/high pay occupations outstrips supply. There aren't enough people to fill them who are qualified. Those jobs will only be filled here if we have the educated people capable of filling those positions, otherwise, they will go to people in other countries, or nobody at all.
2
@d There are enough educated skilled people to fill these jobs. Businesses don't want to pay for the experience. They don't want to help people relocate to where the jobs are. They require more skills than any one person can have. It's not there is a lack of skills here. There's a lack of willingness to invest in, hire, or train.
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@d
Too bad the GOP wants to continue cutting funds for good public education. If there aren't enough qualified, educated people for to fill these great jobs, perhaps cutting funding for education is the wrong thing to do. RED For ED!
Wow, the state of the American economy keeps triumphantly Trumping along steadly. It is comforting that 200,000 more Americans have found jobs. Everything needs to be done to protect this trend.
18
A job is the best social program. Kudos, President Trump.
17
If you think Trump has anything to do with this modest good news, you're a fool. That rate of job growth is slower than just about any time during the 2nd half of the Obama presidency.
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@Eric Steig - it’s easier to increase the job growth rate when you have 8-10% unemployment, not 3.9%.
1
Thanks. I enjoy this latest alibi. It was EASY to yank us out of that giant sinkhole.
By the way, any news on how easy it is to a) inherit a booming economy, or b) take Clinton's economy and crash it, twice?
1
Are we still kidding ourselves or are we just holding our breath before the economy crashes again
If you think we can keep spending our children's earnings forever you are a fool.
16
Sounds like Trump isn't that bad after all......
17
And down at the bottom of the page you have stories of teachers working 2 and 3 jobs to keep their heads above water.
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@JanTG I’m one of them and I alos have to pay sky high NYC rent.
5
@JanTG: Source: Business Manager, White Plains Public Schools: Average full time equivalent teacher salary: $114,921. Average FTE benefit package: $29,831. Retirement at fully defined wage and benefit package after 25 years of service. Hardly slave labor wages for working 8 months a year.
7
Oh, and the actual average is $68K or so.
https://www1.salary.com/NY/White-Plains/high-school-teacher-Salary.html
See what happens when you look stuff up?
7
This economy is the biggest problem dems will run into during the midterms. Hard to argue these numbers but I am sure Krugman will find an obscure chart and write an oped about how it predicts failure.
17
Great. Now do rent.
7
@Ben Martinez
Leave the Northeast and you will find affordable rent.
@Ian: Oh, so only rich people should be able to live in New York? Who is going to make their lattes and look after their children? A friend's wife was a hotel manager, and she complained that she could never get enough staff, because nobody making the kind of wages the hotel chain was willing to pay could afford to live nearby. Businesses shoot themselves in the foot when they refuse to pay a living wage.
7
@Ian
My friend keeps trying. Unfortunately, it'll take him many years to pay off teh debt incurred by his car breakdown and an unexpected illness. All the while, rent keeps going up faster than her wages. It takes thousands of dollars to move across state lines, assuming you have a job to go to.
As M. Antoinette said, let them eat cake.
Just look at the graphs.
1
Thank you Obama, for steering us out of the economic disaster the Wall Street Boys drove us into.
Thank you for bailing out the auto sector in MI (did they ever say thank you?)
Thank you for your steady hand at them helm.
Unless a person studied economics at Trump U., you know that the economic effects we are seeing now are from causes made under your careful watch.
Just like the disaster that will unfurl in 4 year (just in time to blame a new D president) will have been orchestrated by the immoral and unnecessary fat-cat tax-scam and deficit spending set into motion by DJT.
Speaking of taxes - where are those tax returns ?
And what is he hiding ?
18
@r mackinnon
People don't want to believe that an economy and job market take years to recover and that the previous administration had already sown the seed.
3
You can spin these numbers any way you want, and both sides do, but the bottom line the new “ gig” economy is not an economy that works to lift all boats it is designed explicitly to enrich the rentier class of the “ service economy”. The most damning evidence of just how parasitic this economy and its creators are was the December IPO of CURO a company that owns Speedy Cash, a payday loan lender, those parasitic lenders of last resort for employed people in the gig economy. The lenders designed an algorithm that detects gaps between borrowers paychecks which fluctuate and the bills which don’t and they target those individuals for small loans which they can be tethered too for life at rates exceeding 4,000%. Britain recently closed down one such predatory lender Wonga, as for Speedy and Curo their share price has doubled since December, welcome to the new world of deregulation under President Trump or to quote the prescient darling of Wall Street Alan Greenspan “ we can’t give them raises but we can give them credit”. Does anyone besides myself remember the now seemingly quaint old days when mom stayed home and raised the kids and her husband with his lunch bucket left for a forty hour a week job that supported them all in a home they owned with a car in the driveway and yes “ a chicken in every pot”, and BTW there were no credit cards yet. Ah, “progress and growth” what a double edged sword.
52
These rakers are popping up everywhere, see eg “Oxygen.” Fronts as banking for the 1099 gig econ — with ads on the back of SF Muni busses vying for the uber drivers’ attention, while stuck in traffic. Of course though, thry offer lending services as well.
1
The recent tax cuts were the equivalent of a person taking out a loan for consumption (a trillion over the next decade). More specifically this unfunded tax cut for the rich comes to about $3000 for every person in the country. That should give the economy a boast in its current numbers - but it will have to be paid back with interest and interests interest later. Only a "stable" "genius" would applaud that.
8
Doesn't seem like the additional jobs and wage increases, and the piddling tax cut for the bottom 90%, will make up for tariff war losses, the health care cost rise after crippling Obamacare, or the still low average wages of a huge number of Americans relative to the cost of living in the US. Unless we're fine with bad schools, crumbling infrastructure, and millions of people still without health care.
And, with the widening partisan divide, lots of us angry as well as miserable.
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@Barry Williams w. o .w barry you sure are negative compared to rhe consumer confidence and economic reports
1
7
@greg: Everything is relative greg, some people are happy just to wake up in the morning without being beaten, billions would be happy with indoor plumbing( read the recent Times article), those coming of age today without benefit of a higher education or family money or those who fell thru the cracks are delighted to have any kind of job after ten years of what was a depression for many. This is by design, the elites understand when a people are beaten down they become very malleable: this is America, it wasn’t supposed to work this way but we have a new group of business and political leaders and they are all vulture capitalists.
Wage growth need to be seen in the context of inflation. If wages and inflation are both growing at 3% then wage earners are not taking part in the economic growth.
29
It isn't risky to bet that the most-liked comments will refer to Trump benefiting from the "Obama economy" (or words to that effect). In truth, this economy is far more complex than any one politician or his policies. At some point, however, you have to give credit to Trump if you believe that presidents directly affect the economy (just as Republicans who hold that view should've credited Obama). We shouldn't all be like Paul Krugman and argue that anything good is "our guy's" doing and that anything bad is "their guy's" responsibility. [Recall Paul's prediction of an imminent recession upon Trump's election.] Soon enough, the economy will have a downturn as the business cycle hasn't become extinct. When that happens, we'll see more of the same arguments now placing that economy squarely on Trump and Republicans placing it at the feet of a Democratic House following the midterms.
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@James
True.
I'm pretty ignorant to politics and this current President has only encouraged me to retreat further from it. Far too much drama for my taste.
Of course a fairly good part of that noise is a result of our news organizations who are profit motivated machines. They hit the big one with this guy.
If we could do it over again I wish that nearly any number of the other republican candidates had won instead of our current Drama dragon.
1
@James:
Obama did the hard & smart work to pull us out of a reckless les a fairer Greenspan induced financial and housing meltdown. Give him credit. He avoided a deep, deep worldwide depression that would have made 1929 feel like a walk in the park. Hi
2
@James: Though I agree that who is president can make a certain amount of difference, part of the trouble here lies with the fact that more business owners are Republican and support the policies that benefit them the most. They withheld during the Obama years in order to damage him politically. When Trump was elected, they opened the floodgates and allowed some of the piles of cash they had been sitting on throughout the Obama administration to flow, because they want to support Republican policies. We saw Trump give them major tax breaks at the expense of our children, and they are enthusiastic beyond all measure.
If you recall the Republican comments in these business forums from the Obama years, as I do, you would still remember the many complaints from right-wingers about how the government was fudging the statistics to make themselves look good, and that all of the statistics ignored the problem of long-term unemployment, as well as the low-wage problem.
They also complained mightily that the economy was not providing enough employment for people over fifty -- and that is still the case, yet there is not one Republican here who would admit that age discrimination is one of the biggest roadblocks that businesses have set up for themselves. By refusing to hire older workers, businesses contribute to their own problems.
So what makes Republican government statistics any more trustworthy than Democratic government statistics? Bias, pure and simple.
8
Deficit spending on tax cuts while the economy is growing (without wage growth or increase in labor force size I presume?) will simply mean we fall harder when the market correction occurs. This reflects the irresponsibility of those currently in power.
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@Ying Wang:
Yes, but The republicans have a solution: gut Medicare & stop paying back what is owed to SS.
8
It's hard not to create jobs when you borrow $2 trillion, then give it to the rich as a tax cut. They have to spend it on something.
12
@Jerry Sturdivant - If they spent it on something, the economy would be a lot better. They are just stashing it away for the next recession, so they can buy up all our houses when we can't make the payments.
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@Jerry Sturdivant: With all due respect Jerry that sounds like trickle down economics which really hasn’t worked so well for other than the top ten percent. You might add to that a trillion dollar tax cut to corporations for repatriation of their offshore dollars, rather than spending that on R and D or new factories they used the windfall to buyback their shares and issue dividends juicing the share prices temporarily, increasing their own bonuses and setting us up for another recession when this most recent artificial economy crashes.
7
@Jerry Sturdivant It always amazes me that liberals view a tax cut as the government “giving” money away. Amazing that the view is that you should be grateful the government allows you to keep any of the money you earned. When I was born there was a top tax rate of 90%. Do you know when I was born? I didn’t think so. Hint I’m younger than 60.
2
"Political intrigue and anxieties over trade did little to dent a 95-month streak of job creation as employers once again fattened their payrolls, and wages kicked up."
This is a predictable sleight to President Trump's policies. The current economic vibrancy is directly due to his policies. The nation is reaping the benefit of having a businessman at the helm with very low unemployment.
The comment "employers once again fattened their payrolls" too implies an inherent bias against capitalism. The narrative should have been "the tax breaks given to the employers worked and we see the results through increased employment."
Trump personally deserves kudos from the citizenry for adeptly shepherding a complex economy with singular focus while many powerful special interest groups are relentlessly trying in unison to distract and destroy him with undeserved criticism.
14
@Appu Nair Wages are up 2.9% over the last 12 months. And inflation is up ... 2.9%. Net wage increase: zero. This article would better serve the public if it noted those facts. What do Trump and the GOP propose to do about this? Also zero.
72
Trump University degree of economics!
10
Manufacturing jobs are growing as they haven't in decades, something Obama, Krugman and the liberal amen corner said was impossible. Full-time jobs are replacing part-time jobs. Black and Hispanic unemployment are at record lows, etc., etc. This began almost as soon as Trump was elected. Policies matter, and this president's policies have by all key pieces of real-world evidence started to make America Great Again! As Clinton once said: What part of peace and prosperity do you find objectionable?
4
"Unionized jobs, with higher pay, steady hours and better benefits are by far the most coveted." --- If this is true it makes you wonder why there aren't more people advocating for, and joining unions.
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@medianone
Ignorant people vote against their own self interest, and can be easily exploited.
The Rs want a dumbed-down electorate.
That is why they put someone like DeVos in charge of Education.
9
@medianone First you have to have an opening in one of these jobs. Obviously they fill very quickly.
1
@medianone
Not really. It is because the media bulldog which is the right wing media has been attacking unions for years and then as workers loss their unions they get jealous of those with unions and instead of trying to rise themselves up they want to push others down.
5
Donald Trump taking credit for Obama’s economic recovery is like a substitute quarterback brought in to run out the clock, but takes credit for the win.
130
@DCJ Obama's worshiper giving him all credit for a worldwide economic recovery is like a quaterback who takes all credit in a win while his running back scored three TDs, and the defense intercepted his opponent 4 times and returned two of them for a TD.
15
@DCJ Krugman predicted a recession after Trump’s win. That says it all.
12
@Erwan
Given how the GOP in congress constantly tried to sabotage Obama and the economy (because their number one priority was to "make Obama a one term president") - I would say its like the quarterback making a touch down even as his running back is trying to tackle him.
The real stunner with Trump is that he is not producing any better improvement - although we have gone from reducing budget deficits to blowing them up past a trillion per year (and surprise, the corporate media has stopped talking about the budget deficit).