The American economy gained 275,000 jobs last month. We need 90,000 new jobs just to keep up with population growth, which means that net job growth clocked in at 185,000 jobs. The headline unemployment rate increased to 3.9%.
The number of unemployed went up 334,000, and the number of new jobs in December and January were both revised downward. Put this all together and the jobs report is good but not great—which, ironically, might be "perfect." It's more evidence for a soft landing.
Wages were up 5.4% from January on an annualized basis. Adjusted for inflation, that's about a 1.7% increase. This is good for workers, but maybe not so good for inflation.
Wages were up 3.7% from a year ago. Adjusted for inflation that's growth of 0.6%.
So far the Fed is looking mighty good, despite all the carping over the last two years. Maybe we should trust the experts and not amateur economists.
The New York Times fact-checking Biden’s SOTU about job gains:
So, midway through the recovery, not the “beginning”. Also, decide whether you are going to report percentages of the total, or raw numbers, and then stick to one method. How are we supposed to compare raw numbers to percentages? Show your work.
I read the NYT Fishwrap so you don’t have to.
I read the NYT Fishwrap so you don’t have to.
We thank you for your sacrifice.
We still need a few more million jobs to catch up to where we would have been without the pandemic--though we're on a glide path to get there in a couple of years. Not sure how baby boomer retirements are affecting job pool and numbers.
As for the NYT noting "jobs" started to come back before Biden was sworn in--they should look at the legislation Democrats passed to help deal with Covid even though Trump was in office.