Reagan, like Obama, won reelection handily with unemployment above 7%, but with that rate falling, aggregate income rising, and the general perception that things are getting better.
But there’s still the question “better for whom?” Friday’s jobs report is a mixed bag, with enough positive indicators for the White House to brag about, which it has. Job growth continues, with 242,000 new jobs created in February. The unemployment rate, holding steady at 4.9%, is undoubtedly healthier than this time four years ago, when it was 8.3%. Nonparticipation in the labor force, ie people who aren’t counted because they’ve been out of work so long they stop looking, can mask higher real unemployment, so it’s promising that the labor force participation rate rose as well. At the same time, wages fell, by 0.1%. There’s some evidence that this is a fluke, the result of the survey period ending before the 15 February payday. Over the entire year, wages have risen, by a modest 2.4%, but this is still well below pre-recession rates. So too is the employment-to-population ratio. Job growth is concentrated in the service sector – health care, retail, and restaurants – and especially in part-time employment, which grew by 489,000 compared to 65,000 new full time jobs. Manufacturing jobs, much touted by the White House as a hallmark of the recovery, are down. Some market analysts take a dim view of unemployment as an indicator: “It is apparent that the UE rate is meaningless, as body count is a worthless metric during a prolonged period of low-quality jobs creation”, Longford Associates’ Joan McCullough told the Wall Street Journal. full: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/04/242000-americans-job-last-month-heres-why-not-celebrating _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list pen-l@lists.csuchico.edu https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
