Job Growth Surges
The economy in February added 236,000 jobs, with the unemployment rate dropping to 7.7% from 7.9%, the lowest the main rate has been since December 2008. The economy would have grown by 10,000 jobs more (246k) if austerity measures had not resulted in the loss of 10,000 public sector jobs. Hopefully the economy will continue to grow so that the impact of the Sequester spending cuts, which will not be overturned. Indeed, in my view, while the cuts are bad and dumb, they at least give the President a rejoinder to the idiocy from Boehner and McConnell whenever they or any Republican says “The President got his tax hikes (or new revenue).” We can say, “Yes, and you got your spending cuts. So if we don’t get any new revenue, you don’t get any new spending cuts. There, we can be petulant children too.”
Just look at the Goerge Bush years on that graph. What a f@cking stupid, avoidable debacle. Now his brother wants to run. Sheessus.
If you step back and take a five-year view, Obama has been executing a perfect Keynesian stimulus. First he pumped money into the economy and cut taxes, then when recovery began he executed the rarely-seen back half of a Keynesian stimulus – he raised taxes and cut spending. Critics will grumble the recovery isn’t strong enough yet, but it is probably just the right time, and jobs will come roaring back while recession stays away. Here’s hoping it works. Remember in 1992, CBO was predicting a long dreary recovery.
So I’ve been looking into my bubble question on yesterday’s post and it appears this is the Shrinking Wages bubble. The market is roaring because companies are paying less for labor.
“Productivity” would be another way of saying that, but yes – Shrinking Wages bubble is probably more honest and accurate.
Jason – it is a combination of productivity gains (without corresponding compensation increases) and labor arbitrage.
http://thecurrentmoment.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/productivity-and-real-wages.jpg
The other day I caught a dKos diary with an impressive graph of the growth in real wages dropping off sharply around 1973. Isn’t that about when women began joining the workforce in earnest? Suddenly we had twice as many people working and we all got paid half as much. (donning asbestos underwear now…) Of course I’d rather women work if they want, but if this is in fact part of the explanation let’s acknowledge it in our statistics and adjust our thinking. It may have been a bigger change to the labor economy than we understood.
I’d like to see that graph recast to show total share of GDP or corporate profits earned by the total labor force, or per family, rather than per person.
Lets’ also note that labor productivity numbers are driven by unemployment, and also by unreported illegal employment which I assume is a larger factor than ever.
Productivity is also driven by IT and automation, both of which started ramping up in the 70’s.
I think your austerity jobless figures are wrong. Communist maxine walters says the sequester is going to cost 170 million jobs
Bush averaged around 5.5 percent unemployment during his 8 years, even factoring sep 11th 9 months after he took office. The socialist obama has averaged over 8 percent since he took office, and he waisted 7 trillion dollars to accomplish that. But your right, for a socialist, that is not bad. At this pace, we will be nearing full employment in about 17 to 18 years, I cant wait
Dills lives in a shadow realm of the damned where the light of reality cannot reach.
And on a lighter note I finally got a day gig, low pay but I’ll take it. I’d prefer to make a living playing the piano but it seems impossible at this time.
Thanks for letting us know, bamboozer. Good luck!
Good luck, bamboozer!