Heading into today, most expected a fairly encouraging jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but few expected it to be this good.
The economy in February added 236,000 jobs, with the unemployment rate dropping to 7.7% from 7.9%. As is usually the case, austerity measures undermined the employment landscape -- America's private sector added 246,000 jobs last month, the public sector lost 10,000 jobs. (It'd be easy for Washington to improve the latter number and lower the unemployment rate, but congressional Republicans still won't allow it.) Update: the 7.7% jobless rate is the lowest in the U.S. since December 2008.
While we're accustomed to looking at jobs reports relative to where we've been -- figures only look heartening when compared to how dismal they were at the height of the Great Recession -- today's report is genuinely good news on its own terms. The 236,000 jobs created in February is the second best total in a year, and the seventh best month of the last five years. Glancing through the report, it was also encouraging to see improving data from the construction and housing sectors.
The stronger job creation comes immediately on the heels of January's tax increases. I'll look forward to Republicans explaining how this is even possible, or whether there's been some kind of tear in the space-time-economic continuum.
What's more, we've now created 2.23 million jobs overall in the last year, and 2.33 million in the private sector alone. All Congress has to do is stop punishing the country on purpose, and 2013 may very well deliver a more robust economic recovery.
Above you'll find the chart I run on the first Friday of every month, showing monthly job losses since the start of the Great Recession. The image makes a distinction -- red columns point to monthly job totals under the Bush administration, while blue columns point to job totals under the Obama administration.
Update: Here's another chart, this one showing monthly job losses/gains in just the private sector since the start of the Great Recession.
Leave a Comment:
When Reagan said "trickle," I guess he meant it. Imagine what these growth numbers would look like if certain folks didn't NEED that fourth Benz for their 16-year-old.
Excuse me, whatever certain folks buy for their 16 yr old has zero effect on job growth.
Excuse me, but trolling after the first comment in most posts has zero effect on credibility.
If you click on the exclamation point, then click ignore, we'll both be happier. Meanwhile, the point remains. Some person buying another Mercedes, or diamond, or donating billions to charity, has zero effect on job production.
Serious job production requires the anticipation of making more money. These day just staying in business is a struggle.
Re: #1.3
Job production requires the anticipation that the sales of products / services will increase.
"Staying in business is a struggle" except for businesses that are making record profits (!) might be because of lack of customers with money to spend.
OK maphi, how are those two statements not identical?
Let's look at this for a minute. How do businesses make record profits if they don't have customers with money? That's a paradox. perhaps you should consider that the companies with record profits have customers with money outside the US. MOst of those companies are multi-nationals, no?
Re: #1.5
Businesses are making record profits because they are squeezing down the labor costs. Production is up but wages are not.
Yes - a lot of the companies are making profits outside of the US. That is fine.
This means that customers outside of the US have money to spend and those inside the US do not. How is this not an unsustainable situation?
Maphi at some point you're going to acknowledge that jobs are created by the job creator's desire to make more money. This is not an altruistic exercise.
OK. Fine.
For people who are unemployed, A job is better than NO job.
Things will never really get better until wages rise.
Until the Right understands that it is the buyer that drives the econonmy - the purchaser of goods and services - and NOT the "job creators", we won't see better numbers for a while. Awesome news, tho, that the unemployment rate actually went down despite sequester.
Re: #2.1
The effect of the sequester will be reflected in the next job report.
Ms Missy, where do you think people get the money to consume? For most, it's a job. Have you created any jobs today?
MissyCheeks ; You are absolutely correct . That's why the housing bubble and mortgage shenanigans drove the economy... flippin' and financin' You want 110% of your homes value? Don't worry it'll catch up in a couple years.
People buying houses , stuff to put in them and SUV's to drive to them ...we were on easy street
Well said, Missy. Too many people assume that Wealth equates to Job Creation, and that's only because that's what they're told to say. Wealth Hoarding and Job Creation are two entirely different things.
But it's nice for some to shoot off their mouth and let us know what Rush Limbaugh was saying recently.
Oh, Shooter, Economics 101 - if the buyer has no money, there will be no purchases. If there are no purchases then there is no demand and, thus, no production. If there is no production, there are fewer jobs needed. If there are fewer jobs to be had then there are more people on the government dole. So, put more money back into the pockets of consumers (aka "The Middle Class") and they actually buy stuff. Put money into the pockets of the 1%, they put it into off-shore accounts or other stuff but they don't buy the stuff that drives the economy. Raise minimum wage, more money in the consumers' pockets, more products and services purchased, more demand, more production, more jobs. See how that works? Trickle down doesn't work for pancakes and it doesn't work in an economy. The ones at the bottom never get the good stuff.
Sorry Missy but that's not quite the way the world works. Jobs come first, then consumption. You can see the process in front of Home Depot's everywhere...
Labor is always available. Jobs aren't. Every morning, labor stands on the sidewalk with nothing to do - until someone with an idea and the money to pursue that idea - arrives needing help.
It holds true for day-labor up to rocket scientists. It's just that simple. Any questions?
Obviously demand creates jobs... opportunity responds to demand. It really is just that simple.
And really, who needs roads and bridges? We didn't build that.
LOL @wannabees
I guess we'll agree to disagree. This is what I learned in Economics, but, then, I attended public high school and college and actually believed the propaganda (since I saw what I learned actually practiced in my middle-class life).
You've got a good handle on economic basics, Missy.
You know who tells us that jobs come from angelic, wealthy benefactors? That would be the wealthy. And you know who are the gullible schmucks that they trick into defending them? That would be people who want to be wealthy.
Any questions?
Rochester, consider Sudan, one of the poorest countries on earth. Wouldn't you think that demand (the actual desire to buy stuff) there is huge? After all, poor people need everything, right?
So tell me, if demand produces jobs, why isn't Sudan rich?
Re: #2.11
It is really pretty simple, Shooter.
Demand is not created when people NEED things.
Demand is created when people NEED things AND have money with which to BUY those things.
Missy, how many jobs have you created? In your own job, did you go looking for a job your position, or did the job go looking for you? When you consume where did you get your money, a job?
Politicians like to cite demand because it makes them and you seem to be part of the solution, and it's the perfect meme for getting more money from other people.
Consider that all new businesses have to spend boatloads of money before they even sniff the first dollar of "demand". Worse, they have no idea if there will be enough "demand" to say open, and not lose all the money they put up front.
As someone said incredulously," surely people don't make stuff and then find out if people will buy it!". But yes, that's exactly how it works. Look around and tell me how that's wrong.
Absolutely true. And knowing that money doesn't just appear out of nowhere, how do most people get money....?
Shooter: don't you see that you have conceded your point to Missy. You have to have a job so you can make money so that you can consume. Companies do not invest if people are out of work because companies want there to be demand i.e. money to pay for their goods or services. Demand and need are not the same. Give the people in Sudan jobs so that they can earn money and they will buy accordingly.
One of the causes of the Great Recession was too much easy credit. Advertising created a desire for stuff and the banks and federal reserve gave out credit cards so that people could buy the stuff. And all you folks on the right are screaming like crazy because the government did the same thing. Want a war in Iraq; can't pay for it but do not want to raise taxes; put it on a credit card. And there was a tempting source of cash: the SS trust fund. Why do the Republicans want to cut SS benefits? So that they will not have to pay back the SS trust fund. They deflect attention from the debt to the seniors in this country by saying we owe it to China.
Actually that's my point. Her's was that consumers had to have money so jobs could created. The sequence is important. As you demonstrate here...
So why aren't there jobs in Sudan? Lot's of people want stuff, lot's of people are willing to work. You're going to have to acknowledge that private enterprise doesn't think they can make money there for a variety of reasons. Just like here.
I think you're confused about the SS situation. The idea is to balance out SS revenues with benefits. Currently benefits are larger than revenues. Oh and it was LBJ that started the Govt raid on SS to pay for the Great Society.
If Republicans would pass the President's Jobs Bill, another 1 million more people may be working. Also, updating our bridges, roads, electrical grids, sea and air ports are long-term infrastructure projects would increase GDP as well as tax revenues to pay down the debt.
This is laughable. You obviously have no idea what is required for your grand plans to resurrect the NRA. Not the least of which are the regulatory hoops, humps, and studies, which hold up projects for years.
Secondly, why do you think a road here and a bridge there are going to inspire anyone other than the wealthy owners of construction companies?
Lastly, you mean the deficit, not the debt. The debt will never be paid down, it will just increase.
Please, don't be gullible.
If some people weren't inherently gullible, then Glen Beck would be unemployed. We wouldn't want that, would we?
Please, how about a Nobel winning economist that preaches the US can borrow endlessly, and never pay any back, and we'll all live happily ever after? In comparison Beck sounds well grounded.
And there it is. Thank you.
Let's all remember that opinion, because it speaks volumes about credibility and sensibility. It also explains so-o-o-o much. Benen's blog has been infested by a disciple of Glen Beck.
It all makes sense now. 1 + 1 = Cake
Actually you are the one that brought up Beck, not me. But hey, I understand the need to deflect when cornered. Heh.
Actually, you are the one who thinks Glen Beck has better insights into economics than Paul Krugman. Let's just put that thought on the table and look at it for a minute.
LOL
One thinks one should repay debt and the other doesn't, which of those sentiments do you believe in?
Good Lord! Has shooter taken over this blog or what? Why do you people not just block him. He hasn't had anything new to say in months.
Given those two choices, I'm inclined to believe the man who doesn't suffer from a crippling personality disorder. But then, where would people like Jim Baker be today if they didn't have mindless followers.
Oh. Right.
the GOP is committing ECONOMIC TREASON against this country. and, has been doing so since January 20, 2009.
can you imagine what the UE rate would be if:
1. Those GOP Governors hadn't cut all those public sector jobs
2. The GOP helped pass the American Jobs Act.
" All Congress has to do is stop punishing the country on purpose, and 2013 may very well deliver a more robust economic recovery."
That's a nice wish Steve, really but our current crop of congress critters don't even seem to know or understand what their real jobs are outside of obstruction. In 2009 the GOTP ran on a platform of JOBS, JOBS, JOBS - yet the only "job" that was created was in the paper industry as they tried incessantly to regulate my womb.
The numbers do look better, yet I can hear the gnashing of teeth within the GOTP doubling down on their "theory" that somehow the marxist-socialist-muslim loving-kenyan has somehow co-opted the Labor Department to produce these numbers.
According to Reich these numbers are mostly due to speculation fueled by the Fed's policy of easy money. Fundamentally, our economy is stagnating due to starvation of the purchasing power necessary for the growth of the consumer economy. From Reich's FB daily post:
Ezra Klein points out that the Employment participation continues to slide. (source- see "employment participation" chart).
.
Sure- if the GOP where not kicking the economy in the teeth things would be better. But let's not kid ourselves. We are going down and we must do something substantial to substantially reverse this.
As Reich and Stiglitz repeatedly point out, it is a consequence of starving the middle class of capital. Starve the consumer economy of cash needed for consumption and what happens? The consumer economy goes down.
Well Duh.
Here's the last chart (- and it's one you've seen before, charting declining labor share of profits, versus dramatically accelerating corporate profits. Now consider something: our population in 1970 was 203 million, and today it is 313 million. Are you getting the picture? Not only has labor share been declining, but the smaller amount of income is expected to supply a population that has grown by 50%.
So Benen's chart is actually a measurement of despair- showing how many people who have given up. The squeeze has not been reversed- labor participation continues to go down, and wages continue their downward trajectory.
It's time for a radical correction to this pattern of starvation of the consumer economy. If we don't, we will continue our slide.
It's that simple.
This is artificial insemination, a test tube growth. Induced by government stimulus and unemployment numbers being manipulated.That coupled with QE 2 and 3. This is as phony as a Caesar family reunion.
Is it remotely possible the market was better under Clinton,Bush 1, Reagan and Obama then it was under Bush 2 because they were all better at their job than he was? Is that remotely possible?