Real Earning fell in February. From BLS: All employees Real average hourly earnings for all employees fell 0.6 percent from January to February, seasonally adjusted, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. This result stems from a 0.2 percent increase in average hourly earnings being more than offset by a 0.7 percent increase in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U).
The job numbers were pretty good. They were a lot better than I expected. Even with the jump in temporary hiring, the underlying numbers continued to show improvement. I do not, however, think it’s time to break open the champagne, not time to do the happy dance. The economy still has a lot of problems. There are still millions of Americans who have stopped looking for jobs. There are millions of Americans who are underemployed. Here’s what I know – when Barack Obama took office our economy was losing over 500,000 jobs per month. The economy had fallen off a cliff.
Better. Much better than I expected. We need much more, but this is better. Note that the jobs numbers for September and October were revised up. From MarketWatch: The U.S. gained 120,000 jobs in November and the unemployment rate fell to 8.6% from 9.0%, the Labor Department said Friday. The government also revised jobs data for October and September to show that 72,000 additional jobs were created. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had forecast a 125,000 increase in employment in November and no change in the jobless rate. About half of the drop in the unemployment rate stemmed from a decline in
Dr. Thompson is a surgeon, scholar, full-time sports fan and part-time political activist. He is active in a number of community projects and initiatives. Through medicine, he strives to improve the physical health of all he treats.
