Happy Fourth of July!
Let's take a look at yesterday's big jobs report. John Cassidy at The New Yorker:
So much for secular stagnation. Thanks to the headline figures and revisions for previous months contained in the Labor Department’s jobs report for June, which was released a day early because of the July 4th holiday, we know that, since the end of March, the economy has generated more than a quarter of a million jobs a month. For June, the payroll figure was 288,000, well above economists’ expectations.
During the past three months, the unemployment rate has fallen from 6.7 per cent to 6.1 per cent, and it’s now at its lowest level since Lehman Brothers collapsed in the fall of 2008. Even the long-term unemployed, the biggest victims of the Great Recession and its aftermath, are seeing some relief. Since March, the number of people who have been out of work for more than six months has fallen by more than six hundred and fifty thousand. Last month alone, the figure fell by almost three hundred thousand.
That’s great news. The employment gains have been broadly based. Last month, hiring was particularly strong in retail, hospitality, and temporary-employment services. Many of these jobs are low paid ones, particularly those in retail and hospitality, but there’s also been a pickup in industries that pay higher wages, such as auto manufacturing and finance.
Neil Irwin:
There can be no question that the United States employment data for June, released on a rare “Jobs Thursday” thanks to the Independence Day holiday, is good news [...] There has been a lot of rumbling that the economy is starting to burst out of its shell, with robust, above-trend growth really arriving for the first time in five years of recovery. And that may be true! But if this halting, sluggish recovery has taught us anything, it is to not let our assessments of the economy be driven by hope, but rather by sustained and credible improvement in a wide range of economic data. [...]
That doesn’t completely undermine the story of more robust growth on the way. It just confirms the point that anybody hoping for a better economy should not read the latest numbers as conclusive evidence that everything is fixed. Instead, they can be seen as one more promising but inconclusive hint that the long-awaited jobs boom could indeed be around the corner.
Don't forget to check out
this fantastic post by Matt Phillips containing informative charts about the report.
More below the fold:
Eugene Robinson shares his insights on July 4th:
As we celebrate the Fourth of July, who can argue that our democracy is working the way the Founders intended? And who can deny that most of the blame for dysfunction must fall to the Republican Party?
George Washington distrusted all political parties. He warned in his farewell address that, as they alternated power, parties would act in “the spirit of revenge” — rather than, presumably, in the best interests of the nation. The “disorders and miseries” that resulted, Washington feared, would inevitably threaten democracy.
For most of U.S. history, the major parties, even while differing sharply on philosophy and policy, have acted in a spirit of shared enterprise. There are significant exceptions — notably the years leading up to the Civil War. There was no possible compromise on an issue so fundamental as slavery.
Today, we face no question of such magnitude. Yet Republicans have decided not to collaborate with President Obama in fulfilling the most basic obligations of government, preferring to let “disorders and miseries” fester rather than address them.
And
The Los Angeles Times reminds us of progress made:
More than 1,300 legally married same-sex couples in Utah, where the Mormon Church is headquartered? Who would have thought it possible 10 or even five years ago? Marriage licenses issued to more than 500 gay and lesbian couples in the politically conservative state of Arkansas? This is progress well worth celebrating on this Fourth of July, reflecting a sweeping advance of freedom and justice across the United States.
The New York Times, meanwhile, asks that the president "go big" on immigration:
This week, President Obama finally declared his independence from a suffocating debate over immigration reform that Republicans in Congress had never seriously joined. After waiting too long for the obstructionists to move, Mr. Obama has freed himself to do what he can to fix the broken-down system.
His powers are limited, of course. Only Congress can give immigration the long-term, comprehensive overhaul it so badly needs. A bipartisan bill passed by the Senate a year ago — and strangled in the House — was the best hope for that. But Mr. Obama should do his utmost, within the law, to limit the damage done by an obsolete, unjust system that is deporting the wrong people, stifling businesses, damaging families and hurting the economy.
It starts with giving millions of immigrants permission to stay, to work and to live without fear.
On a final note, Paul Krugman's piece is a must-read about
our nation's failing infrastructure:
You often find people talking about our economic difficulties as if they were complicated and mysterious, with no obvious solution. As the economist Dean Baker recently pointed out, nothing could be further from the truth. The basic story of what went wrong is, in fact, almost absurdly simple: We had an immense housing bubble, and, when the bubble burst, it left a huge hole in spending. Everything else is footnotes.
And the appropriate policy response was simple, too: Fill that hole in demand. In particular, the aftermath of the bursting bubble was (and still is) a very good time to invest in infrastructure. In prosperous times, public spending on roads, bridges and so on competes with the private sector for resources. Since 2008, however, our economy has been awash in unemployed workers (especially construction workers) and capital with no place to go (which is why government borrowing costs are at historic lows). Putting those idle resources to work building useful stuff should have been a no-brainer.
But what actually happened was exactly the opposite: an unprecedented plunge in infrastructure spending. Adjusted for inflation and population growth, public expenditures on construction have fallen more than 20 percent since early 2008. In policy terms, this represents an almost surreally awful wrong turn; we’ve managed to weaken the economy in the short run even as we undermine its prospects for the long run. Well played!
Have a great July 4th and stay safe!