Posted on 10/09/2006 10:58:49 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
The Labor Department released its September jobs report on Friday, and some wags are calling it the "whoops" report. The "whoops" is a reference to the upward revision of 810,000 previously undetected jobs that Labor now says were created in the U.S. economy in the 12 months through March 2006.
So instead of 5.8 million new jobs over the past three years, the U.S. economy has created 6.6 million. That's a lot more than a rounding error, more than the number of workers in the entire state of New Hampshire. What's going on here?
Our hypothesis has been that, due to the changing nature of the U.S. economy, the Labor Department's business establishment survey has been undercounting job creation from small businesses and self-employed entrepreneurs. That job growth has been better captured in Labor's companion household survey, which reported 271,000 new jobs in September after 250,000 new jobs in August, and a very healthy total of 2.54 million new jobs in the past year.
The household survey is what is used to determine the unemployment rate, which fell in September to 4.6%, the lowest level in five years. The establishment survey, meanwhile, is used to announce the monthly "new jobs" numbers. Every year the Labor Department revises its job estimates from the previous year, in essence reconciling the figures from the two surveys, and the missing 810,000 jobs was the result through March 2006.
Getting out of the statistical weeds, the news here is that the U.S. has a very tight labor market -- which is now translating into significant wage gains. Over the past 12 months wages have climbed by 4%, which is the biggest gain since 2001 and which economist Brian Wesbury points out is higher than the 3.3% average annual wage growth of the last 25 years.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
PING!
Good news for GOP congresscritters desperately wishing to keep their seats.
What a rotten economy. It is all Bush's fault.
But, but...the AP told me things were bad on Friday!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1714836/posts
Look at Karl Rove at work.
Wage inflation is a bad thing though as this tends to make Wall St. nervous and the Fed likely to look at rate increases.
When will the fed learn that true inflation is caused by printing large quantities of money?
It's a bad thing... unless you're one of the 98% of Americans who lives on wages!
That's monetary inflation which is different and a bad thing as well.
IBRYMB!
Wage inflation gets passed on to the consumer so while wages go up 5% so don't business costs and prices. If they can't raise prices then they cut staff.
Conclusion: Be like John Kerry and marry some rich broad to keep you in a good lifestyle.
Wage inflation is only a bad thing if it isn't offset by productivity gains. If I'm earning 4% more than last year but I'm also 4% more productive, then I'm not costing my employer a penny more today than I was a year ago.
Only a portion of wage inflation gets passed on to the consumer. The first hit is corporate profits. And even then, the hit is only the size of the general portion of costs directed by labor.
That is because the stupid RNC and members of Congress can't tell "the economy is great story." RATS rollout people laid off while Pubbies cringe in the corner. People complain about housing bubble - but nobody talks about all the constrution jobs in a record year!! What the Heck is wrong with them?? Why raise millions if you can't tell the story on radio and TV??
Hang nails make Wall St. nervous. We have the same amount of gas on hand as 20 years ago but the price is more than doubled, it is not because of anything but nervouse investors. They cry about building bubbles but forget that you need tens of thousands of homes for new kids born to the genX folks. Investors will get hurt on speculation but the economy WANTS to grow to keep up with demand. /rant off - what is wrong with telling a good story
Always look on the bright side...
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