Re:
"Another uncle Wally talking about stuff he knows nothing of."- zzfart 3/8/2019
#msg-1078912
Why do you pretend that Larry Kudlow is never right when he obviously IS? You just make yourself look stupid.
As shown below, February jobs numbers were a fluke. Folks should have just ignored them. Kudlow's assessment was right. Yours, as always, was garbage.
April 5, 2019
U.S. Adds 196,000 Jobs in March, a Return to Solid Growth
by Peter Eavis
NYTimes.com
After a lackluster performance in February, the job market bounced back in March. February’s number of new jobs was also revised upward, to 33,000 from 20,000.
The Labor Department released its monthly hiring and unemployment figures for March on Friday morning, providing an important snapshot of the American economy.
• 196,000 jobs were added last month, a rebound from the February report. Economic analysts surveyed by FactSet had expected a gain of about 170,000 jobs in March. It was the 102nd straight month of job gains.
• The Labor Department also revised the jobs numbers for January and February. February’s weak report of 20,000 jobs was revised upward to 33,000. January’s number was raised by 1,000 jobs, to 312,000.
• The unemployment rate for March was 3.8 percent, the same as in February.
• Average hourly earnings in March were 3.2 percent higher than a year earlier. That compares with a 3.4 percent year-over-year gain in February.
The Takeaway
Everyone can relax a little.
The solid job gains that have come to define the current economic expansion resumed in March. The gain in hiring, though widely forecast, will help clear some of the doubts hanging over the economy. Though the economy is expected to slow this year from the strong pace of 2018, Friday’s report was a welcome sign.
“We think the labor market is the strongest thing in the U.S. economy right now,” said Luke Tilley, chief economist at Wilmington Trust. “We’re encouraged by the wage gains.”
While the March number was reasonably strong, average monthly job growth appears to be slipping. In the first three months of the year, the economy added 180,000 jobs on average, down from an average of 223,000 for all of 2018.
Some economists did not see slower hiring as a cause for concern.
“The number from last year was not sustainable,” said Martha Gimbel, research director at the job-search site Indeed. “What’s more surprising is that we’re still adding an average of 180,000 jobs at this point in a recovery.”
The Federal Reserve, which helps steer the economy with the setting of interest rates, has signaled that it would probably not raise rates this year. By holding rates steady, most mortgages and car loans are not likely to get more expensive.
The jobs report for March, which suggests the economy is growing at a steady rate that won’t cause higher inflation, lends support to the Fed’s stance, economists said.
“It doesn’t tell the Fed that it’s doing the wrong thing by remaining patient,” said Ellen Zentner, chief United States economist at Morgan Stanley. “But it also tells the Fed that there’s nothing in the data that tells it that it should be cutting rates right now.”
Stocks climbed in early trading, with the S&P 500 up roughly 0.4 percent shortly before 10:30 a.m. The benchmark stock market index is less than 1.5 percent away from hitting a new high for the first time this year.
The Big Picture
The United States economy is still enjoying one of its longest expansions on record. It has now produced more than 21 million jobs since the labor market bottomed out in 2010, and the unemployment rate has plunged from a peak of 10 percent in October 2009.
But in recent months, doubts have grown. The invigorating effects of the tax cuts enacted at the end of 2017 are expected to fade. Large overseas economies have slowed, in part a reaction to continuing trade tensions. And while the stock market has rallied since a rout at the end of last year, other important financial indicators — such as government bond yields — suggest that investors expect growth to moderate.
more on doubts about the economy:
Stocks Fall as Bond Market Flashes a Recession Warning
March 22, 2019
White House Blames Fed for Slowing Economic Growth
March 29, 2019
Manufacturing Surge, a Boon for Trump, May Be Fading
April 4, 2019
Still, economists have seen a healthy labor market in the United States.
“The lesson of this recovery is that the labor market keeps chugging on despite whatever turmoil happens around it,” said Ms. Gimbel.
Most economists shrugged off the anemic job report for February, saying the number could have been affected by cold weather and the partial shutdown of the federal government. In recent years, low monthly jobs numbers have usually been followed by a rebound.
Several economic indicators released since the February report suggested that the economy was still capable of adding 150,000 or more jobs a month. The number of people filing for unemployment benefits for the first time has declined to lows not seen in decades, and recent surveys of the construction and manufacturing industries did not suggest that employers were pulling back.
The View From Washington
Despite the signs of strength in the economy, President Trump on Friday said he believed the Fed should be cutting interest rates in the hope of bolstering growth.
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“I personally think the Fed should drop rates,” he said. “I think they really slowed us down.”
Mr. Trump also took aim at the Fed’s policy of reversing a crisis-era program that pumped trillions of dollars into financial markets. This reversal, known as quantitative tightening, has been blamed for putting upward pressure on interest rates.
“They should get rid of quantitative tightening,” Mr. Trump said. “You would see a rocket ship.”
One way in which Mr. Trump may try to influence the Fed is by nominating new members to its board of governors.
On Thursday, he suggested he would nominate Herman Cain, a former pizza chain executive who sought the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, for a seat. Mr. Trump has also said he planned to nominate Stephen Moore, a conservative economist who advised his campaign, as a Fed governor. Mr. Moore has been a critic of the central bank’s rate increases.
Job seekers meet recruiters at a career fair on Thursday in San Francisco. Some investors expect economic growth to moderate.
The Wages of Growth
The new report also showed steady wage growth, building on recent momentum for employee pay.
For years, even as the economy added jobs and unemployment kept falling, wage increases were lackluster. But employees now appear to be getting solid raises.
“This means households and workers have pretty strong purchasing power and they can spend more at the mall,” said Beth Ann Bovino, United States chief economist at S&P Global Ratings.
With the jobless rate at a historic low, employers have to offer higher wages and more attractive benefits to lure workers. Julia Pollak, a labor economist at ZipRecruiter, a job-search company, said that was reflected in the postings on her company’s site. In March, 34 percent of the openings advertised on ZipRecruiter had benefits, up from 19 percent a year earlier.
“And the range of perks is growing,” Ms. Pollak said.
Steady wage growth may be the catalyst that helps keep the economic expansion going: Higher wages encourage more spending, and companies that wish to meet that extra demand have to hire more people.
Ms. Pollak said this could be seen in the leisure and hospitality industries, which benefit when people have more money to spend on eating out and traveling. In the past year, the number of jobs in those two sectors grew at a significantly faster pace than in the job market over all.
“It’s not clear that we’re headed toward an inevitable decline,” she said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/05/business/jobs-report-unemployment-march.html
Gold is $1,581/oz today. When it hits $2,000, it will be up 26.5%. Let's see how long that takes. - De 3/11/2013 - ANSWER: 7 Years, 5 Months
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