“The article leaves out the part about another 400K people being eliminated from the workforce.”
THAT.......is exactly right.
Let’s not overlook the weak spots in this morning’s report: After overall hourly wages rose noticeably in November, they DROPPED by almost the same amount in December.
Hourly wages wages went up just 1.7 percent in 2014, before adjusting for inflation. That translates into a very small real increase in earnings per hour.
And as you guys notice, the labor-force-participation rate dropped 0.2 percentage points in December (all these numbers are seasonally adjusted), which suggests that that number still hasn’t bottomed out.
That is a constant battle, of course, because the population is aging so fast — but higher wages should draw many inactive Americans back into the labor force. That’s what a great recovery would look like.
All of this is good reason to be skeptical of the idea we’ve entered an “Obama boom.”
Well who would be unhappy collecting “funemployment” ?
/s