US Economy Added 178,000 Jobs in November; Unemployment Rate Drops To 4.6 Percent (washingtonpost.com)

The U.S. economy added 178,000 jobs in November, while the unemployment rate fell to 4.6 percent from 4.9 percent the previous month, according to new government data released (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternate source) Friday morning. From a report on the Washington Post: Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News had expected U.S. employers to create 180,000 new jobs last month -- roughly in line with the average number added in the first 11 months of the year. The first release after a contentious election in which the candidates disputed the health and direction of the economy, the data showed a job market that is continuing to steadily strengthen from the recession. The unemployment rate fell to levels not seen since August 2007, before a bubble in the U.S. housing market began to burst. The fall was driven partly by the creation of new jobs, and partly by people retiring and otherwise leaving the labor force. The labor force participation rate ticked down to 62.7 percent. Average hourly earnings declined by 3 cents to $25.89. The decrease pared back large gains seen in October, but over the year average hourly earnings are still up 2.5 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said.

Comments

Wait a year

[GLMDesigns]

When Bush was president 200,000 new jobs was considered anemic as it didn't cover the rise in working age adults.

Now, with a greater population 187k is considered great. A sign that the economy is truly booming.

Wait a year, when Trump is president, and anything under 200,000k will be considered anemic again.

Remember we've always been at war with Eastasia.

Re:Wait a year

[dywolf]

context matters:
the bush number was in a slowing but steady economy not recovering from a recession and already near maximum employment (which is not 0% unemployment btw).

besides calling out one month's number alone isn't useful.
the average is better metric to use.

and to that end, I give average annual job growth, by presidential term (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobs_created_during_U.S._presidential_terms):

Jimmy Carter: +3.06%
Ronald Reagan (1): +1.43%
Ronald Reagan (2): +2.69%
George H. W. Bush: +0.62%
Bill Clinton (1): +2.64%
Bill Clinton (2): +2.33%
George W. Bush(1): +0.01%
George W. Bush(2): +0.23%
Barack Obama (1): +0.25%
Barack Obama (2): +1.98%

So again I say: Context matters.
And yes, Bush's job growth was anemic.

Re:Not much good

[mvdwege]

I notice you produce not even a link to your 'strong evidence'. Apparently you don't think it is all that strong?

Hmm...

[EmeraldBot]

I wonder what this''ll do for Trump's expectations. We have a bit of a paradox at the moment - he gets away with the a lot of stuff we would never let any other person say, and we accept his lack of policy, on the basis that he's inexperienced, or not a normal politician. However, at the very same time, people seem to have rather unreal standards for him - not only is he supposed to be everything that a normal president is supposed to be, classy and in tune with what's happening, but he's supposed to exceed on every metric - bring outstanding improvements to the economy, make the United States a world power (without diplomacy), and construct vast infrastructure improvements while curb stomping taxes for everyone. I honestly wonder what'll happen with his supporters when these two collide - many of them do seem to genuinely expect him to pull this off, and if he fails, they don't have anybody else to blame. 2020 might be a rather interesting election year...

Re:That can't be right

[bluefoxlucid]

I don't know. Let's do a full comparison.

66.2% labor force participation rate in 2008. 5.0% unemployed.

Today, 62.7% labor force participation rate, 4.7% unemployed.

In direct comparison, that would be 4.96% unemployed today if we had a 66.2% labor force participation rate.

Further, the 62.7% labor force participation rate includes discouraged workers, marginally-attached workers, and part-time workers (the underemployed); it being lower than the old 66.2% means 3.5% of Americans now find their economic situation sustainable such that they don't need to seek work, where before this proportion of workers had believed they required employment (or at least the income from employment) to sustain their lives and livelihoods. Thus the reduction in labor force indicates that working-class American households are altogether better off financially today than they were 8 years ago.

So, just a hair lower direct proportion of unemployment, and significantly-improved economic status, compared to January 2008 when Obama entered office.

Also the U-6 number includes part-time employees as "unemployed", rather than directly-addressing the great and terrible problem of underemployment. Underemployment is encouraged by the ACA's provision to provide health insurance for full-time employees, whereas a provision to provide insurance for all employees would have encouraged businesses to keep fewer employees with longer hours so as to reduce their benefits costs. The ACA increased underemployment and decreased U-3, whereas the alternative strategy would have increased U-3. I believe the increase in U-3 unemployment would have been superior, but it is impolitic: people only care about number of jobs, not robustness of those jobs.

Even so, U-6 is 0.1% higher today than in January of 2008. The impact hasn't been broad and catastrophic, but it has been suboptimal compared to consolidating to fewer jobs with lower underemployment.