U.S. Jobs, Pay Show Solid Gains in Trump's First Full Month (bloomberg.com)

Two anonymous reader share a Bloomberg report: U.S. employers added jobs at an above-average pace for a second month on outsized gains in construction and manufacturing while wage growth picked up, as the labor market continued its steady improvement in the new year. The 235,000 increase followed a 238,000 rise in January that was more than previously estimated, the best back-to-back rise since July, a Labor Department report showed Friday in Washington. The unemployment rate fell to 4.7 percent, and wages grew 2.8 percent from February 2016. While unseasonably warm weather may have boosted the payrolls count, the data represent President Donald Trump's first full month in office and coincide with a surge in economic optimism following his election victory.

Comments

Yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean he hasn't actually implemented any policies but let's go ahead and give him credit....

Re:Yeah

[DRJlaw]

The business world has an over-abundance of confidence in where the US is heading at this point which are driving these numbers. These numbers were precipitated by Obama over his last 8 years but to be honest he never inspired this level of confidence.

Hell yeah! We will completely ignore that monthly job gains were even higher in the last month of Obama's presidency, as reported in the summary, and even higher still in February 2016, which preceded the election. But wait, also the same thing in 2015, which preceded Trump's nomination. Bit of a dip in 2014, but even higher numbers in 2013.

This totally supports your argument, so long as you avoid thinking about anything connected to reality.

1-Month Net Change: All employees, thousands, total nonfarm, seasonally adjusted
Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
2013 211 286 130 197 226 162 122 261 190 212 258 47
2014 190 151 272 329 246 304 202 230 280 227 312 255
2015 234 238 86 262 344 206 254 157 100 321 272 239
2016 126 237 225 153 43 297 291 176 249 124 164 155
2017 238(P) 235(P)

Re:Yeah

[__aaclcg7560]

These numbers were precipitated by Obama over his last 8 years but to be honest he never inspired this level of confidence.

This isn't confidence, it's exuberance. When fools start tossing money at Wall Street, it's time to run in the opposite direction.

Re:Yeah

[CAOgdin]

You assert "Well most businessmen are republicans." First, I'm curious where that statistic comes from...and I would discount the Republican party as a valid source.

More importantly, I believe you can more validly say, "Well most business men are greedy, and the larger the business, the greedier they are, and in pursuit of their greed, they grease the palms of the Republicans in office."

Re:Yeah

[skids]

Apparently we need to find a sustainable way to have solid Democratic economic policies while keeping the business community under the misimpression that we actually have Republican economic policies.

Re:Yeah

[nobuddy]

complete and utter bullshit. The US has one of the lowest effective corporate tax rates in the world. They are sitting on it overseas because they want to pay NO taxes at all. And they don't like it because they wiggled out from under the taxes in such a way that the money is stick in their tax havens, unable to be used.

Re:Yeah

[lexlthr]

The post was a little emotional, but the data is valid. February 2017 numbers are in-line (and slightly lower) than February 2016 and February 2015 numbers. It's part of a trend with some ups and downs and probably can't be attributed to the current administration. It's not a partisan issue, it's just data points. Trump can take credit for it, but it's probably no more deserved than the first months of Obama's first administration which would have been the result of Bush policies - or the first few months of George W's administration which would have been the result of Clinton policies. It's too bad these conversations devolve so quickly.

Re:Yeah

[NatasRevol]

Meh.

Previous 3 Febs had roughly the same numbers.

Economy & previous policies keep on trucking.

Re:Yeah

[greythax]

Ooh, nice mental gymnastics! You literally ignored an entire table of numbers to support your preconceptions, and accused someone else of ignoring reality. I wish I had some kind of award I could bestow on you.

Re:Yeah

[fish_in_the_c]

An interesting question. I've never had anyone questing the 'common knowledge' before and it occurred to me that while I've heard this I never bother to google it.
Although If i had cared before I probably would have and I would suggest you do when you have such questions.

https://www.americanexpress.co...
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
https://www.thebalance.com/pol...

I didn't cherry pick these these were just on the top of the relevant results in google. Before you react it is good to research.

Re:Yeah

[GWXerxes]

They are sitting on it overseas because they want to pay NO taxes at all. .

Maybe I'm confused. Aren't corporations sitting on income overseas because the tax laws in those overseas countries are more favorable than the ones in the states?

Re:Yeah

[bluefoxlucid]

That's a liberal lie. Unemployment under Obama was like 40%. It's 4% now under Trump because he saved the world and made America great again. The unemployment numbers were faked up until January 8th.

Re:Yeah

[GLMDesigns]

That was true 15 years ago. But not after 2006.

It is well known that the United States has the highest corporate income tax rate among the 35 industrialized nations of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).[1] However, it is less well known how the United States stacks up against countries throughout the entire world. Expanding the sample of countries and tax jurisdictions to 188, the U.S.’s corporate tax rate of almost 39 percent is the third highest in the world, lower only than the United Arab Emirates’ rate of 55 percent and Puerto Rico’s rate of 39 percent. The U.S. tax rate is 16.4 percentage points higher than the worldwide average of 22.5 percent and a little more than 9 percentage points higher than the worldwide GDP-weighted average of 29.5 percent. Over the past ten years, the average worldwide tax rate has been declining, pushing the United States farther from the norm. https://taxfoundation.org/corp...

see also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Yeah

[SCPaPaJoe]

Speaking as a business owner, we always tend to hire more in the first quarter of the year. Our productivity suffers between Thanksgiving and the New Year because of all the vacations. It has been this way for us for the last 30-40 years. This isn't news, it's cyclical business behavior.

Re:Yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

The large US corporations are in panic mode because of the new US President. He has already shown his willingness to label certain companies as anti-US or un-American. Lockheed watched their stock price drop over 20 points when Trump stated that the US was paying to much for the F-35 program and his willingness to possibly look somewhere else for a replacement program. Now the US has already invested to much in the program and the chances of starting up another program is near zero but the public statement still had a an overly large effect. Lockheed lowered the price of each plane by 15% within days along with Lockheed promising to lower the price even further. One tweet is all it took. Ford was getting ready to close a US production line and move the jobs to Mexico and Trump painted the company as un-American and Ford cancelled the production line move for the foreseeable future. One tweet was all it took. There has not been a recent President who has been willing to publically call out the business practices of any US corporation. The only time the government criticizes a corporation is after they get caught doing something illegal that cannot be swept under the carpet. Corporations abhor negative publicity of any kind and a US President can sink their stock prices with one off the cuff statement. In today's world the statement doesn't even need to be the truth. The prices may rise again when the publicity wanes but having a 20 percent reduction in your stock price, even for one day, is something corporations want to avoid at all costs. Corporations invest billions of dollars a year in buying politicians just to make sure things like this do not happen. In this last election cycle the politicians they bought lost the election leaving them with someone who is not beholden to their wishes.

In the grand scheme of things the US President has limited power and almost every Presidential decision can be checked by the other two branches of government. But the US President has the largest megaphone in the world to shape public opinion. Trump is not a politician and his style of management doesn't mesh with his current job. Quite frankly I don't think he really wanted to be President. He is most likely as surprised as everyone else that he won. His challengers from both parties ignored him at first and then went and made the type of blunders that made Trump actually look good. All the rabid Trump haters still do not understand that their extreme actions and protests actually helped Trump win. It's all moot anyway because Trump has already accomplished what no other was able or willing to do. He demolished both the Democrat and Republican parties. He has totally exposed the big media conglomerates shoveling out and slanting the news to support their patrons political ambitions. This wasn't really a secret but by the end of the election they really came out of the closet in a blind panic trying to get Clinton elected and all thy accomplished was making Trump more popular. They are still doing the same thing today and if they don't start reporting news without an accompanying editorial line we might get stuck with Trump for 8 years. The US government runs on inertia that can't be thrown off course by a stupid President. Incoming administrations cannot undo all of their predecessors actions and chart a new course in 4 years. The incoming administrations always say they are going to change direction but rarely accomplish any of their stated campaign promises. Obama couldn't even close Gitmo in 8 years and all things considered that should have not been that hard of a task. I don't expect new wall construction in the Southwest or see a permanent ban on immigrants from certain countries. I can see the existing immigration laws being enforced in a stricter fashion. I can see more restrictions placed on H1-B visa recipients and see US corporations do a better job at prioritizing the hiring of US citizens over foreigners. Even on a superficial level this would be better.

Re:Yeah

[rwa2]

Well stated, AC.

I would add that it's a folly to dismiss Trump as stupid. He's "used car salesman" smart. There are a lot of interesting and effective negotiation tactics that are available when you can throw ethics and long-term credibility out of consideration. Trump has not only read but written Sun-Tzu Art-of-War style treatises on business dealings... how to portray yourself as rich when you are poor, stupid when you are shrewd, slow when you're moving fast. If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, then baffle them with bullshit sort of stuff.

Some story I've heard quoted offhand (wish I could find the source) was about when he bought a yacht from someone. He had a minion go and thank the other guy's minions for selling it to him for a much larger price than he actually paid. The idea was to spread rumors that made it look like Trump was much richer than he actually was, and much more foolhardy with his money than he actually was, so other people would make mistakes negotiating with him later. This tactic plays well with a lot of the other numbers and statistics he makes up on the spot... he exaggerates everything he can, in order to make himself look better later. He made up that huge $4 billion figure for the Boeing Air Force One projects, so he can brag about saving a billion dollars later when it comes out closer to a more realistic figure. I think I've seen an article indicating he's already done this.

Everything else he's been doing indicates that he's clearing the tables to maximize leverage for new negotiations -- firing all US ambassadors on day 1, threatening sky-high import/export tariffs, putting gag orders and hiring freezes on all US government agencies. It's clear that to do anything, you'll have to suck up to Trump first, and bring money and favors to secure it. But this is a standard business negotiation tactic, pull every string you can towards you first and make everyone else fight and bargain to get back the slack.

So we can look forwards to some short term "wins". Hopefully we can keep him negotiating and dealing with our enemies, and our friends will be very understanding in the mean time.

Re:Yeah

[meglon]

No, they're not. This is one of the outright lies that conservative dipshits continue to spout even with plenty of evidence to the contrary. The top marginal may be high, but the effective is lower than the OECD average. This is another one of those things that actually takes two working brain cells to understand, like the difference between the national debt and the budget deficit. Stupid people can't understand it, then say stupid things.

In addition: https://www.gao.gov/products/G...

In each year from 2006 to 2012, at least two-thirds of all active corporations had no federal income tax liability. Larger corporations were more likely to owe tax. Among large corporations (generally those with at least $10 million in assets) less than half—42.3 percent—paid no federal income tax in 2012. Of those large corporations whose financial statements reported a profit, 19.5 percent paid no federal income tax that year.

There is no credit to give to Trumjp... he hasn't done a damn thing that would change ANYTHING related to this. He's a nothing more than a lying sack of shit politician who mere months ago was slamming jobs reports for being phony, yet now they're wonderful and all because of him. BULLSHIT. Anyone who believes that should do the world a favor and kill themselves because they're that fucking stupid.

Re:Yeah

[meglon]

A higher marginal tax rate than Cuba, but a lower effective tax rate than Cuba. And the usual dipshits who can't understand anything continue to whine and complain about shot they know nothing about. If you don't understand the difference, you probably shouldn't say anything because it lets everyone know how fucking stupid you are.

Not Even the Pretense of a Technical Angle?

[RobotRunAmok]

Still, it's "Trump!" and that'll be good for several hundred posts... I guess that's the whole point, ennit?

"first full month" means NOTHING

[Rick Schumann]

None of that has a single thing to do with Trump. Hell, there's things that Obama did in his first term that we'll just start seeing the effects of now. It's always been that way, the wheels turn slowly enough that it takes years for effects to become evident.

Re:"first full month" means NOTHING

[iggymanz]

not true, Stock market and business will act on expectations of future which is what is happening here with Trump in office. Of course over time we'll get into what you are interested in, what results Trump's actions will have and yes for many things the time delay will be years and for some things over a decade

Haters gonna hate.

[Anonymous Coward]

People have a hard time accepting that one person can be both really good and really bad at the same time.

To those who don't like Trump, he is all-bad, and they won't accept any attribution of benefits to anything Trump does.

And vice-versa, of course.

I abhor Trump's attitude towards, say, Snowden. I think Trump is an exploiter who doesn't care about justice, but just about power. On the other hand, my investment portfolio has been doing very well since he won. So, I recognize the good with the bad.

Re:Haters gonna hate.

[CAOgdin]

So, you think that "employment" is an instantaneous measure of political prowess? Here'n all, I was under the mistaken premise of large-economy economics that it takes lots of work to create a sustainable grows in jobs, like more than the first two months. Gee, I wonder why it took Obama so-o-o long to reverse the downward spiral in jobs he inherited from Bush...probably not very good at his job, I suppose.

Re:Haters gonna hate.

[Proudrooster]

Business was punishing Obama for Obama-care by not hiring. Whether there was an upside or downside to the bottom line, there was an attitude of Obama isn't going to tell us what to do. Business and companies have been short-staffed as we have seen in the productivity statistics, but now the percieved pressure is off and businesses are hiring again.

Re:Haters gonna hate.

[Dread_ed]

The way you wrote that link to your google search is one way to look at the situation, but its incredibly 3rd grade and full of obvious emotional baggage unrelated to reality and seems to be written by someone with an axe to grind and who doesn't mind obscuring the facts.

The fact is this: The natural repercussions of implementing that law led to lower hiring. This is not punishment of Obama by businesses. It is merely a natural outcome of what happens when you change regulations to this new state. Now, implementing these regulations could be considered punishment for the people they adversely affect, namely the labor pool, but the blame of that lands squarely on the shoulders of those who created the underlying structure. Namely, those who wrote the law and implemented it.

Blaming "business" for some kind of concerted antagonistic action is just plain fucking stupid. Businesses follow the money and play by the rules that are handed down to them by government. If you don't like how a new law has changed how the majority of businesses operate, look at how the law was written.

Re:Haters gonna hate.

[Altus]

My issue is that nobody can draw even the slightest correlation between any policy move by Trump and these job gains. The idea that businesses are just hiring extra people because they have "faith in the future" is BS, you hire because you have need... need that is generated by demand for your product or service which grows over years, not overnight

First Month of Trump's Presidency?

[i_ate_god]

So what exactly did the US Government do in that first month to create all those jobs? After all, if you can implement policy on day one and see that translate into an economic boost within a month, that is some good policy that governments would want to imitate all over the world.

Re:First Month of Trump's Presidency?

[Trailer Trash]

So what exactly did the US Government do in that first month to create all those jobs? After all, if you can implement policy on day one and see that translate into an economic boost within a month, that is some good policy that governments would want to imitate all over the world.

It's actually quite simple - you have a leader who says he wants to put his country first and that makes investors and business people feel good enough to expand existing businesses and start new ones. That's why the stock market rallied after Trump's election - it's not based on an actual policy but a feeling.

Obama's "you didn't build that" bullshit cost more people more jobs that you can imagine.

Re:First Month of Trump's Presidency?

[phantomfive]

Animal spirits. Not joking.

Re:First Month of Trump's Presidency?

[T.E.D.]

Obama's "you didn't build that" bullshit cost more people more jobs that you can imagine.

...which totally explains why February jobs #'s were even higher in February of 2016, 2015, and 2013.

I have a much simpler explanation: Its February.

Re:First Month of Trump's Presidency?

[coinreturn]

So what exactly did the US Government do in that first month to create all those jobs? After all, if you can implement policy on day one and see that translate into an economic boost within a month, that is some good policy that governments would want to imitate all over the world.

It's actually quite simple - you have a leader who says he wants to put his country first and that makes investors and business people feel good enough to expand existing businesses and start new ones. That's why the stock market rallied after Trump's election - it's not based on an actual policy but a feeling.

Obama's "you didn't build that" bullshit cost more people more jobs that you can imagine.

You are full of shit. This was the 76th consecutive month of job growth. The stock market went up 50% over Obama's terms. Things are still just chugging along.

Re:Anemic growth is not normal

[Yunzil]

combined with unconstrined spending

You are aware, right, that it's not the president that does the spending, it's Congress?

Wait a minute

[slashmydots]

Now I haven't followed a damn thing he did but I don't recall hearing anything about specific job improvement strategies. Plus it's been ONE month. So is it safe to say this is just something that sort of happened?

Re:Anemic growth is not normal

[CheeseTroll]

Investors must have been absolutely *terrified* for the past 8 years, running the stock market up to record levels.

Promised to make life easier for small businesses

[SuperKendall]

So what exactly did the US Government do in that first month to create all those jobs?

It's not what they did, it's what they promised to do - which is primarily to lower the absurdly high U.S. corporate tax rate.

Mind you, large corporations are already paying much less than the top rate. But here's the secret - all of us small and medium sized businesses without a building full of accountants WERE paying that top rate, or close to it. So the promise to lower that rate helps improve hiring from the large majority of job creation, small to medium sized businesses.... the rate lowering won't make life much different for the very largest corps since they were not paying a very high rate anyway.

Re:Fun times...

[__aaclcg7560]

Jobs are up. Stock market is up. Consumer confidence is up. Precious metals are down.

For the eighth year in a row. Thanks, Obama!

If you really think the economy is about to hit the fan, then you can make a fortune by betting against the experts.

"Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful." — Warren Buffett

Re:Because the alternatives were awesome.

[ranton]

I love the dumb fucks who think people who have been screwed are voting against their best interests if they don't vote Democrat. Democrats aren't going to do shit for these people. This is why they've stopped fucking voting for Democrats.

Way to put up some strawman arguments, shoot them down, and call everyone who disagrees with you dumb fucks. This may be the least insightful comment yet for this article.

No proposed solution to our economic problems will solve everything, and claiming Democratic voters think otherwise is asinine. Re-education of workers helps displaced workers, but it won't work for everyone. Relocating to areas with more jobs helps displaced workers, but it won't work for every family dynamic. Improved safety net systems helps those who fall through the cracks, but it can't be the solution for everyone. More equitable primary, secondary, and post-secondary education will also help, but it won't be enough for everyone. We need all of this and more to solve our problems.

On the other hand, the are almost literally no programs suggested by the Republican platform which will help the working class. Gutting public schooling won't help, reducing financial assistance for health care won't help, economic protectionism won't help, reduced clean air and water regulations won't help, the list goes on and on.

The Democratic party is far from perfect, and has been almost as disastrous for the working class as the Republican party has been. Emphasis on almost though, since after you strip away false rhetoric the Republican platform is nothing but the party of the wealthy elite.

Re:Because the alternatives were awesome.

[phantomfive]

Vote out the incumbents until things change. Eventually things will either change or we'll die.

Re:Slashdot in a nutshell.

[Tempest_2084]

But that's how it's been with the Democrats for the last 8+ years. Anything bad that happened under Obama was Bush's fault, even after he had been out of power for almost 8 years and of course everything that was good was all his doing. Now it appears that anything good that happens under Trump is Obama's doing and of course anything bad is all his doing as well. It's a no win situation, and people will do some serious mental gymnastics to try and prove it no matter what the evidence says.

Re:Because the alternatives were awesome.

[whodunit]

the Republican platform is nothing but the party of the wealthy elite

As a lifelong Republican, I'd like to point out that Trump's electoral victory - achieved against the streneous efforts of the GOP hardliners and the majority of GOP congressmen - may well incidate that the average conservative voter seems to agree with you. That Bernie got as far as he did against the polished, powerful Clinton machine (so powerful that she forced the Democratic party leadership to cut a deal with her so she'd stop challenging Obama's run for nomination,)and the DNP apparatus, indicates that the left wing is tired of their elitists too.

Look for common ground - right now, I think you're likely to find it.