222,000 Jobs Added To US Payrolls In June; Unemployment Rate Rises To 4.4 Percent (npr.org)

From an NPR report: An estimated 222,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy in June, according to the monthly employment report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics Friday. "The job gains were better than expected -- most economists had predicted a gain of 180,000 jobs," NPR's Chris Arnold reports for our Newscast unit. The unemployment rate rose slightly to 4.4 percent from 4.3 percent -- a 16-year low that was hit in May. "Since January, the unemployment rate and the number of unemployed are down by 0.4 percentage point and 658,000, respectively," the BLS says. Previous estimates of job gains in recent months were revised upwards -- from 138,000 to 152,000 in May and from 174,000 to 207,000 in June, for a net gain of 47,000.

Comments

Re:"Discouraged" job seekers.

[BarbaraHudson]

Keep in mind that the IRS has records of every lawful employment payment (and many unlawful). Each one is reported with time period, money earned, and a unique identifier.

These numbers are never used, even though they obviously would give the best data. They can't be manipulated as easily, and it would be too easy to point out that job income per worker has been stagnant or even declined for a generation. GDP has increased tremendously, but it's not showing up in pay packets.