U.S. nonfarm payrolls grew by a seasonally adjusted 295,000 jobs in February, the Labor Department said Friday. The economy has now added more than 200,000 jobs for 12 straight months, the longest such streak since 1995.
The U.S. economy lost more than 2.7 million jobs between the middle of December and the middle of January, but the big news from the January jobs report was that the economy added 275,000 jobs during the same period. . . reporting a statistically adjusted figure as if it were original data is a mistake, and a significant distortion of reality that only adds to public distrust of the government and the media. People know that jobs were scarcer in January than in February, even if the government told them the opposite.
Labor-force participation—the percentage of the population that is looking for work or employed—is now lower than at the end of the recession. There is a lot of room to grow. And the growth of productivity—the amount of goods and services produced per worker-hour—has hovered around 1% for the past five years, less than half the nearly 2.5% average of the previous 20 years. There is room for acceleration there, too.
The U.S. economy continued to expand across most of the country at the start of the year amid broad-based hiring and rising consumer spending, according to the Federal Reserve’s latest survey of regional economic conditions.
The U.S. economy cooled in the final months of 2014, a return to the moderate growth that has marked much of the recovery.
U.S. inflation gauges are sliding toward negative territory for the first time in more than five years. But the oil-fueled tumble in prices is far from the kind of growth-sapping episodes of deflation that tend to worry economists.
U.S. nonfarm payrolls grew by a seasonally adjusted 257,000 jobs in January, the Labor Department said Friday. And job creation was far stronger in prior months than previously thought, with the government raising its estimates of new jobs in November and December by a combined 147,000. November’s reading of 423,000 jobs added marked the strongest month of private-sector hiring since 1997.
While the prospects for tax reform in Washington are dim, as many as 20 Republican governors are moving forward with their own pro-growth tax-relief initiatives. This is on top of the 14 states, including Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin, whose 2014 tax cuts will take effect this year.
This comes when egg demand is growing, in part because soaring meat prices have caused Americans to turn to other foods. Per capita consumption is expected to reach more than 260 eggs this year, the highest since 1983, according to the USDA. The poorest consumers have been hit hardest by the price spike because eggs have traditionally been a cheap source of protein.
Figures released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics said the combined rate of private- and public-sector union membership was 11.1% last year, down from 11.3% the prior year. Membership in the private sector fell to a rate of 6.6% in 2014, from 6.7%, while public-sector representation rose slightly to 35.7%, from 35.3%.
U.S. consumers are seeing prices rise at the slowest annual pace in more than five years, largely thanks to a global plunge in oil prices, presenting a potential complication for the Federal Reserve as it looks to raise interest rates this year.
Federal spending on such side projects has increased 38% since 2008, while highway spending is flat. Here’s what the politicians won’t say: Simply using the taxes that are supposed to pay for highways to, well, pay for highways makes the HTF 98% solvent for the next decade, no tax increase necessary.
Sales at retailers and restaurants decreased a seasonally adjusted 0.9% in December from a month earlier, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. But that drop, the largest since last January, likely overstates the severity of the pullback. Some economists blamed technical factors such as seasonal adjustments, warning about potential revisions to the data or a rebound in coming months.
The U.S. concluded its best year of job growth in 15 years as the unemployment rate fell to a postrecession low last month, signs of strength that mask continued challenges of stagnant wages and a stubbornly high number of Americans still on the sidelines.
America’s corporate income tax rate, at 35%, is the highest in the world. A rising chorus would like to bring it more in line with foreign rates, which average around 23%. I have a better idea—abolish the tax. The long-term benefits would greatly outweigh the short-term costs. And revenue from other sources, especially the personal income tax, would quickly make up for it and then some.