By New York Post Editorial Board
Friday’s jobs report brought fresh and welcome news that the US economy is still humming along in all the right ways.
The nation added a net 224,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department announced, markedly more the expected 165,000. Wage growth remains strong, at above 3% year-over-year, for the 11th month in a row, as a tight labor market forces employers to share the wealth generated by solid Trump-era GDP growth.
The Dow dipped on the good news, as traders fear it means the Federal Reserve is now less likely to deliver an interest rate cut. But that’s just the latest in a long string of examples showing that short-term stock market movements aren’t about the economy’s strength.
Unemployment still bumped up slightly despite the job gains, but that’s a good sign, as it means that ever-more Americans who’d given up hope of finding work have now found that hope. Indeed, it also means that employers are rethinking, as they’re now hiring people with less education or fewer skills and providing on-the-job training. Ex-cons have a better shot these days, too.
And joblessness overall remains near 50-year lows, with African Americans in particular seeing an unemployment rate lower than they’ve had in decades.
More sweet news: Manufacturing jobs rose 17,000, after five months of minimal gains had made it look like the factory-job boom might be over. But now America has added more than half a million manufacturing jobs under President Trump — after then-President Barack Obama announced during the 2016 campaign that it would take a “magic wand” to reverse the sector’s decline.
The pack of 2020 Democrats is all vowing to reverse Trump’s policies in order to help American workers. Sure looks like they’re the ones wallowing in magical thinking.
