Investor's Business Daily
Editorial
Editorial
Jobs: With 228,000 jobs created in November, joblessness at a
17-year low of 4.1% and wages rising, it can no longer really be doubted: Donald
Trump's relentless focus on tax cuts, deregulation and draining the swamp is
great for job growth.
Even some normally critical media
now admit the economy's underlying shift: "The American job market is
the strongest it's been in a decade, and arguably the strongest since
2000," wrote The New York Times on
Friday.
The Times is right. And the change
is noteworthy, especially when viewed year-over-year.
Even though the workforce expanded by just under 1.1 million
workers in the past 12 months, the number of people employed is up 1.87
million. That's why the unemployment rate continues to drop.
But the most interesting part of the
jobs report, which goes almost unnoticed by the media, is that it's not just a
few groups seeing more jobs and opportunity — it's broad-based, with
minorities, women, men and even those with low incomes, showing the best gains.
For instance, every education group — ranging from those with no high
school diploma, to those with a bachelor's degree or higher — saw significant declines in
unemployment in November 2017 from November 2016. And the biggest drops were
for those with the least education, not the most.
Meanwhile, groups that have lagged
in recent years also show major improvements. For instance, the jobless
rate for African Americans dropped from 8% to 7.3%, while for Hispanics it fell
from 5.7% to 4.7%. For Asians it stayed at an ultralow 3%.
Among adult men 20 years and over,
unemployment has plunged from 4.3% last year to just 3.7% now. Likewise, adult
female unemployment declined from 4.2% to 3.7%.
Only one group is doing notably
worse: Teenagers. Those aged 16 to 19 have seen their jobless rate rise from
15.2% to 15.9% in the past year. It's no fluke: Hefty minimum wage hikes around
the country have slashed youth employment.
Even manufacturing, long a laggard
in our economy, has rebounded smartly. The economy added 189,000 jobs in the last year,
the Bureau of Labor Statistics notes. At the same time, federal government
employment is down by 3,000, CNSNews.com reports.
As for wages, average earnings rose
five cents an hour, or 2.5%, from last year. But economists Brian Wesbury and Robert
Stein of First Trust add that number to the change in total hours
worked to get what they call "total earnings." Those are up
"a sturdy 4.8% from a year ago," they said, and "wages are
rising faster in the lower income ranges than in the higher ones."
Trump's many political foes in the
media and inside the Beltway have painted him as a clueless friend of the elite
and an enemy of working people. As this jobs report clearly shows, that's just
plain wrong. And with Trump's big tax cuts on the way, job growth isn't likely
to end soon — more good news for all Americans.
