The Trump economy is working. Timothy Doescher reports:
In addition to this being the 100th straight month of job creation, the labor force participation rose for the fifth straight month, and workers continued to see their pay steadily increase.
While there were significant revisions to the November and December jobs numbers (down 70,000 total from what was initially reported), over the last three months we have averaged a strong 241,000 jobs per month.
The unemployment rate ticked up from 3.9 to 4 percent, potentially due to the government shutdown, while the labor force participation rate grew to the highest level in five years, reaching 62.3 percent.
This signals that Americans are continuing to jump back into the labor force and fill the nearly 7 million jobs currently open.
Among the major worker groups, the jobless rates for adult men (3.7 percent), adult women (3.6 percent), teenagers (12.9 percent), whites (3.5 percent), African-Americans (6.8 percent), and Asians (3.1 percent) showed little change over the month. Hispanics, however, saw an uptick in joblessness from 4.4 percent to 4.9 percent.
[Timothy Doescher, “Despite Government Shutdown, Job Growth Soars in January,” The Daily Signal, February 1]