July jobs report shatters expectations, and Fox News is really struggling to deal – By Laura Clawson (Daily Kos) / Aug 5, 2022
The July jobs report crushed both expectations and Republican hopes for bad economic news. The economy added 528,000 jobs, defying predictions of 250,000 new jobs. Unemployment fell to 3.5%—or, economist Justin Wolfers tweeted, more precisely 3.46%, which would be “THE LOWEST UNEMPLOYMENT RATE IN OVER HALF A CENTURY.”
Remarkable number. Payroll job growth this month is higher (as a percent of employment) than 93 percent of monthly job numbers since 1980. pic.twitter.com/7ZkDzbgccu
— Mike Konczal (@mtkonczal) August 5, 2022
One significant area of concern in the overall exceptionally good jobs report is that government employment remains well below pre-pandemic levels, the Economic Policy Institute’s (EPI) Elise Gould (among others) notes. Black unemployment also ticked up to 6%.
The EPI’s Heidi Shierholz also offered a warning about decelerating wage growth and Federal Reserve anti-inflation policy. “Make no mistake, we generally want positive real wage growth for workers! But decelerating wage growth means the Fed doesn’t need more interest rate increases to contain inflation,” she tweeted. “Though today’s release underscores we’re almost surely not in a recession now, the fed may have already overshot and secured a recession in coming months. Regardless, they should slow the pace of rate increases substantially and be ready to go into neutral or even cut rates.”
