It's unprecedented. There is a large and growing gap between how the economy is performing and the living standards of the people stoking the engine. |
Lawmakers need to focus on stimulus, and this report is really a wake-up call in that regard. |
Many of our overall indicators are percolating along just fine, but the growth continues to elude many working families, especially those in the middle and low end, |
Many of our overall indicators are percolating along just fine, but the growth continues to elude many working families, especially those in the middle and low end. |
Maybe by the second quarter of next year, we'll be looking at some lower unemployment rate -- say in the 5 to 5.5 percent range, if we're lucky. But that would be the best to hope for, and it's based on our working through these excesses that persist. |
Maybe we were looking under the wrong rock. |
More people are coming in [to the labor force], and we're not creating enough jobs to put much downward pressure on the unemployment rate. But this is better news than expected. |
My problem with the Bush plan is that it's so ideologically problematic that now these guys are going to have to argue about it for a month or two. That's bad because we need to inject stimulus into the economy quickly. |
Nationally we think it's impossible to say exactly when we've reached full employment. But it sounds like in Florida you're there. |
Obviously a stronger-than-expected report, |
Of course there are jobs that few Americans will take because the wages and working conditions have been so degraded by employers. But there is nothing about landscaping, food processing, meat cutting or construction that would preclude someone from doing these jobs on the basis of their nativity. Nothing would keep anyone, immigrant or native born, from doing them if they paid better, if they had health care. |
One good month based on a swing in the C.P.I. does nothing to change this negative trajectory. |
Our expectations have been pretty diminished. A good month used to be 300,000 more jobs and now it is 200,000. |
People think unemployment is still relatively low, but there's all the difference in the world between a tight labor market and a weak one when you're talking about employees' ability to bargain for a fair share of growth. |
The bottom line is that it's better to run a workforce on security than insecurity. |