U.S. suffers high employment
Jeannine Aversa of AP reported “Unemployment Rate Falls to 5-Month Low of 4.4 Percent in March.” Ah but it is not all good news:
Average hourly earnings rose to $17.22 in March, a 0.3 percent increase from February. That matched economists’ expectations. Over the last 12 months, wages grew by 4 percent.
Solid wage growth is good for workers and supports consumer spending, which is indispensable to the economy’s good health. But a rapid pickup — if prolonged and not blunted by other economic forces — can raise fears about inflation.
Spiraling inflation would whittle away any wage gains, hurting workers’ wallets. It isn’t good for the economy, either.
Of course that really isn’t news because, well, it hasn’t happened yet. But it could. And then it would all be Bush’s fault.
The new figures comes as President Bush continues to cope with a lackluster job-approval rating of 35 percent from the American public, according to a new AP-Ipsos poll. On the economy, the just 38 percent approve of the president’s economic stewardship, while 60 percent disapprove, the poll shows.
Tapping into that discontent, Democrats are championing policies to close the gap between low- and high-income workers, make it easier for workers to form unions against company wishes and taking a harder stance with respect to the Bush administration’s free-trade deals.
Pretty hard to have good job approval ratings when the press reports with the good news (unemployment is down) what might could happen (inflation, earthquakes, Martian invasion). How about sticking to reporting the news and letting oafs like me handle the opinion?
UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit linked and updated with Larry Kudlow’s breakdown on the unemployment numbers for college-educated people. Interesting.
Lowest Unemployment Stats Portend Bad News...
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