January Jobs Report: US Economy Adding Jobs Like A MOTHER, Again!

And people are actually starting to notice that Joe Biden's economy is booming.

Professor Prettypaws searches the internet for why his suit and left foreleg have merged. Image generated in DreamStudio AI, edited in Photoshop.

The good economic numbers keep coming as the election year starts in earnest, with a much better than expected employment report for January 2024. The economy added 353,000 new nonfarm jobs, way better than the Dow Jones forecast of 185,000, while the unemployment rate remained at 3.7 percent, making January the Umpteenth month in which unemployment remained below four percent. Oh, the 24th month, meaning two full years of unemployment at a 50-year low.

The White House took a little victory lap with a statement from President Joe Biden saying “America’s economy is the strongest in the world,” which is fact check true, at least in terms of annual GDP growth among the G7 nations. The US economy grew by 2.5 percent in 2023, compared to just 1.9 percent for Japan, which came in second.

Biden also noted that inflation — or at least the “core” inflation rate that the Fed looks to as a key indicator — has now been steady at two percent for the last half year as well.

 “It’s great news for working families that wages, wealth, and jobs are higher now than before the pandemic, and I won’t stop fighting to lower costs and build an economy from the middle out and bottom up.”

Also good news for working families is the rate of wage growth, with average hourly earnings up by .6 percent; as CNBC explains, that’s a big deal, because “On a year-over-year basis, wages jumped 4.5%, well above the 4.1% forecast.” What that means in practical terms is that average wages are increasing faster than inflation, giving people more spending power.

And in some additional good news, the Bureau of Labor Statistics also revised upwards the already good reports for November and December of 2023, with December’s new jobs revised to 333,000 (117,000 above the initial estimate) and November’s total up by 9,000, to 182,000 jobs.

So what does the continued job growth mean for inflation and interest rates? The Federal Reserve announced in December that inflation has calmed down enough that the Fed plans to cut interest rates three times in 2024; the timing will depend on where inflation and growth are.

At a presser Wednesday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said interest rates will remain where they are for now, and that an interest rate cut in March isn’t likely, an outlook that’ll probably be reinforced by today’s strong jobs numbers because economists are still worried about inflation.

Powell also got about as gleeful as a Fed chair is allowed to get about the economy right now, saying “this is a good situation. Let’s be honest, this is a good economy.”

Powell said that the “executive summary” for the economy is that “growth is solid to strong over the course of last year,” and

“The labor market, 3.7 percent unemployment, indicates that the labor market is strong. We’ve had just about two years now of unemployment under 4 percent. That hasn’t happened in 50 years. So it’s a good labor market. And we’ve seen inflation come down, we talked about that. We’ve got six months of good inflation data and an expectation that there’s more to come.

“So this is a good situation. Let’s be honest, this is a good economy.”

Chris Hayes characterized that on his MSNBC show Wednesday as being, for any country’s central banker, “the equivalent of stripping off your clothes and twerking for three minutes straight,” and thanks for that mental image.

And in more potential good news for Joe Biden, the monthly University of Michigan Survey of consumer sentiment was also released this morning, showing consumers feeling gooder about the economy for the second month in a row. A press release from the U of Michigan kvelled,

Consumer sentiment soared 13% in January to reach its highest level since July 2021—continuing the sharp increase seen in December—primarily on the basis of an improving outlook over inflation and personal incomes. […]

Over the last two months, sentiment has climbed a cumulative 29%, the largest two-month increase since 1991 as the First Gulf War and a recession ended. Sentiment has now risen nearly 60% above the all-time low measured in June 2022 and is now 7% shy of the historical average reading since 1978.

Survey director Joanne Hsu said that there’s still a good bit of variation in how people are feeling, though, as almost half of consumers

“still expect challenging times for the economy in the year ahead. Uncertainty stemming from the conflict in the Middle East and the looming election may also factor into consumer views in the months ahead.”

The cautious optimism went across all demographic groups, and over half of those surveyed “expect their incomes to grow at least as fast as inflation, the highest share since July 2021.”

Now look, we aren’t gonna go and predict something crazy like that sense of optimism and the good economic numbers leading to higher approval ratings for Joe Biden, because a third of Americans watch Fox News and wouldn’t give credit to Biden if he made it rain ten-dollar bills and gummi bears, because why wasn’t it twenties and hamberders, huh?

[Bureau of Labor Statistics / CNBC / NYT / CNBC / University of Michigan]

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