The week after the release of the monthly Employment Situation Report is normally a slow week. This column uses that down-time to produce multiple articles that dig into the data provided with the release of the "Jobs Report."
(Aug 7) How is President Trump doing compared to his predecessors? The article "Five Presidents at Six Months" examines the Current Population Survey (CPS) jobs data and the Current Employment Statistic (CES) worker data and found that President Trump has added over 4.5 million non-seasonally adjusted (NSA) full-time jobs and reduced unemployment at a pace comparable to Presidents Clinton and Reagan. The CES data reveals that President Trump has added more NSA CES private sector workers than Presidents Reagan, Clinton Bush 43, and Obama.This series also monitors the level of "missing participants" and the U-7 effective unemployment rate.
(Aug 8) There was a "war on women" during the 2012 Presidential election the real war was a war on working men. Men lost over 10 million full-time jobs during the recession. The article "Men Finding New Full-time Jobs" details how men have finally returned to the July 2007 level of full-time jobs and added to those level of full-time jobs and part-time jobs. This series has been tracking the U-7 for men and the U-7 for women. Men still have an effective unemployment rate over 10%.
(Aug 9) The story that is not receiving much attention elsewhere is the elevated level of people working two jobs. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) was supposed to allow people to work fewer hours and still receive health care benefits from their employers. We saw part-time job creation while we were losing full-time jobs, instead. We also saw an elevation of the number of people working two or more part-time jobs. "Record July Level of Two PT Job Workers" details how even though we saw a decrease month to month in the level of people working two part-time jobs, we still set a record for the month of July. The elevated level of multiple job holders (MJH) has lowered the levels of first-time unemployment claims and continuing claims as well as official U-3 unemployment level and U-3 unemployment rate.
(Aug 10) They still publish weekly unemployment claims reports. You wouldn't know this if you watched the news. What used to be breaking news at 8:30 AM on most Thursdays is now an afterthought. "Ignore Unemployment Claims Level(s) at Your Own Risk" examined the unemployment claims data back to the program's creation during 1967 and found that we have NEVER had a unadjusted (NSA) First-time Claims Level this low during the first week of August. We have over 80,000,000 more eligible workers than we had at its inception and we have few people claiming benefits.
(Aug 11) This has been an incomplete recovery. There are thirteen super sectors that are identified in the Jobs Report. Four sectors have not seen their level of workers return to the Pre-recession July 2007 peak number of workers. "July Sector Strength" details how the Health and Education sector, the Leisure and Hospitality Sector, the Trade, Transportation and Utility Sector, and the Professional Business Service Sector have all surged during the past ten years. Meanwhile, Construction, Mining and Logging, Manufacturing and IT have not recovered, as of yet.
The week may have been a slow news week, regarding economic data. This does not mean that there was not a considerable amount of information to report. The economic data is good. Does it matter if nobody else is reporting this good news?
It's the economy.