Blog | The ‘Republican Recover’ chugs along: Another month, another record set for monthly job creation
December’s job report not only extends the longest string of 200,000-plus monthly job growth in history, it showed that October and November were even stronger than initially thought - and they were already viewed as strong months.
The unemployment rate is at 5.6 percent, its lowest point since the middle of 2008, before we fully realized we were entering the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
This past year showed the creation of just under 3 million jobs, the best tally since 1999.
This is occurring as oil and gas prices remain low as jobless claims are essentially at a level that can’t go much lower.
Is it now time to start appreciating this? Or should we remain mired in the hyper-partisanship that has meant good news is bad news and bad news is bad news?
At least some top members of the GOP have decided to stop denying the obvious - even if their claim of credit is laughable.
More about today’s report:
In a research note, Wells Fargo Securities called the late season job growth “an encouraging sign that the U.S. economic expansion is set to not only continue, but most likely accelerate in the coming year.”
Also, the job growth in December was broad-based and suggested strength in some traditional middle-class industries — particularly construction, which added 48,000 positions. Another strong sector was professional and business services — accountants, architects, consultants — which added 52,000 positions. The pick-up in better-paying industries is in noted contrast to periods earlier in the recovery, when growth was concentrated in part-time positions and the retail and health sectors.
The latest data also comes amid a flurry of encouraging domestic economic news. The United States has seen two quarters of gross domestic product growth unmatched since 2003. The Dow is near a record-high. The median duration of unemployment is about half what it was six years ago. And consumer confidence is at a post-recession high.
This story was originally published January 9, 2015 at 12:25 PM with the headline "Blog | The ‘Republican Recover’ chugs along: Another month, another record set for monthly job creation."