Making America Work Again, Yea Boy...

[seer]

Unemployment Rate Falls to 18-Year Low; Solid Hiring in May

https://www.wsj.com/articles/unemplo...may-1527856298

Black unemployment rate hits new record low in May

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/n...ord-low-in-may

May Boom: Number of Employed Americans Sets 9th Record Under Trump

https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article...rd-under-trump

Report: US Oil Output Jumps To Record High In March

https://www.oilandgasinvestor.com/re...-march-1704031

[Mountain Man]

Thanks, Obama! It's about time his economic policies started working!

[seer]

Thanks, Obama! It's about time his economic policies started working!

[seer]

Forgot this one...

U.S. Payrolls Rise 223,000; Jobless Rate Matches 48-Year Low

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...s-historic-low

Average hourly earnings increased 2.7 percent from a year earlier, more than projected, while the jobless rate fell to 3.8 percent from 3.9 percent to match April 2000 as the lowest since 1969.

[seer]

Costco boosting hourly wages for 130,000 U.S. employees

The raise is a windfall from Costco’s savings due to U.S. federal corporate tax cuts that took effect this year. Costco also reported that its profit jumped about 7 percent in its fiscal third quarter to $750 million or $1.70 a share, matching Wall Street analyst expectations.

https://www.seattletimes.com/busines...ings-thursday/

[seer]

Trump Has Cut Federal Payroll by 24,000 Jobs

https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article...00-under-trump

[carpedm9587]

Bureau of Labor Statistic estimates for May and final numbers for March are out. Job creation has now averaged 185K/month since Feb 2017, which is 7K above the 178K average in the same months for Obama, but 22K below the monthly average for Obama's entire second term. Still, the numbers remain healthy (as they were in the 2012-2016 period).

Unemployment is at historic lows. It has dropped 1% point (4.8 to 3.8%) in 16 months. That's an average drop of 0.06% per month. Again, over the same period in Obama's second term, unemployment dropped 0.8 points or an average of .05%/month. Over his entire second term it dropped from 8.3% to 4.7% (3.6% or 0.075%/month). Again, all healthy numbers without substantial difference between the two terms.

Wage and Salary growth are the hot items these days, and they have shifted from an anemic 2%+ in the Obama years to 2.7% in the latest projection. Of course, since inflation hovers at around 2%, there is still little effective change in people's pockets. As unemployment stays low, however, that should begin to shift.

All in all - the economy is essentially on the same trajectory as it has been for the last 8 years, with the expected shifts as unemployment comes down. GDP growth spiked around 3% in the last three quarters of 2017, but came back down to 2.2% for the first quarter of 2018. Some projections suggest it may be as high as 4% for Q2.

[Starlight]

Thanks, Obama! It's about time his economic policies started working!

It does appear to be a continuation of the success of the Obama economy, yes.

BLS Unemployment graph:
US Unemployment.jpg

After the disaster crash at the end of 8 years of Republicans in office, the unemployment under Obama recovered steadily across his two terms, and what we are seeing so far 1 year into the Trump term appears to be just a continuation of that.

[carpedm9587]

It does appear to be a continuation of the success of the Obama economy, yes.

BLS Unemployment graph:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]28050[/ATTACH]

After the disaster crash at the end of 8 years of Republicans in office, the unemployment under Obama recovered steadily across his two terms, and what we are seeing so far 1 year into the Trump term appears to be just a continuation of that.

And we are now starting to reach a somewhat concerning unemployment level. When the job market is too tight, there are all sorts of nasty things that can result.

I wonder, out of curiosity, how much of the unemployment is a function of economic policy, and how much is a function of the new immigration policies. Trump has already had to issue new visas for temporary employees (though it did not get a lot of press). I know Vermont businesses are struggling to find temporary workers for several industries that used to be readily available through temporary immigration.

[seer]

It does appear to be a continuation of the success of the Obama economy, yes.

Exactly what job/business growth policies did Obama institute?

[Starlight]

Exactly what job/business growth policies did Obama institute?

Weren't you around for it?

Here is a basic overview from wiki:

The economic policy of the Barack Obama administration was characterized by moderate tax increases on higher income Americans designed to fund healthcare reform, reduce the federal budget deficit, and decrease income inequality. His first term (2009–2013) included measures designed to address the Great Recession and Subprime mortgage crisis, which began in 2007. These included a major stimulus package, banking regulation, and comprehensive healthcare reform. As the economy improved and job creation continued during his second term (2013–2017), the Bush tax cuts were allowed to expire for the highest income taxpayers and a spending sequester (cap) was implemented, to further reduce the deficit back to typical historical levels. Corporate profits and the stock market reached record levels in 2010 and 2013 respectively, while inflation and interest rates remained near record low levels.

That wiki article is lengthy and high on details if you want many pages of further reading.

[seer]

Weren't you around for it?

Here is a basic overview from wiki:

The economic policy of the Barack Obama administration was characterized by moderate tax increases on higher income Americans designed to fund healthcare reform, reduce the federal budget deficit, and decrease income inequality. His first term (2009–2013) included measures designed to address the Great Recession and Subprime mortgage crisis, which began in 2007. These included a major stimulus package, banking regulation, and comprehensive healthcare reform. As the economy improved and job creation continued during his second term (2013–2017), the Bush tax cuts were allowed to expire for the highest income taxpayers and a spending sequester (cap) was implemented, to further reduce the deficit back to typical historical levels. Corporate profits and the stock market reached record levels in 2010 and 2013 respectively, while inflation and interest rates remained near record low levels.

That is nonsense, income inequality got worse under Obama,

Income inequality may be even worse under Obama than George W. Bush. Emmanuel Saez, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, memorably found that the average income of the top 1 percent grew by 11.2 percent in real terms since 2009. The bottom 99 percent saw their incomes decrease by 0.4 percent.

That means 121 percent of the income gains from the Obama recovery went to the wealthiest during the period Saez examined. The top 1 percent took in 65 percent of the income gains when the economy was expanding under Bush from 2002-07, only 45 percent during the Clinton economic boom from 1993 to 2000.

http://dailycaller.com/2015/01/20/re...e-under-obama/

the only reason corporate profits and the stock market did fairly well was because of Quantitative easing, there was zero noticeable effect from the stimulus package and health care reform did jack to create new jobs.

And as far as the debt and deficit:

Obama's real debt and deficit legacy

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news...eficit-legacy/

[Starlight]

You seem irretrievably deep down the rabbit hole of believing right-wing fake news Seer. I guess I'll content myself with pointing out to you that in general 9/10 of the articles you seem to like to link to are more false than true.

I'm no fan of Obama at all. But he wasn't too bad on the economy.

[carpedm9587]

That is nonsense, income inequality got worse under Obama,

the only reason corporate profits and the stock market did fairly well was because of Quantitative easing, there was zero noticeable effect from the stimulus package and health care reform did jack to create new jobs.

And as far as the debt and deficit:

Obama's real debt and deficit legacy

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news...eficit-legacy/

The initial claims are all over the map, and can be refuted or defended depending on who's economic numbers you lean to (left or right), so I will forego a response to them. It's an endless, pointless, debate.

I do agree that the deficit, under Obama, soared. Of course, Obama inherited the worst recession since the great depression. The deficit jumped from $450B to $1,413B in 2009, largely due to the stimulus package. It then began ratcheting downward and returned to pre-Obama levels in 2014. 2017 (under Trump) saw it rise to $665B and it is projected to rise year over year until it reaches nearly $1T under Trump - and Trump is president in a time of record low employment, healthy job creation, reasonable inflation, slightly elevated GDP increase numbers, healthy stock market growth, and the beginning of salary growth. In other words - a healthy economy.

So how do you feel about deficit spending under Trump?

[Starlight]

2017 (under Trump) saw it rise to $665B and it is projected to rise year over year until it reaches nearly $1T under Trump - and Trump is president in a time of record low employment, healthy job creation, reasonable inflation, slightly elevated GDP increase numbers, healthy stock market growth, and the beginning of salary growth. In other words - a healthy economy.

Yep, there's no good reason (except incompetence) not to be running surpluses at the moment given the healthy state of the world economy. My country's been running surpluses the last 3 years.

I don't necessarily blame Obama for his deficits because (1) in a depression running deficits to stimulate the economy is accepted wisdom and (2) the Republicans controlled congress and wrote the budget for much of his time in office anyway.

But for the Republicans, now, under Trump, with control of all branches of government, to decide to voluntarily pass massive cuts to government revenue (the tax cuts) while massively increasing defense spending for no good reasons (what wars is the US in that require defense spending to be as high now as it was during Afghanistan + Iraq?) and then run a huge deficit, even during a time of a healthy economy, is just financial mismanagement on an almost criminal level.