‘Keeps on chugging’: unemployment down and wages up in ‘strong’ and record-setting June jobs report

Economists are calling the June jobs report "strong," and "solid," with 209,000 jobs added bringing unemployment down to a near-50-year low of 3.6%. 220,000 to 240,000 jobs were predicted, but experts say historically 200,000 jobs created in one month is still impressive.

The Washington Post calls it "a slow but steady gain," and adds experts say the U.S. will mostly likely not fall into recession.

"Bloomberg Economics, which last fall forecast a 100 percent chance of a recession by October, now says the country will 'narrowly dodge' a downturn this year. Major banks including Goldman Sachs and Barclay’s are watering down recession predictions, in large part because of the job market’s resilience," The Post reports.

And The New York Times adds, "with rising wages and low unemployment, the labor market remains resilient."

"It's a good solid straight down the middle, this little engine just keeps on chugging along payrolls report," says University of Michigan professor of economics Justin Wolfers, who is also a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. "Job growth is definitely slowing," he adds.

"Bidenomics continued its underacknowledged winning streak in June," is how The New Republic's Timothy Noah reported June's jobs numbers.

"Everybody should calm the hell down," he adds, after calling the 209,000 jobs created number "somewhat of a triumph" while noting interest rates will likely rise and the stock market dropped after the jobs data was released.

"What today’s job numbers show is that the Biden economy is proving much harder to push into recession than the Fed reckoned on. I’d like to tell you why, but I don’t know. Nobody does. But the bottom-line reality check: That is very good news."

The June jobs report also brings some record-breaking results.

Thursday night former Biden White House Chief of Staff Ron Klein noted, "if tomorrow’s official unemployment rate is below 4%, we will have achieved the longest stretch of sub-4% unemployment on record."

It is. We have.

Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell notes women 25-54 working or seeking work has also just hit a record high, as has the rate of women having jobs.

The Council of Economic Advisers calls it "the highest rate since modern data began in 1948."

Wolfers notes the employment rate for people with a disability hit the highest rate ever recorded.

Democratic strategist, think tank founder, and political analyst Simon Rosenberg points out with these new numbers President Joe Biden has created seven times as many jobs as the last three Republican presidents combined.

He also says the average number of jobs created under GOP presidents was 10,000 per month.

According to Rosenberg, under President Biden the U.S. has seen "the lowest peacetime unemployment rate since WWII," "the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years," "the lowest [health care] uninsured rate ever," and "the lowest poverty rate ever."

The Atlantic's Derek Thompson notes over the past few years, "real wages have surged for the low-income, wiping out a quarter of the 40-year increase in inequality."

But the Washington Post also notes that "the Black unemployment rate, which had reached a record low in April at 4.7 percent, rose in May and June again, to 6 percent. A wide body of research shows that Black workers are the first to lose their jobs in economic downturns."

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