Showing posts with label national product. Show all posts
Showing posts with label national product. Show all posts

Friday, February 3, 2012

Not to be a killjoy, but...



Today's jobs report was WAAAYYYY better than expected, no question. However, when you look behind the bullish, 243k gain in payrolls and drop in the unemployment rate to 8.3%, you see a disturbing trend: Average hourly earnings continue to decline. And since national income equals national product, then shrinking the income of the nation (or causing it to grow very slowly) means that you are shrinking the economy by definition. So, yeah, there are more people working, but they're earning less. Not good.

Average Hourly Earnings Y-o-Y % change