As we enter an election year, December’s employment report starts to take on different meanings. The Obama administration wants to tout an impressive year of job gains—2.65 million new jobs added in 2015—while candidates are more focused on the anxieties of voters, who have seen wages stagnate for the last 15 years.
To economists, December’s report was the best news possible. We added 292,000 jobs and the unemployment rate didn’t move—meaning that these job gains are helping pull people back into the labor market and raising our long-term growth rate—and there are still no signs of inflation. That last point is where economists and most Americans differ.
The above excerpt was originally published in MarketWatch.
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