Economy, jobs grow, again frustrating GOP predictions of doom
"Employers added 280,000 jobs in May, the most in five months, further dispelling fears that a first-quarter slowdown would take hold, figures from the Labor Department showed Friday. That followed a revised 221,000 April advance.Hourly earnings climbed from a year ago by the most since August 2013, while an increase in the number of people entering the labor force caused the unemployment rate to creep up to 5.5 percent from 5.4 percent. The report bolstered the case for Federal Reserve policy makers to begin raising rates this year.
“This only reinforces the view that the economy is a lot healthier than the GDP data imply,” said Joe LaVorgna, chief U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. in New York, whose projection for a 275,000 gain was among the closest in the Bloomberg survey. “How weak can the economy be when we’re generating this kind of job growth?”
"The proportion of the working age population that is employed — which some economists consider a bellwether of how the economy is performing — rose to 59.4 percent. It is the highest point since the recovery began six years ago."
In summation:
That's now 63 consecutive months of job growth during which we've added 12.6 million jobs. We've added 5.6 million jobs in the last two years and 3.1 million in the last year, indicating that the pace of job growth is increasing.
Somehow, the news brings to mind a prediction from that noted economics expert Rush Limbaugh back in September 2012:
"We're doomed. If Obama's re-elected, it will happen. There's no if about this. And it's gonna be ugly. It's gonna be gut-wrenching, but it will happen. The country's economy is going to collapse if Obama is re-elected. I don't know how long: a year and a half, two years, three years."
“I know mathematics, and I know economics. I know history," Limbaugh said at the time. "I know socialism, statism, Marxism, I know where it goes," he said. "I know what happens at the end of it.”
