there are three main points i want to make. the unemployment rate dropped, that s true. but remember three things. the labor, we re at 59% participation in the labor force, that s down four points from below where the recession started. you look at the u6 number, comprehensive unemployment, people who would want to work, it s 12.1. so the real unemployment is 12.1%. the third stat is that median family income has gone down. at the end of the day, you can talk about statistics all you want but going into election it s a gut call. do i feel better about where things are? am i concerned that my brother, my uncle, my sister doesn t have a job? people are scared and frankly they re blaming the president for not getting things done. i knew sean wouldn t be able to tell us why it was bad unemployment is down to 6.1%. as you talk i want to put up something and stephanie you make your point, and that is when you ask americans, are we on the right track or the wrong track? that s everythin
all together, that number almost doubles to 12.1%. here to talk about it and break it down, the founder and managing partner of harrington capital management. are either of these numbers the most important ones? or do we look to gdp spending which is not as rosie? we need to look at all of those. when you look at gdp growth that we have, at best it is sluggish. when you look at consumer spending and the average consumer keeping more money in their pocket, as i believe they should in this tumultuous economy, the problem is, that the stock market is really focusing on this jobs number. and are people going back to work. you just highlighted it. the labor participation rate, the amount of people looking for work is at a very low point. so what happens here is that we can show 225 or 295,000 jobs in any given month and say that
the trend and where the jobs are added. the trend here is pretty clear. the best start to a year the best first six months of a year since 1999 is the statistic the white house likes to point out is the best six months overall in job creation since 2006 since before the recession. that is really important but where are the jobs being created? the usually suspects leisure and hospitality. these tend to be lower paid jobs. retail jobs also a driver of jobs gains. again, lower paid jobs. that is why you re likely to see the debate over increasing the minimum wage and debate continue this year. where i m seeing is broaden out 67,000 business and professional service jobs are lawyers, those are accountants, information technology specialists. these are jobs that tend to pay a little bit more and it shows a broadening out of where we are seeing demand in the economy. one thing here that is important, the asterisk. a strong report but this is a labor market getting its stride and hitting its
12.1% which counts all of the part-timers and the people too discouraged the look for a job, and that is still high. back in 2000, brenda, it was 7%, and that is increase significant from 6% to 7%. and i m baffled when the left in particular says it is a great econo economy. i mean, the economy and don t we measure it by gdp, and i think that we do, and didn t that contra contract? people said well, the second quarter was up. and it is because of the bad weather, and then i say, wait a second, canada had bad weather, too, and they had a cold winter, and their economy didn t detract. no, the reason it did not is because of the government creating jobs, and the government does not create jobs, and we have to get that out of the picture. john made the point the government interfering with the jobs, and if they do nothing, we will be better off. i know you are excited and you can talk about it in the
services, the past few months, seen these jobs starting to gain strength. these tend to be higher paid jobs. they help oh alleviate concerns about the quality of the be jos we ve been seeing, but you still have leisure and hospitality, big gainer in job creation and retail jobs driving job creation as well. probably why you will still see debate over the minimum wage and raising it, still likely to be an economic conversation of the year, because over the past six years, preponderance of the jobs created have been lower quality jobs than the jobs lost in the recession. the asterisk in all this, a strong jobs report, but 12.1% is still out of work or working part-time, would would like to be working full-time. that number is still too high. still an important debate here who has been left behind in the economic recovery. overall this is telling us, the labor market recovery is gaining speed. which is good news. christine romans, thank you. so we ve got to talk about