This is real money. Tell me whats on your mind, tweet me or hit me up on facebook. The job market came swinging back in september. The economy added 248,000 new jobs last month. That is a big jump from august. Whats more, the Labor Departments figures from this summer got revised upwarded by a cool 69,000. That means on average, america has now added almost 227,000 new jobs to the economy every month this year. Todays report is a pretty good gauge for a recovering economy. President obama, whos come under criticism because of his handling of the economy can rightly claim that things are looking better ahead of the mid term elections in november. Now, i usually tell everyone to ignore the Unemployment Rate and focus instead on the number of jobs added in a given month. Ignore that advice just for a moment. The jobless rate in september fell into its lowest level in more than six years, dipping below 6 for the First Time Since july of 2008. For once, unemployment came down for the right reason, people actually found jobs. Yeah, workers continued leaving the workforce like since the recession but thats not why the rate fell last months. So we can really celebrate this jobless rate drop, over all the last 12 months, the rate has come down 1. 3 Percentage Points to 5. 9 . You can go back to ignoring the Unemployment Rate. The one i dont want you to ignore is wage growth. Average hourly wages ticked down 1 penny to 24. 53. Wages of up 2 , barely beating the current rate of inflation. Normally we see rages rise 3. 5 or 4 a year in a healthy economy. That keeps pace with rising prices and then some. We are not there. Only creating more higher paying jobs will push average wages upwards. In some, we are seeing solid job growth. Thats good, once we also see solid wage growth, well know americas recovery is really on the right track. We have more. Millions of americans who have suffered bouts of unemployment are struggling to regain financial footing even when they find a new job. Thats the conclusion of a recent study by rutgers university. Weve got to category who have come back and were super down sized in terms of what they can afford and their quality of life and quality of their work experience. A co author examined the experiences of the unemployed, the findings of the 30 million americans laid off in the last five years, 20 never found a new job while four in 10 were long term unemployed searching for work for more than seven months before landing a new position. Not everyone landed on their feet, while 33 of workers who found new jobs earned more and 21 the same as before, nearly half failed to recover their former earning power. Most of it is because theyre taking lower quality jobs, reflecting people going back to jobs that pay less than old jobs. As for permanent changes and living standards, a third of americans who suffered chronic unemployment in the last five years reported major and permanent changes to their lifestyle, while one in 10 reported less severe, though permanent down sizing. That dodge is reflected in changing attitudes toward the foundation of the american dream. The to do found four intern americans and more than half of long term unemployed believe hard work and determination do not guarantee success. Aljazeera. Like i said, the jobs report is good news for president obama and his administration. Its the last jobs report before the mid term elections one month from now. Even the president s own labor secretary says the challenge now is to expand opportunity further, help more people benefit from this recovery and enis that your prosperity is broadly shared. These are his words. Joining me to explain how we are going to do this is secretary of labor tom perez. Secretary, good to see you. Always a pleasure to be with you. A lot of the other measures in unemployment didnt shift that much, so we can get down to business. We are talking about in numbers pretty job creation. Most people would admit 227,000 new jobs created a month for the last nine months is good. You and i struggle about what kind of jobs we are talking about, the quality of those jobs. What do we do to increase the wages and the quality. Its important to talk about what jobs are being created. The sector weve seen the biggest growth in the last year is business and professional services. Right. I hear periodically the only jobs created are fast food jobs. Thats categorically inaccurate. 800,000 plus jobs in business and professional services, these are architects, accountants, well paying jobs. The Health Sector has been recession proof. Construction is solid. Were continuing to move in the right direction. Weve had the biggest manufacturing growth since the mid 1990s. Last month was not the best month, but you look at the trend data, manufacturers want to come home and we see that right field in the job data. The nonlabor secretary is a guy who always believed in wage growth. Absolutely. I want to make sure the listeners understand where were at. We have created more jobs in this recovery than europe, japan, and every advanced economy combined. Now the challenge, and by the way, were on pace in the private sector to have the best job growth since 1998, and the key, and i bring up 98, because i think youre listeners and i know i remember, that was an area, an era where we had shared prosperity. We not only had job growth across the board, but it was job growth where the rising tide was lifting all boats. We have a stock market that is up over 30 over the last year and nine months, Housing Price that is continue to go up, and yet we have a big bulk of americans not feeling like theyre participating in this. We are lifting a lot of boats. I was with a guy three days ago who started a job actually wednesday of this week making 60,000 and we helped him train to do that job. There are millions of others in his shoes. At the same time, its undeniable that the biggest challenge is to make sure that the shared prosperity is shared prosperity for everybody. The issue of wage stagnation, its getting the attention now of standard and poor, the attention of the word bank. Bodies that have not historically focused on this, because theres a recognition that the key to success in america and across the world is a thriving middle class. Right. The world bank said the reason that america is the third most competitive country in the world is because of this growing wealth gap, income inequality. You look around the world, i just got back from the g20 labor minister summit. The minimum wage, two examples of where we need to move as a nation, we have the third lowest minimum wage of any member of the oecd nations, third lowest. The u. K. Have increased the minimum wage. There is a recognition that if you want to grow g. D. P. , consumption is 70 . Youve got to put money in peoples packets. Conservatives say give people higher wages and have fewer jobs because businesses are struggling and will employ further people. The evidence belies that, study after study show when you raise the minimum wage, you got a late workforce, you put money in peoples pockets and they spend it. Business owner after Business Owner said tom, what i need more than anything are customers. This is a consumption deprived economy. Heres what i say. Ive run for office at a local level and state level. Voters are smart. People across this country know the following, this president inherited a mess, the worst mess of our lifetime, 2 million jobs were lost in the three months before he took office. Weve now seen 55 consecutive month of private sector job growth, the longest streak on history. We are undeniably better off under the president s leadership and not done. Weve got more work to do. Voters are smart. They understand that elections are about choices, and what we have to do is increase consumption by raising the minimum wage, investing in infrastructure. My friends opt republican side, their proposal is more austerity. Some people want to eliminate the minimum wage. Theyd like to go lower. Ive heard that argument. The market will take care of it, apparently. You cant eat cake and loose weight. I havent figure that had one out. I think voters understand that this was a mess, and the president takes a back seat to no one in his impatience to pick up the pace of growth. What frustrates us is infrastructure, minimum wage have historically been buy bipartisan. Youre name has turned up on a list for consideration for attorney general. You have a civil rights record behind you. Im not going to ask you whether youve been approached or are talking about being the torn general, because i suspect you cant give me that answer. Washed the priorities of the office be . Were going to have a new one. The president and the attorney general have done, i had the great privilege of working with eric holder. He did a great job addressing the issues of National Security and making sure that the j. Was put back in d. O. J. , thats what its all about, making sure justice is not only a sign on the wall, but a value we practice in everything we do as a nation. Mr. Secretary, always a pleasure. Labor secretary tom perez. The numbers teach us about the struggles of those trying to stay in the america middle class. This is you, real stories about real people. A revealing look inside americas middle class is just two minutes away. The president of estonia rising tensions with russia. One country has decided it no longer needs to follow the rules European Union under stress the framework that was set up is not holding anymore and building for the future i require tough reforms and political will. Every saturday, join us for exclusive. Revealing. And surprising talks with the most interesting people of our time. Talk to al jazeera, only on Al Jazeera America forget the jobs numbers for a moment. I want to take you back to tennessee to check in on jodie bolan, the small Business Owner weve tracked as part of our series americas middle class rebuilding the dream. She struggles to keep her business afloat while tackling college costs. Pretty loud sound, julian. What do you think that sound is . Ive had some unexpect ed expenses come up with julian. He has his license and hes been wanting to drive himself to and from school. When i turn on the a. C. , it gets louder. Im not in a position to get him a car, which id like to be, something safe. Its really making a very loud noise. He says he thinks its a belt, but im not sure. Emergency brakes not working. It wont lock. Theres a couple hundred dollars worth of repairs. I also need the money to add him to my triplea in case anything happens. Also the school is requiring a fee for a parking permit for him to be able to park at the school. Julian loved his surprise birthday gift, and i think that it just meant so much to him that i was able to save and get that gift that he wanted for him of the headphones. Yesterday was just a really nice time for us together. I know that you worked really hard for this, and i really appreciate it. I love you, mom. I love you too, honey. Glad i could do it. I saved and then i was bitting on ebay for a long time. The expenses just keep coming, as hes getting older bill served on president obamas Labor DepartmentTransition Team from november, 2009 to 2010. He also served as the chief economist at the Labor Department from 20002001. He joins me from our new york studios. Good to see you. I want to get past end of the day, everybodys seen the jobs headlines. I want to look at personal consumption growth. Typically after recessions, people feel good, the economy gets better and people start consuming more. Lets go back six or seven recessions now and take a look at the chart of personal consumption growth in recessions and since recession. Tell me what you see here. What has happened is in this current recovery, weve only seen personal consumption grow by i would say just barely. The key point is when you compare to it previous recovers, its similar points in the recovers, this recovery basically comes out looking really, really poor, looking really, really weak. The reason this is so important, consumption by americans makes up 70 of national income. Now, you know, yeah, you see previous reuses, they had actually a contraction in their personal consumption growth, but those recovers are very different. You want to focus on the last two recovers, jobless recovery, but in those the economy at that time was much similar to the economy today. Right. When you do that, that jumps out at you, saying thats partly why youre having the family youre profiling in knoxville is having difficulty, its either a, Unemployment Rates are high in their community and people arent able to consume and buy. That showed wages that are not staying ahead of inflation. Americans pocketbooks are really being constrained. Let me ask you this. What causes consumption growth or the lack of it after a recession . Is it people making more money or a perception of whether or not theyre going to get a job or make more money or the economy is doing well . Its both. Its both. Lets take the hard fact piece. When you have a real Unemployment Rate, today came in at 11. 8 , still higher than prior to the recession. What does that mean . That includes the regular 9 million americans actively search forego a job but also includes what i call the new unemployed, includes two new groups. When you said 11. 8 , most people will wake up and see he a headline that says the Unemployment Rate is 5. 9 , the First Time Since the middle of 2008 that its below 6 . What is this, the red bar . The red bar next to that 5. 9 is what many economists call the real Unemployment Rate, including the regular folks actively searching, but also includes people working part time, but they want to work full time. Why are they only getting part time hours . They may live in a community such as knoxville or parts of california where the local economy, people are still concerned about their having jobs, people are still not seeing wage improvements, and then employers are still nervous about making that person who said part time going to full time. The second part of your question, psychology matters so much. Psychology matters so much. If you look at last months job support, we came in growing, but it was 140,000 new jobs. When you follow that up and look at the Consumer Confidence index, that was published shortly thereafter, Consumer Confidence plum melted. Why . Because people probably saw that headline, jobs up only 140,000 in that month. People got nervous again. Thats what i really enjoy about studying economics. Its not a hard science. We are talking about people, peoples behavior, tuesday. Lets talk about having a Part Time Job because you need it. Its not because we have this flexible lifestyle. The number of people working part time because they need to, the recession, it shot up. We were not 4 million range. This went up to almost 9 million. It has steadily been coming down since then, but its like a new reality. Is this the future of america is going to mean more than double the number of part time workers that we had before the recession . Here i like to be optimistic. I think this is hopefully not a new norm or structure or aspect or future of our economy, but it is troubling that this series, the part time series has fallen slower than the number of unemployed individuals that are captured in the official rate. Whats also tricky in this conversation, too, is that one of the reasons why that number of actual unemployed who are actively searching has fallen, its not necessarily all because theyve gotten jobs. Theres been a lot of discouragement and exit from the labor force. When you combine these two groups and the third group, a group of people who have stopped searching over the last month, but if theyre offered a job would take it, were still at around 18 million americans, who my former boss, the labor secretary used to describe as sort of an untapped, underutilized pool of potential in terms of workforce. Thank you so much for being with us. Bill rogers, former chief economist at the department of labor. The rich doing well, the rest struggle be, a down to the wire election. Its an inside look at brazils upcoming election, next. Its not just america where the financial struggles of the american class are a big issue in heated elections. Brazil elects a president when their economy is struggling, putting a strain on tens of millions of brazilians who have risen from poverty and joined the middle class. Ed lookedder of the polls is because of the popularity among poor and middle class voters, but the downturn in brazils economy is raising tough questions about the ability to afford those programs. With a population of almost 200 Million People, brazil is the worlds seventh wealthiest economy, also the Worlds LargestCoffee Producer with the worlds Third Largest producer of civil aircraft behind airbus and bowing. The country misted millions out of poverty. The of People Living on 2 a day has fallen from 21 in 2003 to 11 in 2009. People living in extreme poverty, just 1. 25 a day has fallen from 10 in 2004 to 2. 2 in 2009. Many of those suction says were due to the policies of the countries former president , desilva. Her hand picked successor, brazils first female president leads in the latest polls, despite overseeing a troubled economy. Right before coming into office, a majority of the people of brazil said the economy was in good shape, now say its in bad shape. The dissatisfaction comes after four straight years of economic decline blamed on stagnant Commodity Prices and poor economic policies, which failed to stimulate domestic demand or attract investment. The economy has since slowed, but the g. D. P. Growth rate decline to go 2. 3 in 2013. In the past year, people of brazil have taken total streets to protest rising inflation, corruption and a lack of invest in public services. The countrys 11 billion investment in the world cup is considered to have been an economic failure, and critics charge schools, hospitals and Public Transportation remain chronly underfunded. 72 of the pe