After the final jobs report for 2019 showed wage growth missed expectations, the Dow closed below 29,000 after reaching the milestone for the first time in intraday trading.
But Grover Norquist, conservative activist and president of the advocacy group Americans for Tax Reform, said the jobs report was “good on all counts”
“I particularly like the U6, which is the unemployment number that includes discouraged workers,” he told Cheddar. Discouraged workers are those individuals who stop looking for jobs and no longer count toward general unemployment numbers.
“Unemployment is at a historic 50-year low, but discouraged workers is also at an all-time low,” he said. The discouraged and underemployed workers rate fell to 6.7 percent. He noted that the number is the lowest since the government began being measured in 1994.
In today’s report, the Labor Department said nonfarm payrolls increased by only 145,000 versus the 160,000 that had been expected as the unemployment rate held steady at 3.5 percent.
Today’s report also marked a slow rise in average hourly earnings, which rose by 2.9 percent, below the 3.1 percent projection.
Of those employed, women held more U.S. jobs than men for the first time in a decade. The last time women overtook men in payrolls was between January 2009 and April 2010, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Federal Reserve officials signaled that they still expect to cut their key interest rate three times in 2024 despite signs that inflation was surprisingly high at the start of the year.
Brad Bernstein, managing director at UBS Private Wealth Management breaks down the state of the U.S. economy and what to expect from Fed policy from the rest of the year.
SpaceX Investor Chad Anderson discusses Starship's latest test flight, what's next, and why he thinks Elon Musk's leadership sent the company in the right direction.
Dilip Rao, CEO of Sharebite, explains how his startup wants to normalize companies feeding their workers, the role of the private sector in public concerns, and more.
Athlete compensation, player unions and realignment dominate discussions — everything in college sports is open for discussion, interpretation and adjustment.
