Translation: many of those people who were laid off due to covid, have now returned to their old job, or found a new one.

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And what’s the average salary and benefits?

Key Points

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 223,000 for the month, above the Dow Jones estimate for 200,000.

Payrolls - read, people.

The unemployment rate fell to 3.5%, a decline of 0.2 percentage point and also better than the estimate.

Cool.

Wage growth was below expectations, with average hourly earnings up 4.6% from a year ago, below the 5% estimate.

More people working but for less.

Leisure and hospitality led job gains, followed by health care, construction and social assistance.

L&H - while everyone else is lagging behind the 'haves' still want to be catered to. Healthcare - need people to count their profits. Construction - materials may cost more but let's put one more breath into the bubble. Social Assistance - when the 'have nots' cannot be totally ignored.

In December, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 9 cents, or 0.3 percent, to $32.82. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have increased by 4.6 percent. In December, average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees rose by 6 cents, or 0.2 percent, to $28.07. (See tables B-3 and B-8.)

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We exceeded pre-pandemic job numbers in August (152.5 M). We're now about 154 M. So we're about 1.5 M jobs beyond that mark.

In other words, you're wrong. This is new job growth and it accompanies a historic low in unemployment.

There were 157,530,000 employed persons in the USA in 2019.

There were 159,580,000 employed persons in the USA in 2023. source

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Jerome Powell taking more Ls than Kevin Mccarthy

I know we all love to hate on the Fed and TPTB, but to me this looks suspiciously like a best case soft landing in the US.

Very little unemployment with moderate wage growth. Enough to encourage and reward workers, but not enough to cause runaway inflation.

On the flip side, we finally have sensible interest rates so you have less money going into non-productive things, inflating asset prices, and causing widespread wealth inequality.

how is jerome powell taking Ls? this is the soft landing he's been wanting.

inflation starting to cool (and hopefully continues) while unemployment stays steady is great and absolutely what the fed wants to see.

The fed is looking for a softening job market to start lowering/stop hiking interest rates. They say that a lot publically.

He openly wants a recession so the fake economy looks better and doesn't care who loses their job and goes broke in the meantime

Yeah, the doomposting in this thread is ridiculous. This is good news for everyone and a sign that after the stock market and capital correction is over, we might well end up with a more robust economy that's better for workers.

Right, the goal is to achieve maximum employment while hitting 2% inflation. I expect unemployment to tick up over 2023(hence softening of the market) but with last month's CPI report coming in lower than expected and the jobs data that was just released, it's looking pretty good. We still have a long ways to go to 2%, but it's on the right track.

Wages are also cooling which the Fed has been worried about wage-price spiraling.

Honestly I'm looking forward to 2023.

The only debt I'm carrying over is my car loan, travel trailer loan, and student loans. My 401k contributions are going up and I just started a secondary investment vehicle and opened a long-term savings account.

Maybe some day, I'll even be able to own a house :')

Seems very high. Does it provide the median?

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Building more homes is the exact opposite of a bubble

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If you are young and have a steady stream of income, this is actually a great time to invest in the stock market. Keep investing in established companies or ETFs and learn to ignore the red. When the stock market rebounds you will see big growth. It just may take a little while. Be patient.

Believe me, I know. Anyone not retiring is getting stocks on sale right now.

I'm 27 and I tell my retirement-age coworkers thanks for transferring the value of their 401k's to mine ;) Some of them took pretty big hits, but that's mostly on them for not shifting the value to more stable, if less growth, forms of investment.

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Why do you think rewarding workers has anything to do with the situation? Businesses don't PRINT money. Inflation is a money supply problem. Are you the next conservative talking point, blaming inflation on rising wages ?

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It seems like the labor market is functioning pretty well. Kind of surprising given the scope of fiscal/monetary policy that both Trump and Biden have undertaken in recent years. A pleasant surprise if you will.

I am not trying to attach a political agenda (honestly, not even sure what you are trying to imply).

> shifting the value to more stable, if less growth, forms of investment

That was not really an option when interest rates were at zero. And bonds got hammered in 2022 regardless. Sit in cash while inflation is at 8% was like the "best" horrible investment decision to make for retirees. This was the hangover from the rager party - little you could do to avoid it.

But they don't want to lower interest rates, unless they are forced to. So full employment with moderate wage growth / inflation is exactly what they are hoping to achieve.

By the time you're nearing retirement, more of your money should be moved to bonds and other stable investments. This should have been done in the years leading up to retirement, not as a reaction to the economy shitting itself.

If you're nearing retirement age and you're still heavily invested in stocks for the bulk of your 401k or other retirement source, you've done something horribly wrong.

Point being, it made little difference what you were invested in. Bonds got killed in 2022 because rates changed so fast.

But your losses (factoring in inflation on top) would still have been less than if you're still heavily in the stock market.

That's my point. You can't react to a sudden economic crisis, but there are ways to mitigate loss.

Funnily enough, your analogy regarding cash is absolutely wrong in this case. Someone who had their entire 401k moved to cash in 2021 would be doing better than someone who's 401k was mostly stocks.

And a realistic middle ground: a heavily stability oriented portfolio would be somewhere in the middle.

The value of my 401k today is 3 grand less than what I put into it (37k vs 40k), imagine what losses others are feeling that could (and should) have been mitigated by age-based rebalancing.

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Bonds lost inflation adjusted 20% last year. Stocks lost inflation adjusted 25%. Its a little better, but retirees had few good options.

> Funnily enough, your analogy regarding cash is absolutely wrong in this case. Someone who had their entire 401k moved to cash in 2021 would be doing better than someone who's 401k was mostly stocks.

Not sure how I was wrong when that is what I said :) Sitting in cash and "only" losing the inflation amount was the best investment. Which is still crappy, and only can be a considered "good" in hindsight.

Yup, this is the best way to slow down the inequality rate. It's up to legislators to pass laws to reverse it, which I don't see happening, so in the best case scenario, we stay status quo

Ah, I misinterpreted that, my b¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I cede that level of knowledge of the market to you. I yolo'd my own money in 2020 and made a stupid return, but that was money I was willing to lose. My own non-401k investment set up is far more conservative. I think it’s 40% lower yield, higher stability with some dividend paying stock as a buffer to the remainder growth-oriented stocks and ETFs. I forget the exact make up, but it was set up this way when i made it.

My point was more that I know people who never adjusted for age or retirement goal on their 401k. The values might have been lower, but I imagine it'd still be higher than at present.

But I also recognize the last couple years sucked for everyone. And it's why, in general, I am a strong supporter of stronger social safety nets. The idea of sustaining myself on my 401k sounds like a pipe dream. Especially if the new standard is once in a generation economic crises every other year

Housing is not in a bubble. This is not 2007, the US has chronically underbuilt since the great recession and we are seeing th results now. The sky high prices are from a genuine shortage. Younger millenials and older Gen Z want to ditch their room mates and/or stop living with their parents. There is no housing supply for them to do so. On top of that WFH has increased the demand for residential housing.

This is also not a shortage that will ease anytime soon. The market can't respond to the demand by building more units when building more units (where people want to live) is illegal. Take Charlotte NC for example, inside the city limits of this major city 86% of land that is zoned for housing is zoned only for single family homes. Recipe for shortage and car dependent sprawl.

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The bubble is all construction being targeted for high end buyers or tenants.

Except that there isn't wage growth.

Real wages have been falling and are still falling.

You're fucking DREAMING if you actually believe most Americans make $32/hr lol....

The Fed: "the rate increases will continue until morale worsens."

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What the fuck is TPTB?

The internet needs to pump the breaks with their acronyms.

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