Here's What Incoming Fed Chief Powell Thinks of the U.S. Job Market
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Jerome Powell, President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the Federal Reserve, on Tuesday pointed out one of the persistent disappointments in this expansion: Wage growth is failing to reflect a tight U.S. labor market.
The unemployment rate fell to 4.1 percent in October, an almost 17-year low, according to the latest Labor Department data. That’s at or below what is generally considered the threshold for full employment. Meanwhile, average hourly earnings for private workers cooled to a 2.4 percent gain last month from a year earlier, and have been stuck in the 2.2 percent range on average since the recession ended in mid-2009.