The Most Important Number of the Week Is 1.04 Million
The big gain in U.S. jobs last month boosted the outlook for growth, and yet strangely not inflation. Productivity may provide the explanation.
Investors’ reaction to July’s labor-market gains may seem unusual — but it makes sense.
Photographer: Peter Dazeley/The Image Bank RFPresident Joe Biden went on television Friday to declare that the better-than-expected 943,000 gain in jobs during July shows that his economic policies are working. Regardless of whether that’s true, Biden was selling himself short.
The number that Biden should have touted was 1.04 million, which is the increase in jobs in the Labor Department’s household survey, not the smaller rise in the narrower nonfarm payrolls. The household survey’s showing was its best this year, blowing away the previous high in March by more than 400,000 jobs. The reason this number is so important is because it captures the self-employed and part-timers not included in the broader nonfarm payrolls count.