The unemployment report again provided some good news this month. The unemployment rate fell to 3.7 percent, the lowest rate since Nixon was in the White House. The unemployment rate for white women and black teens both hit their lowest levels on record, 2.8 percent and 19.3 percent, respectively. (That 19.3 percent rate is not a typo—it actually is the lowest black teen rate since we started compiling the data in 1972.)
As always, we have to recognize that the good news comes against a backdrop of really bad news. The economy is moving in the right direction at a respectable pace, we added a hurricane-depressed 134,000 jobs in September, bringing the average over the last three months to 190,000. But even with this sustained growth, we have a long way to go to make up for the damage from the Great Recession, and even longer to offset the three decades of wage stagnation that preceded it.
Read Full Article »