Unemployment is down. Wages are up for those who need it most. The March jobs report is strong

Daily Kos Staff

Friday April 01, 2022 · 7:48 AM PDT

2022/04/01 · 07:48

MIAMI BEACH- NOVEMBER 05: A ''Now Hiring" sign hangs above the entrance to a McDonald's restaurant on November 05, 2021 in Miami Beach, Florida. The Labor Department reported today that the U.S. job market in October showed that non-farm payrolls rose more than expected and that the unemployment rate fell to 4.6%. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

The U.S. economy added 431,000 jobs in March, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, while the Jan. and Feb. jobs numbers were revised up by a combined 95,000. The unemployment rate ticked down to 3.6%, labor force participation ticked up, and the employment-to-population ratio is nearly where it was in Mar. 2020.

That’s not the only good news. Though white unemployment remains far lower than Black unemployment, the Economic Policy Institute’s Elise Gould writes, “Today's report shows promising improvement across demographic groups. While a notably volatile series, Black unemployment has fallen now three months in a row, a hopeful sign the recovery is reaching Black workers,” including Black women workers.

That’s not the only good news:

The rate of wage growth among the lowest-wage workers right now is really remarkable. No sign of a slowdown here whatsoever. pic.twitter.com/jRzo8pT5Em
— Ben Casselman (@bencasselman) April 1, 2022

While inflation remains a real concern, wage growth is also important to talk about. Economist Aaron Sojourner notes that wage growth is strongest for young workers, and wonders if stronger wage growth for older workers would pull more of them back into the workforce.

The economy isn’t all the way back from the coronavirus pandemic (just as the pandemic itself isn’t over, no matter how much we might wish otherwise). There are still 1.6 million fewer jobs than there were pre-pandemic, and the job growth that we would otherwise have expected to see through two years is also missing. In particular, public sector employment lags. But the recovery has been astonishingly much stronger than the recovery from the 2008-2009 recession, and both the EPI’s Heidi Shierholz and the Roosevelt Institute’s Mike Konczal point out that this is directly due to policy choices—especially the American Rescue Plan.

With the end of another quarter, we can best compare the recovery to 2/21 CBO projections of what would have happened without the ARP. Now there's between 0.93 and 2.59 million more jobs, and LFP is 0.183 higher.

They predicted the recovery stalls now; instead it is still going. pic.twitter.com/200HVJk64Z
— Mike Konczal (@rortybomb) April 1, 2022

The economy is not perfect. But the recovery is incredibly strong and there is so much good news to report. Not that you’d know it from watching cable news or skimming the headlines.

Listen to Senate Majority PAC’s J.B. Poerch talk about 2022 Senate races with Markos and Daily Kos Elections’ David Nir on The Brief podcast

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Unemployment is down. Wages are up for those who need it most. The March jobs report is strong

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