Dose of optimism: June’s jobs report is brighter than expected

Accompanied by the customary cautionary note about analysis based on one month’s figures, June’s job creation rate, provided by the U.S. Department of Labor, should have provided Americans with a shaft of light Friday.

June produced a better-than-expected 222,000 new jobs, supplemented by an adjustment upward of 47,000 of April and May figures. Unemployment rose a tick, to 4.4 percent from 4.3 percent, but that is still low. Average hourly wages were up 2.5 percent from a year ago. Labor-force participation rose slightly, to 62.8 percent from 62.7 percent, even as some employers complained of difficulty in filling jobs. Inflation, a key factor for poor and middle-class people in the face of generally stagnant wages, remains under 2 percent.

Although it is too early to claim a “Trump bump” upward in the economy, June’s figures, coupled with a robust stock market, should be seen as positive and cause for hope.

There are still shoes waiting to drop and a considerable number of issues with unknown or potentially negative longer-term impact. One of these is the paralysis in Washington on some very important issues, some in areas where President Donald Trump as a candidate promised action. There is no agreed-upon budget. Raising the national debt limit above $20 trillion will be contentious. The direction America will go on health care remains tortuously tangled.

Tax reform is somewhere over the rainbow. The promised jobcreating infrastructure bill is nowhere in sight.

Also on the negative side is a slowdown in auto sales and the fact that the spurt in new jobs seems to have resulted partly from growth in public-sector employment rather than in the manufacturing and retail sectors generally watched for signs of economic health. The long-term employment impact of Trump’s policies on immigration and American participation in international trade pacts has yet to become visible.

All in all, however, the job figures released on July 7 look good. Americans need some good news right now.

Iwould like to make you aware of the problems with the Division of Family and Children Service office in Rome. We the poor, disabled, and elderly should not have to sit at the office for three or more hours just to pick up an application or to drop an application off.

I sat from 8:30 a.m. until 11:45 a.m. just to have the lady hand me an application to re-enroll in the QMB program. I have been trying to upload this application online to avoid having to wait again just to turn it in, but for a week now the website keeps saying that document upload is unavailable, please try again.

My disability is not a handout, it is my money that I have paid into the system since I started working at the age of 16, but due to an accident, I have to deal with this system Clay Bennett, Chattanooga Times Free Press that no one cares about.

The DFCS office in this community is in dire need of help. More organization along with more employees could help tremendously. All three windows should be open and no one should be standing up at the window longer than 30 minutes. If a person has a problem that can’t be solved within 30— 45 minutes, then give them an appointment with their caseworker. There are ways to fix the problems, you just have to care. Brenda Bishop Rome