The labor market would be good without all the hate

In another strong jobs report, the nation’s payrolls added 250,000 jobs last month, the unemployment rate held steady at a 49year low, the closely watched labor force participation rate increased, and yearoveryear wage growth broke 3 percent for the first time since 2009. Given that inflation has been running a bit short of 2.5 percent, this means workers are finally seeing real gains in the buying power of their paychecks.

Wages were up 3.1 percent for all privatesector workers and 3.2 percent for middlewage workers, suggesting that the tight labor market is generating broad gains, not just helping those at the top of the earnings scale.

In other words, the U.S. job market is tighter than it has been in decades, and this dynamic is revealing important insights. The first, which we knew, is that slack matters: The absence of full employment saps worker bargaining power and constrains wage growth. When we move toward full capacity in the job market, workers get back some of the clout they lacked, and employers must share more of the gains with them.

Second, and this most economists did not know, is that there was and still probably is more room to run in the labor market than conventional wisdom maintained.

The distributional implications of this critical insight cannot be overstated: full employment provides the biggest gains to the least advantaged, too many of whom have long been left behind in previous economic expansions.

Of course, a few days before such a consequential midterm, these findings have powerful political implications.

I’ll get into them in a bit more detail below, but for now, recognize that (a) Trump inherited the strengthening job market, and (b) I guarantee you, we could have achieved full employment without all the hate.

But first, the data. Figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that job gains are north of 200,000, more than enough job growth to push our already low unemployment rate down even further.

If this trend persists even if it fades some — it likely will take the jobless rate down to below 3.5 percent in coming months.

As noted, the tighter job market has delivered faster wage growth. The smooth trend in the figure shows a slow staircase of wage gains, from about 2 percent in 2013, to 2.5 percent around 2016, to closing in on around 3 percent now.

Contrast this staircase with the “elevator down” shortly after the recession. This pattern of sharp wagegrowth losses and slow wagegrowth gains is precisely why it is so important for policymakers to preserve and build on the gains generated by the close to fullcapacity job market.

This admonition is especially the case when we consider how “anchored” price growth has been.

Even as the unemployment rate has fallen to levels well below the Fed’s estimate of the “natural rate” — the lowest rate it believes to be consistent with stable inflation — price growth remained stable at the Fed’s 2 percent target.

This “anchored inflation” dynamic has held even as wage growth has picked up.

Based on these relationships, I and others have suggested the Fed consider pausing in its inter estratehiking campaign. This is a unique moment for a truly datadriven Fed to build on these critically important labor market gains that are finally nine years into the expansion ready to deliver some potentially lasting gains to middle and lowwage workers.

OK, back to the politics: Applauding this strong report a few days ahead of a uniquely important midterm, it is impossible (for me, at least) to discuss the current job market apart from its political implications.

First, one reason for the very tight labor market is the tax cut and spending bills that were added to the deficit, which, at 4 percent of GDP, is far higher than it should be at this stage of the recovery.

This deficit spending is boosting the growth rate by perhaps a percentage point, which I and most other economists believe will start to fade later next year.

In other words, the policy agenda of piling onto the budget deficit when the economy is already closing in on full employment has, to its credit, revealed more labor capacity than most economists and the Fed believed was available.

But it is also robbing the U.S. Treasury of muchneeded revenue at a time when we’re going to need more, not less, revenue to meet the fiscal challenges we face, while the corporate tax cut is sharply worsening inequality.

There’s no reason we couldn’t be at the same place we are now if, instead of wasteful, regressive tax cuts, we’d invested in middle and lowincome people, education, upward mobility and public goods.

Moreover, Trump is clearly building on trends he inherited. His constant refrain that the job market was terrible before he got here is the fakest of fake news.

And then there’s the reckless trade policy, the hateful rhetoric with its murderous consequences, the chaotic dysfunction at the highest levels, and the neverending stream of lies.

I like a fullemployment labor market as much as anyone. But I guarantee you it’s possible to achieve it without all the hate.