Another quick note, this time on what the payroll data say. Again, you want to focus on somewhat longer-term trends, not monthly numbers. Over the past year the employer survey says that we’ve added 1.8 million jobs, or 150,000 a month:
And this number is likely to be revised up.
This is substantially more than the number of jobs we need to keep up with population growth, which is currently something like
90,000 a month. (The number used to be higher, but baby boomers are getting old — the
same thing that affects the household survey.)
So the two survey are saying the same thing: job growth fast enough to make gradual progress on the employment front. Not fast enough; it will take years to restore full employment, and we should, um, end this depression now. But the progress is real.