Moneybox

No Sign of a Jobs Liftoff

Not to be Mr Sourpuss or anything, but I think the chart above undercores the fact that some of the celebratory atmosphere surrounding this morning’s jobs report is a bit premature. It was a decent number of new jobs and nothing to cry about. But we’ve seen better months. Not just back in the pre-crash days, but during the disappointing recovery of the past four years.

That’s a big part of the reason all this talk of accelerating tapering seems so badly premature to me. If next month is better than this month and the next after that is even better then, sure, maybe. But we’re hardly experiencing some amazing boom.