Is Employment Growth Slowing?
One Trouble with "The Trouble with Diversity"

Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps? (Yes, It's Another Washington Post Edition)

They have aroused the ire of Daniel Gross:

Daniel Gross: October 01, 2006 - October 07, 2006 Archives: SNOW JOBS: Yesterday's jobs report was lame: a mere 51,000 new jobs created in the month. Here's how Christopher Convey accurately played it in the Wall Street Journal:

Job creation sputtered in September, in a sign that the economy is cooling, but other data suggested that the labor market is still producing enough jobs to boost wages.

The Labor Department Friday released the mixed data, which economists said made any interest-rate changes by the Federal Reserve unlikely before year's end. Speaking ahead of congressional elections next month, Bush administration officials said the figures pointed to a healthy economy.

Payrolls of nonfarm employers increased by 51,000 in September after a gain of 188,000 in August, according to the data. Last month's tepid pace of hiring -- the weakest since the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina last fall -- is fresh evidence that the economy is still slowing under the weight of higher interest rates and a weakening housing market.

And here's how Nell Henderson and Peter Baker inexplicably played it in the Washington Post:

U.S. Job Numbers Remain Strong: Bush Promotes September Totals, But Markets Fall. By Nell Henderson and Peter Baker: Unemployment went down and paychecks went up last month, the government said yesterday, and it added that job growth for the year ending in March may have been far stronger than previously thought.

The announcements were greeted warmly by the White House -- and less so by the financial markets. Stock and bond prices fell amid fears the tight job market, by adding to inflation, will compel the Federal Reserve to hold interest rates steady or even raise them to slow economic growth. Many traders had convinced themselves that the Fed would cut rates early next year, but that looks increasingly unlikely....

The Labor Department's employment report -- and other figures released last week -- depict an economy that remained generally healthy in September outside of the slumping housing market. Workers found jobs and got paid more, while consumers hit the stores and auto showrooms to spend some of the extra cash gained from falling gasoline prices....

Demand for labor helped drive workers' average hourly wages, not including those of most managers, up to $16.84 last month. That's a 4 percent increase from September 2005, the fastest wage growth in more than five years.

So, lets see: wages have risen by 4.0 in the past 12 months, while inflation has risen by 3.8 percent in the past 12 months. And that means hourly wages are rising impressively? Sadly, that .2 percent growth in real wages may just be the best wage growth in the past five years. The economy created a mere 51,000 in jobs, the weakest total in a year and not enough to keep up with population growth, and yet the job numbers remain strong? Ok.

One possible explanation is that both Henderson nor Baker are sufficiently lazy and stupid that they have managed to proceed through life writing about economics and politics while remaining completely ignorant of the difference between increases in nominal wages and real wages, and they have done so in a newsroom in which getting the story right is simply not a priority.

Other alternative explanations are more discreditable.

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