Solid and Steady US Economy (2015)

The United States has recently added 215,000 jobs to the American economy in July of 2015. Economists predict that the United States economy will eventually add 216,000 before the year is over. Anything over 200,000 is said to be considered healthy for an economy. On the other hand, the United States economy added 240,000 jobs a month last year for each month between January and July. America’s economy seems to be doing pretty fine, however, it is not doing the its best compared to prior years. There are still some issues in the American economy.

The unemployment rate remains the same as it was in 2008. According to the Labor Department, our current 5.3% unemployment rate is considered to be near full unemployment.

Wage growth is said to be the key to fixing America’s economy. However, there is scarcely any wage growth in America’s economic progress. Hourly wages have risen only about 2.1% since 2014. Because of this slight change, many Americans are hardly feeling the benefits of the economy’s recovery. As a result of all of this, the Federal Reserve plans to raise wage rates to 3.5% to help the economy.

What does the Federal Reserve plan to do? The Federal Reserve plans to raise its key interest rate for the first time in nine years. Raising the key interest rate will increase the Federal Reserve’s ability to raise wages for jobs. Although the Federal Reserve wants to see better wage growth before raisings rates, wage growth is not a requirement. Many experts say that the recent jobs report is enough justification for the Federal Reserve to be allowed to increase interest rates.

However, besides the unemployment rate remaining the same, there have also been some encouraging unemployment signs in July of 2015. The number of involuntary part-time workers has dropped. More and more numbers of workers who are working part time jobs but want to work full time jobs fell to 6.3 million people. What does this mean? This means that more and more people are actually finding full time and better paying jobs.

Another encouraging unemployment sign found in July of 2015 has been that the African American unemployment rate went down as well. It has fallen to its lowest point since 2008, 9.1%. Studies show that African Americans have been subjected to the highest rates on unemployment in America. Since evidence now shows that they are gaining job growth, so is the rest of the job market. 


http://money.cnn.com/2015/08/07/news/economy/july-jobs-report-215000-gains/index.html