August 5, 2016

Chart of the Day: Net New Jobs in July

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The American economy added 255,000 new jobs last month, 90,000 of which were needed to keep up with population growth. This means that net job growth clocked in at a very robust 165,000 jobs. The number of short-term unemployed dropped sharply, but the number of longer-term unemployed increased. Overall, the unemployment rate held steady at 4.9 percent.

And there was more good news: hourly earnings of production and nonsupervisory employees increased at an annual rate of about 4 percent compared to last month. That’s not bad at all. We’re now in the silly season when all of these numbers will be politicized, but there’s really no way to make the July jobs numbers look bad. This is a very solid report.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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