Chart of the Day: Net New Jobs in July

The American economy added 209,000 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 119,000 jobs. That’s an OK number, about the same as last month and equal to the average of the past three years. The headline unemployment rate ticked down slightly to 4.3 percent, all of it due to an increase in the number of employed people. A net of about 150,000 people re-entered the labor force, and the labor participartion rate ticked up slightly.

Hourly earnings of production and nonsupervisory employees went up at an annual rate of 3.4 percent. Inflation is currently running at 1.6 percent, so that’s pretty good. If we could only keep this up for a year or two, we might have a real recovery. All in all, this was a modestly positive report with no real downsides.

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate