June 7, 2013

US Economy Adds 175,000 Jobs, Economy “Putters” Along

<a href="http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs51/i/2009/339/b/1/meh_wallpaper_by_shiftylem.png">deviant art</a>

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


The US economy added 175,000 jobs in May, more than economists had predicted, the Labor Department reported Friday. More people started looking for jobs again, too. But because the government’s main measure of unemployment only counts people as unemployed if they’re seeking work, the increase in job-seekers increased the official unemployment rate to 7.6 percent, up from April’s four-year low of 7.5 percent.

Employment increased in the service sector—in retail, hospitality, temporary help agencies, and education and health services, i.e. in the low-wage work that has been the hallmark of the current economic recovery. New jobs were also added in high-salaried professional services, such as accounting, consulting, PR, and legal work. And employment ticked upwards in construction, as new housing construction begins (barely) to come back to life. Factory work and government employment decreased.

Here’s what job creation in various industries looked like last month, via Quartz:

 

And here’s where the economy lost jobs:

 

Women did better than men last month, though in general men have fared better during the recovery:

The economy is only recovering gradually. Consumer confidence is up and stock and home values are up, but the total labor force is still a much smaller percentage of the population than it was before the recession.

“In general, the economy is just puttering along,” Joshua Shapiro, chief US economist with the consulting firm MFR Inc., told the New York Times Friday. “Companies can get by without hiring people, so they do.” A private-sector jobs report released earlier this week partially blamed government spending cuts and tax increases for mediocre job growth.

Even with the small improvement in jobs numbers, there has been little gain in wages: wages are up only 2 percent over the past year, Bloomberg reports.

And those who are still unemployed are faring worse. As the Times reports, the sequester cuts have forced almost every state to cut back on unemployment insurance benefits.

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.

payment methods

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.

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