Something rather inconvenient is going on. Quite frankly, we don’t like it one bit. Despite all the assurances of robust economic recovery, the opposite appears to be happening.
The economy isn’t climbing up. It’s slipping back. In fact, last week we received two new data points confirming the slippage. The first being Friday’s jobs report…
Net jobs growth in 2013 has averaged more than 200,000 a month thus far. But when the bean counters at the Labor Department tallied them up for July, they ran out of beans at just 162,000. What’s more, the new jobs to count aren’t the type of jobs that grow the economy. They are the types that flatten it.
“What you’re seeing now is the spreading of low wage growth,” said Dan Alpert, managing partner at Westwood Capital. “Really we have become a nation of hamburger flippers, Wal-Mart sales associates, barmaids, checkout people and other people working at very low wages.”
Here at the Economic Prism we don’t discount anybody for showing up to a hamburger stand or a Wal-Mart position each morning. Continue reading
