Friday brought more great economic news: higher-than-expected jobs growth in August, as well as a solid rise in wages — all with unemployment remaining at record lows. Manufacturing activity just hit its highest level since May 2004, and consumer confidence is at an 18-year high. And there’s good reason to think it’ll keep up.
The wage-growth number was the big one: The month saw average hourly wages jump 0.4 percentage points on top of a 0.3 rise in July, making August’s annual wage hike a solid 2.9 percent — the largest since June 2009.
That means the unemployment rate of 3.9 percent conceals even better news: All these stats point to a tight labor market, which means more people are also surely working more hours every week, with folks having been stuck working part-time moving to full-time, and other workers drawing overtime pay.
Thus, the Labor Department’s broader measure of unemployment (which includes those who’d given up working, frustrated part-timers and so on) dropped to 7.4 percent, its lowest level since April 2001.
Can the good news keep coming? The US economy is years into recovery, long past the point when most expansions falter.
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04.29.2025