About this episode
* I guess you could say a good jobs report is all in the eye of the beholder * And when it comes to President Trump's eyes, he is now beholding an excellent jobs report * Whereas a candidate, similar reports were described by Trump as phony, a hoax * I have a lot more sympathy for Candidate Trump than I do for President Trump * Now President Trump is trying to pretend that the jobs numbers that he used to be so critical of * Are now reflecting what a great job he is doing as President * When there's really no difference between the metrics of this job report and the ones we got under Obama * With probably one exception * And that is in the number we got is better than expected, though not as good as some had hoped, given the very strong ADP number we got earlier * We got a surge in manufacturing jobs there was also a bump in construction jobs * But I am very suspicious of the manufacturing jobs * I know a lot of American manufacturers are really trying to curry favor with Donald Trump early in his Presidency * And this could all be some Trump-related window dressing * This is a long trend of hemorrhaging manufacturing jobs * And I don't think this one blip necessarily means that trend has changed * I wouldn't get too excited; it is a good thing to be creating goods-producing jobs, manufacturing jobs * I'm not criticizing that * But the question is, is it sustainable, is it real, or is it simply some smoke and mirrors * Orchestrated selectively to make Trump look better early on * So certain companies can get what they want from Trump when it comes to tax reform, or other issues where these companies may have a vested interest * Let me go over the actual February Non-Farm Payroll numbers: * The consensus was 200,000 jobs; 227,000 was the number created in January * Most of that was prior to Trump becoming President, though subsequent to his election * So we did 227,000 jobs in January and they actually revised that up to 238,000 jobs * We did 235,000 in February, so actually slightly less, at least based on the initial estimate of jobs created in the prior month * Unemployment rate did fall slightly from 4.8% to 4.7% and labor force participation inched up from 62.9% to 63% as more Americans re-enter the labor force * Average hourly earnings, though, which were expected to rise .3% only rose .2% * But they did revise the prior month from .1% .2% * So I guess that was about a push * .2% is not much of an increase in wages, especially when prices are rising 2-3 times as fast * Remember January CPI was up .6 - triple the rate that wages are up * The average work week remained the same at 34.4% * As I said, what was a little bit different, though was the complexion of the jobs * We did create jobs in manufacturing, for a change Our Sponsors: * Check out FRE and use my code LISTEN20 for a great deal: https://frepouch.com * Check out Infinite Epigenetics: https://infiniteepigenetics.com/GOLD * Check out Justin Wine and use my code SCHIFF20 for a great deal: https://www.justinwine.com Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy