Footnote to Today’s Strong Jobs Report

(Here are some new factoids to sink your teeth into concerning all the nonsense about wage inequality -- a subject that the brilliant Washington economist Alan Reynolds has debunked voluminously):

At $16.76, average hourly earnings are nearly 20 percent above year 2000 levels, and 44 percent above the $11.65 level in the fifth year of the Papa Bush/Clinton business expansion cycle.This is the fifth year of the GWB cycle.

Even in inflation adjusted terms, real average hourly earnings are slightly higher than the 2000 peak, and nine percent above the 1995 fifth year average level.

By the way, since President Bush’s supply side tax cuts in 2003, adjusted household jobs (a BLS combination of non-farm payrolls and the civilian employment household survey) have grown nearly 3 million per year over the past three years.

Incidentally, looking at strong profits and productivity, economist Mike Darda thinks the unemployment rate will fall below 4 percent.