On Friday's broadcast of WBUR's “Here and Now,” MSNBC chief economics correspondent and MSNBC host Ali Velshi said the August jobs report showed job creation was “lower than what's needed to maintain stable employment.” He also said that while wages are outpacing inflation, “inflation is high for a lot of people who have to pay rent, car insurance, home insurance, all kinds of things.”
“We created 142,000 new jobs in August, which was below expectations. We were supposed to have 161,000, or at least that was expected. And we created 142,000 new jobs in August,” Velshi said. [thousand] “That's a lower number than we need to maintain stable employment. In general, last year we were creating about 200,000 net new jobs each month. But as you commented, last month it was 114,000. Now, the other number I'm not too fond of is the unemployment rate. It went down slightly to 4.2%. But that denominator changes every month, so I'm less concerned about that than the actual job creation number.”
He added, “When you have unemployment at this level, wages grow. Wages are up 0.4% month over month, but they're up 3.8% from last year, which is higher than the average inflation rate. So, if inflation is around average, we're in a better situation than inflation. Unfortunately, a lot of people who have to pay rent, car insurance, home insurance, all kinds of things, are facing higher inflation rates. So this is a jobs report that can be good or bad depending on your mood and where you stand.”
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