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U.S. Jobs, Pay Show Solid Gains in Trump's First Full Month (bloomberg.com) 398

Two anonymous reader share a Bloomberg report: U.S. employers added jobs at an above-average pace for a second month on outsized gains in construction and manufacturing while wage growth picked up, as the labor market continued its steady improvement in the new year. The 235,000 increase followed a 238,000 rise in January that was more than previously estimated, the best back-to-back rise since July, a Labor Department report showed Friday in Washington. The unemployment rate fell to 4.7 percent, and wages grew 2.8 percent from February 2016. While unseasonably warm weather may have boosted the payrolls count, the data represent President Donald Trump's first full month in office and coincide with a surge in economic optimism following his election victory.
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U.S. Jobs, Pay Show Solid Gains in Trump's First Full Month

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  • Yeah (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 10, 2017 @12:22PM (#54013319)

    I mean he hasn't actually implemented any policies but let's go ahead and give him credit....

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by jellomizer ( 103300 )

      Well most businessmen are republicans. So with the republicans back in power they will be more likely to invest more in their businesses when they feel optimistic. The economy isn't about policies but with people ability to take risks.

      • Re:Yeah (Score:4, Insightful)

        by CAOgdin ( 984672 ) on Friday March 10, 2017 @12:46PM (#54013535)

        You assert "Well most businessmen are republicans." First, I'm curious where that statistic comes from...and I would discount the Republican party as a valid source.

        More importantly, I believe you can more validly say, "Well most business men are greedy, and the larger the business, the greedier they are, and in pursuit of their greed, they grease the palms of the Republicans in office."

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          He's defining "businessmen" as "people who run actual businesses, not non profits."
          • I don't think you need to get so complicated as saying 'most'.

            If approximately 50% of businesses and 50% of the population ere on some sort of power trip right now then that adequately explains it. It should probably be higher in fact.

            Praise Jesus.

          • Wounded Soldier?
          • He's defining "businessmen" as "people who run actual businesses, not non profits."

            Ok I can't speak for all American 'businessmen' (and women), but two of this richest most highest profile 'businessmen' I know of, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett tend to lean towards the Democrats. So on the surface this claim seems like bunk.
            And before you get angry, I'm sure there's plenty of support on both sides of the fence, but simply claiming that most 'businessmen' are Republican sounds a little moronic.

        • Re:Yeah (Score:5, Informative)

          by fish_in_the_c ( 577259 ) on Friday March 10, 2017 @02:06PM (#54014291)

          An interesting question. I've never had anyone questing the 'common knowledge' before and it occurred to me that while I've heard this I never bother to google it.
          Although If i had cared before I probably would have and I would suggest you do when you have such questions.

          https://www.americanexpress.co... [americanexpress.com]
          https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
          https://www.thebalance.com/pol... [thebalance.com]

          I didn't cherry pick these these were just on the top of the relevant results in google. Before you react it is good to research.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by skids ( 119237 )

        Apparently we need to find a sustainable way to have solid Democratic economic policies while keeping the business community under the misimpression that we actually have Republican economic policies.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by Waffle Iron ( 339739 )

        I'm sure republicans feel great now.

        Just like a meth-head feels great right after inhaling.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by GLMDesigns ( 2044134 )
        To his credit he's been talking about reducing some of the ridiculous tax laws that makes it extremely foolish to repatriate monies back to the US. Remove these regulations and companies will stop sitting on cash and invest. Don't blame this specifically on Obama but the entire Democratic Party's approach to business. US corporate tax rates are extremely uncompetitive.
        • Re:Yeah (Score:5, Informative)

          by nobuddy ( 952985 ) on Friday March 10, 2017 @01:23PM (#54013891) Homepage Journal

          complete and utter bullshit. The US has one of the lowest effective corporate tax rates in the world. They are sitting on it overseas because they want to pay NO taxes at all. And they don't like it because they wiggled out from under the taxes in such a way that the money is stick in their tax havens, unable to be used.

          • Re:Yeah (Score:4, Insightful)

            by GWXerxes ( 2980493 ) on Friday March 10, 2017 @02:09PM (#54014313)

            They are sitting on it overseas because they want to pay NO taxes at all. .

            Maybe I'm confused. Aren't corporations sitting on income overseas because the tax laws in those overseas countries are more favorable than the ones in the states?

          • Re:Yeah (Score:5, Informative)

            by GLMDesigns ( 2044134 ) on Friday March 10, 2017 @02:54PM (#54014643)
            That was true 15 years ago. But not after 2006.

            It is well known that the United States has the highest corporate income tax rate among the 35 industrialized nations of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).[1] However, it is less well known how the United States stacks up against countries throughout the entire world. Expanding the sample of countries and tax jurisdictions to 188, the U.S.’s corporate tax rate of almost 39 percent is the third highest in the world, lower only than the United Arab Emirates’ rate of 55 percent and Puerto Rico’s rate of 39 percent. The U.S. tax rate is 16.4 percentage points higher than the worldwide average of 22.5 percent and a little more than 9 percentage points higher than the worldwide GDP-weighted average of 29.5 percent. Over the past ten years, the average worldwide tax rate has been declining, pushing the United States farther from the norm. https://taxfoundation.org/corp... [taxfoundation.org]

            see also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

            • Re:Yeah (Score:5, Insightful)

              by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 10, 2017 @04:11PM (#54015151)

              The large US corporations are in panic mode because of the new US President. He has already shown his willingness to label certain companies as anti-US or un-American. Lockheed watched their stock price drop over 20 points when Trump stated that the US was paying to much for the F-35 program and his willingness to possibly look somewhere else for a replacement program. Now the US has already invested to much in the program and the chances of starting up another program is near zero but the public statement still had a an overly large effect. Lockheed lowered the price of each plane by 15% within days along with Lockheed promising to lower the price even further. One tweet is all it took. Ford was getting ready to close a US production line and move the jobs to Mexico and Trump painted the company as un-American and Ford cancelled the production line move for the foreseeable future. One tweet was all it took. There has not been a recent President who has been willing to publically call out the business practices of any US corporation. The only time the government criticizes a corporation is after they get caught doing something illegal that cannot be swept under the carpet. Corporations abhor negative publicity of any kind and a US President can sink their stock prices with one off the cuff statement. In today's world the statement doesn't even need to be the truth. The prices may rise again when the publicity wanes but having a 20 percent reduction in your stock price, even for one day, is something corporations want to avoid at all costs. Corporations invest billions of dollars a year in buying politicians just to make sure things like this do not happen. In this last election cycle the politicians they bought lost the election leaving them with someone who is not beholden to their wishes.

              In the grand scheme of things the US President has limited power and almost every Presidential decision can be checked by the other two branches of government. But the US President has the largest megaphone in the world to shape public opinion. Trump is not a politician and his style of management doesn't mesh with his current job. Quite frankly I don't think he really wanted to be President. He is most likely as surprised as everyone else that he won. His challengers from both parties ignored him at first and then went and made the type of blunders that made Trump actually look good. All the rabid Trump haters still do not understand that their extreme actions and protests actually helped Trump win. It's all moot anyway because Trump has already accomplished what no other was able or willing to do. He demolished both the Democrat and Republican parties. He has totally exposed the big media conglomerates shoveling out and slanting the news to support their patrons political ambitions. This wasn't really a secret but by the end of the election they really came out of the closet in a blind panic trying to get Clinton elected and all thy accomplished was making Trump more popular. They are still doing the same thing today and if they don't start reporting news without an accompanying editorial line we might get stuck with Trump for 8 years. The US government runs on inertia that can't be thrown off course by a stupid President. Incoming administrations cannot undo all of their predecessors actions and chart a new course in 4 years. The incoming administrations always say they are going to change direction but rarely accomplish any of their stated campaign promises. Obama couldn't even close Gitmo in 8 years and all things considered that should have not been that hard of a task. I don't expect new wall construction in the Southwest or see a permanent ban on immigrants from certain countries. I can see the existing immigration laws being enforced in a stricter fashion. I can see more restrictions placed on H1-B visa recipients and see US corporations do a better job at prioritizing the hiring of US citizens over foreigners. Even on a superficial level this would be better.

              • Re:Yeah (Score:5, Interesting)

                by rwa2 ( 4391 ) * on Friday March 10, 2017 @04:47PM (#54015377) Homepage Journal

                Well stated, AC.

                I would add that it's a folly to dismiss Trump as stupid. He's "used car salesman" smart. There are a lot of interesting and effective negotiation tactics that are available when you can throw ethics and long-term credibility out of consideration. Trump has not only read but written Sun-Tzu Art-of-War style treatises on business dealings... how to portray yourself as rich when you are poor, stupid when you are shrewd, slow when you're moving fast. If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, then baffle them with bullshit sort of stuff.

                Some story I've heard quoted offhand (wish I could find the source) was about when he bought a yacht from someone. He had a minion go and thank the other guy's minions for selling it to him for a much larger price than he actually paid. The idea was to spread rumors that made it look like Trump was much richer than he actually was, and much more foolhardy with his money than he actually was, so other people would make mistakes negotiating with him later. This tactic plays well with a lot of the other numbers and statistics he makes up on the spot... he exaggerates everything he can, in order to make himself look better later. He made up that huge $4 billion figure for the Boeing Air Force One projects, so he can brag about saving a billion dollars later when it comes out closer to a more realistic figure. I think I've seen an article indicating he's already done this.

                Everything else he's been doing indicates that he's clearing the tables to maximize leverage for new negotiations -- firing all US ambassadors on day 1, threatening sky-high import/export tariffs, putting gag orders and hiring freezes on all US government agencies. It's clear that to do anything, you'll have to suck up to Trump first, and bring money and favors to secure it. But this is a standard business negotiation tactic, pull every string you can towards you first and make everyone else fight and bargain to get back the slack.

                So we can look forwards to some short term "wins". Hopefully we can keep him negotiating and dealing with our enemies, and our friends will be very understanding in the mean time.

        • Re:Yeah (Score:5, Insightful)

          by meglon ( 1001833 ) on Friday March 10, 2017 @06:43PM (#54015935)
          No, they're not. This is one of the outright lies that conservative dipshits continue to spout even with plenty of evidence to the contrary. The top marginal may be high, but the effective is lower than the OECD average. This is another one of those things that actually takes two working brain cells to understand, like the difference between the national debt and the budget deficit. Stupid people can't understand it, then say stupid things.

          In addition: https://www.gao.gov/products/G... [gao.gov]

          In each year from 2006 to 2012, at least two-thirds of all active corporations had no federal income tax liability. Larger corporations were more likely to owe tax. Among large corporations (generally those with at least $10 million in assets) less than half—42.3 percent—paid no federal income tax in 2012. Of those large corporations whose financial statements reported a profit, 19.5 percent paid no federal income tax that year.

          There is no credit to give to Trumjp... he hasn't done a damn thing that would change ANYTHING related to this. He's a nothing more than a lying sack of shit politician who mere months ago was slamming jobs reports for being phony, yet now they're wonderful and all because of him. BULLSHIT. Anyone who believes that should do the world a favor and kill themselves because they're that fucking stupid.

      • WTF?! How is your post on a non technology bullshit article FlameBait? Of course your definition of "Economy" is naive; maybe if your post was rated as "Uniformed-Poster" that would make sense.
      • Re:Yeah (Score:5, Informative)

        by SCPaPaJoe ( 767952 ) on Friday March 10, 2017 @04:07PM (#54015121)
        Speaking as a business owner, we always tend to hire more in the first quarter of the year. Our productivity suffers between Thanksgiving and the New Year because of all the vacations. It has been this way for us for the last 30-40 years. This isn't news, it's cyclical business behavior.
      • Given that the economy usually does better under Democrats, and given that the economy is still recovering from the MASSIVE crash that happened under the last bout of Republicanism. I think the idea that it's all just the businessmen are suddenly happy that they're being lead by a Republican; I'd say that that's a bit of a stretch to say the least.

        I mean that's the thing about recovery, things trend upwards, and this story said things trended upwards. Personally I see zero chance that this is anything that

      • You do know that the global economy is doing quite well, right? Furthermore, the economy is actually in danger of getting overheated, which is why Yellen is raising interest rates. This has been a concern of hers for the past two years, it's nothing new. There are so many nuances regarding the state of the economy I won't pretend to understand it all but I sincerely doubt that two months of an erratic president could cause a great boom to the economy, especially when the economy has been doing well the last

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      This has more to do with Republican-ism that Trump-ism. The people who own businesses are primarily Republican. Many of them had very bad attitudes when Obama-care was launched and they refused to hire full-time because they thought Obama was picking their pocket. Now that Obama is gone the mood of business has changed drastically. They feel like their is relief, whether real or imagined. In any case, business owners are in a better mood with Trump as president and are hiring again. I don't think this

    • Maybe we should give him the Nobel peace prize too, we haven't gotten into any new wars during that month.

    • by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *
      Hey you gave Obama credit for the (worst) recovery (in history).
    • by nobuddy ( 952985 )

      Its Bloomberg. Nobody expects honest and accurate reporting from the National Enquirer of right wing propaganda.

    • I mean he hasn't actually implemented any policies but let's go ahead and give him credit....

      Actually he HAS been doing things since November 8th that may have affected this in a positive way. Sometimes just talking about doing something from the bully pulpit the president (and president elect) has can have positive (or negative) affects on the mind set of the people. Just the prospect of new/better policies can have a positive affect even before they can be enacted.

      Case in point: Jimmy Carter and his "malaise speech" which was largely blamed for making the 70's seem worse than it was and depressi

  • by RobotRunAmok ( 595286 ) on Friday March 10, 2017 @12:23PM (#54013333)
    Still, it's "Trump!" and that'll be good for several hundred posts... I guess that's the whole point, ennit?
  • by Rick Schumann ( 4662797 ) on Friday March 10, 2017 @12:32PM (#54013413) Journal
    None of that has a single thing to do with Trump. Hell, there's things that Obama did in his first term that we'll just start seeing the effects of now. It's always been that way, the wheels turn slowly enough that it takes years for effects to become evident.
    • by iggymanz ( 596061 ) on Friday March 10, 2017 @01:13PM (#54013783)

      not true, Stock market and business will act on expectations of future which is what is happening here with Trump in office. Of course over time we'll get into what you are interested in, what results Trump's actions will have and yes for many things the time delay will be years and for some things over a decade

  • by i_ate_god ( 899684 ) on Friday March 10, 2017 @12:34PM (#54013431)

    So what exactly did the US Government do in that first month to create all those jobs? After all, if you can implement policy on day one and see that translate into an economic boost within a month, that is some good policy that governments would want to imitate all over the world.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Trump has been negotiating with these companies to bring forward any plans they had for expansion.

      He has been doing that since November.

      Just an anecdote. But I have been looking for a job for 8 months. Lots of cold calls lots of resumes sent out. 0 traction. 3 interviews and 100 resumes sent out. Suddenly in the past week all hell broke loose. I now have 4 interviews lined up for the next week or so. 5-10 emails a day with job descriptions. The mood is most certainly different.

      • Trump has been negotiating with these companies to bring forward any plans they had for expansion.

        You mean the plans that were already in place long before the 2016 election? It doesn't cost CEO's anything to stroke the ego of an egomaniac in the White House.

        Just an anecdote. But I have been looking for a job for 8 months. Lots of cold calls lots of resumes sent out. 0 traction. 3 interviews and 100 resumes sent out. Suddenly in the past week all hell broke loose. I now have 4 interviews lined up for the next week or so. 5-10 emails a day with job descriptions. The mood is most certainly different.

        That's funny. When I was out of work for two years after the Great Recession ended, I only had 20+ interviews and no job offers. When I was out of work for eight months after the government shutdown in 2013, I had 60+ interviews and three job offers. I could reasonably conclude, just as an anecdote, that a government shutdown provides a good economi

      • One company at a time, right. That's incredibly time consuming and negligable. A hundred jobs on day one, a hundred jobs on day two, and so on, does not add up to these numbers. You do not increase job numbers signficantly by doing negotiations through force of personality.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      So what exactly did the US Government do in that first month to create all those jobs? After all, if you can implement policy on day one and see that translate into an economic boost within a month, that is some good policy that governments would want to imitate all over the world.

      It's actually quite simple - you have a leader who says he wants to put his country first and that makes investors and business people feel good enough to expand existing businesses and start new ones. That's why the stock market rallied after Trump's election - it's not based on an actual policy but a feeling.

      Obama's "you didn't build that" bullshit cost more people more jobs that you can imagine.

      • by T.E.D. ( 34228 ) on Friday March 10, 2017 @02:28PM (#54014461)

        Obama's "you didn't build that" bullshit cost more people more jobs that you can imagine.

        ...which totally explains why February jobs #'s were even higher in February of 2016, 2015, and 2013.

        I have a much simpler explanation: Its February.

      • And that doesn't stand for "Bachelor of Science" in case you're wondering. The stock market rallied when Pence came out and said: We know Trump said he was going to do all these really popularist things like tariffs and healthcare for all but trust me, that ain't happening. Until then it was in free fall.

        Obama's "You didn't Built it" was true and that stung like a motherfarker. There's a bumper sticker I saw the other day that made me laugh: "If you don't like socialism get off my public roads!". This i
      • by coinreturn ( 617535 ) on Friday March 10, 2017 @02:59PM (#54014675)

        So what exactly did the US Government do in that first month to create all those jobs? After all, if you can implement policy on day one and see that translate into an economic boost within a month, that is some good policy that governments would want to imitate all over the world.

        It's actually quite simple - you have a leader who says he wants to put his country first and that makes investors and business people feel good enough to expand existing businesses and start new ones. That's why the stock market rallied after Trump's election - it's not based on an actual policy but a feeling.

        Obama's "you didn't build that" bullshit cost more people more jobs that you can imagine.

        You are full of shit. This was the 76th consecutive month of job growth. The stock market went up 50% over Obama's terms. Things are still just chugging along.

    • The US government has done nothing. With the promise of continuing to do nothing. Now business can operate under the assumption that there will be no new taxes or regulations for at least the next four years. Sometimes doing nothing is the best course of action.
    • by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Friday March 10, 2017 @01:10PM (#54013745)

      So what exactly did the US Government do in that first month to create all those jobs?

      It's not what they did, it's what they promised to do - which is primarily to lower the absurdly high U.S. corporate tax rate.

      Mind you, large corporations are already paying much less than the top rate. But here's the secret - all of us small and medium sized businesses without a building full of accountants WERE paying that top rate, or close to it. So the promise to lower that rate helps improve hiring from the large majority of job creation, small to medium sized businesses.... the rate lowering won't make life much different for the very largest corps since they were not paying a very high rate anyway.

    • by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Friday March 10, 2017 @01:13PM (#54013777) Journal
      Animal spirits. Not joking [wikipedia.org].
  • by Cajun Hell ( 725246 ) on Friday March 10, 2017 @12:37PM (#54013449) Homepage Journal

    Good thing we won't see the new inflation rate for a several more months, and pollution's latency has always been a classic.

    Maybe this is good idea for a political platform: don't worry about conservative/liberal principles; just look for fast indicators that you can increase at the expense of slow ones. Right and left will become obsolete labels, and debates will be between short-termers and long-termers.

  • U.S. Jobs, Pay Show Solid Gains in Trump's First Full Month (bloomberg.com)

    Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. What's the lag between deciding to hire someone or increase their pay and it actually happening? Someone who doesn't realise who much one needs to demonstrate a causal warrant.

  • It seems to me like most businesses are pretty unhappy when things are uncertain. Now that the election's settled, and it doesn't look like he's going away for a while, businesses are just relaxing the controls a little bit. Most business owners are Republicans, so I assume they feel they're going to get more of what they want for at least the next 2 years.

    I work a lot with small business owners who rail on and on about "regulations" and the big evil government impeding their ability to do business. I just

    • by gtall ( 79522 )

      Small business owners have it pretty good as well. Just about anything qualifies as a business expense. It didn't take them long to charge everything they buy for personal use as a business expense, thus lowering their income taxes.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Mashiki ( 184564 )

      It seems to me like most businesses are pretty unhappy when things are uncertain.

      Of course they are. When the NDP were elected in Ontario in the 1990's the TSE tanked overnight and we lost two ranks to our credit rating. When the Liberals were re-elected in Ontario ~3 years ago, it also cost another rank to our credit rating. Why? Because the liberals have fostered an anti-business environment and created an excessively expensive electricity market, while raising taxes through the roof, and spending like a drunken sailor. Businesses have fled Ontario over the last decade, even "cle

    • by moeinvt ( 851793 )

      "any cost there may be for complying with regulations are deductible from your profits as business expenses"

      Uhhhhhh, yeah, and its profits which determine the success or failure of a business. Thus, higher costs and lower profits are generally a bad thing, especially when the expenditure has zero ROI. Plus, you not only lose profits, but also revenue because you're wasting time dealing with regulations when you could be running your business.

      You work *with* small business owners? Have you ever tried runn

  • Wait a minute (Score:4, Informative)

    by slashmydots ( 2189826 ) on Friday March 10, 2017 @12:50PM (#54013567)
    Now I haven't followed a damn thing he did but I don't recall hearing anything about specific job improvement strategies. Plus it's been ONE month. So is it safe to say this is just something that sort of happened?
    • by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *
      A lot can happen in a month. Like the DJIA going from 18000 (Obama) to 21000.(Trump). You might think it only means something to Wall St. until you realize that the American worker's 401(k) is plugged directly into that. While no specific policy has had any market moving effect, simply the attitude and confidence of traders pushed the market up. Now the big boys can cash out to all the late-comers and momentum traders (you can't sell if there are no buyers) and will have liquidity for new projects. You can
  • Right. Because all financial processes attribute to the current administration so precisely (and immediately) that we need to write "full month" rather than just "month".

    Among the numerate, the earliest possible report card on the new administration is the end of the first year, and we might by then be celebrating the accomplishments of President Pence, who might by then be one fat month into his presidency. Given these larger uncertainties, I'm not going to take any macro-economic wiggles as usefully refl

  • by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Friday March 10, 2017 @01:07PM (#54013723)
    May be was just all those employers, like Bill Looman [ibtimes.com], who said they wouldn't hire anyone until Obama was out of office are now hiring again:

    Bill Looman, the owner of U.S. Cranes, LLC, told a local NBC affiliate, 11Alive, that he put up signs on his company trucks stating:
    "New company policy: We are not hiring until Obama is gone"

    This link [dailymail.co.uk] has a few photos of the signs.

    • I think it's more likely the ones who kept growing their businesses because they weren't, you know, partisan idiots. If Bill can't succeed in an environment where others are, it might not be the president to blame. Just saying.
  • And the chocolate rations were increased to twenty grammes per week.

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