Opinion: President Trump, we’re now at the zenith of the Obama economy – MarketWatch
The nasty 70-year little boy in that big white house spake thusly about the economy last Thursday: Ive created a million jobs! I cleaned up the mess I inherited! There is no global warming but there are wire tapps in Trump Tower, and terrorists are emboldened by political correctness. And so on. We know the drill.
And then the jobs report came out Friday and made a liar of Donald Trump, yet again. We know that drill too.
And yet those of us who are real-world investors and must make sense of the economy outside the Land of Trumpian Make Believe have to decide whats going on. It is this: The jobs report showed we are at the zenith of the Obama economy, for good or ill. And that means the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates when it meets next week.
The point here isnt to rehash the argument over who did what to the economy save that for Facebook, and besides, Trump still has yet to make a lickspittle of meaningful policy 136 days in. Its to explain what the jobs report and other recent data tell us about where we are in the expansion, and what that means.
America created 138,000 jobs in May way below forecasts. Including downward revisions to growth estimates for March and April, Trumps actual record so far is that 594,000 jobs have been created in four months on his watch. Thats below the 208,000 monthly average in the last year of Barack Obama, when things slowed down because of Chinas wobbles, and a good bit below the 226,000 monthly in 2014 and 2015 combined.
Yet, theres pretty good news, too. The unemployment rate fell to 4.3%, and even including discouraged workers and involuntary part-timers its down to 8.4% where it was during the better times of the aughts, and only a little higher than during the 1990s boom. Wage growth isnt accelerating, as economists have expected, but with core inflation low workers still got a real wage increase of about a percentage point in the last 12 months, give or take fluctuations in gasoline.
Read: Slower U.S. job creation is usually a bad thing. This time, it might be a good sign
Beyond that, there are pretty good signals that weve shaken off the slight torpor that set in during the first quarter, when the economy grew at only a 1.2% annual rate. The Atlanta Feds GDPNow tracker says second-quarter growth will be around 3.4%. The New York Feds tracking forecast is a more modest 2.2%. But either one is OK and, averaged with the first quarter, suggests were growing at about last years pace or, possibly, the brisker clip that brought an average of 2.5% growth the two years before that.
Best of all, real family incomes have finally regained their web-era peaks, in perhaps the ultimate success of the last presidents drive to undo the damage of the 2008 financial crisis. According to Sentier Research, median family incomes reached 100.9% of their January 2000 level in April, finally rescaling the peak from which we descended so abruptly.
Read: Why workers arent getting bigger paychecks despite sizzling jobs market
So, we have jobs for just about everyone who wants them, at record inflation-adjusted incomes, but without much growth. And we have big weak spots, especially in manufacturing and in blue-collar communities stranded by factories struggles.
Thats why this is the zenith of Obamas economy the word means the time at which something is most powerful or successful. And this is it: This is as good as Obamas economy gets. The incomes news marks the completion of his medium-term goals. It doesnt mean Trump wont do better it doesnt even mean the economy is all that good. Its just as good as the economy gets until new technology or new policy breaks its mold.
That means the Fed will move next week to temper this cycle, hoping to lengthen it before the lack of labor-force growth, or much productivity improvement. creates inflation that reverses these hard-won gains.
The central banks job is to move near the top, and near the end, of economic cycles to make sure they dont create the problems that lead to inflation, or to the next recession. Both the triumphalists who thought Trump would bring surging growth, and those who thought he might bring something like doom have been proven wrong. Fiscal policy whether its tax cuts, regulatory changes, and like pretty much anything the White House might do these days is a shambles. Helps not on the way. So the monetary policy we all expected before the election, to raise rates but only gradually, is still the right one.
That means a hike next week of a quarter of a point, bringing the federal-funds rate target range to 1% to 1.25%. Couple that with a post-meeting statement that suggest it may be a while, and take more-tangible evidence of acceleration, before another hike happens and that will be about right. The Fed cant make this expansion stronger, but it can help make it longer.
Also read: The surprising threat to the American economy
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Opinion: President Trump, we're now at the zenith of the Obama economy - MarketWatch