The job figures for April announced by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Standards could be considered to be bad, or indifferent at best. The economy created 160,000 jobs. That was the lowest for seven months. The unemployment rate stayed at 5 percent, leaving 7.9 million job-seeking Americans out in the cold.
That figure came on top of the even more depressing announcement that U.S. gross domestic product growth for the first quarter of 2016 had weighed in at a meager 0.5 percent.
On the positive side, average hourly earnings on an annualized basis were up 2.5 percent, although comments and questions at political rallies would indicate that Americans either haven't noticed, consider the rise to be badly distributed between the rich and the middle class, or far too small to make a difference to their standard of living.
U.S. imports dropped by 13.9 percent from February, but exports dropped also, by 0.9 percent.
There is no question but that the performance of the economy--mainly in the area of economic inequality and middle-class earnings--is going to be a major issue in this year's elections. So will be the trade balance. Voters will be watching amid the cacophony of the political caterwauling what candidates say exactly they are going to do to remedy these problems.
Editorial on 05/17/2016