Jobs openings ticked up in July while hires remained above pre-pandemic levels
Below, EPI senior economist Elise Gould offers her initial insights on today’s release of the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) for July. Read the full Twitter thread here.
The July data show mild reductions in hires and quits while layoffs hold steady. Hires remain above pre-pandemic levels as the labor market continues to expand. Layoffs remain low in historical terms. Elevated quits mean workers seeking (and finding) better opportunities. pic.twitter.com/4DSSBXsfUI
— Elise Gould (@eliselgould) August 30, 2022
California’s FAST Recovery Act is a victory for fast food workers and a model for state labor policy
This week’s Senate passage of the California FAST Recovery Act, AB257, marks a historic breakthrough for workers and state labor policymaking with far-reaching national implications. As EPI and the National Employment Law Project noted in a statement endorsed by forty organizations earlier this year, AB257 “is important for workers across the country and for shaping the future of our national economy. The state of California has a long history of leading the way on workers’ rights and worker protections, including becoming the first state to pass a $15 minimum wage in 2016—a breakthrough that paved the way for states across the country to take similar action.”
AB257 was designed to address poverty wages and widespread worker rights violations that have resulted from extremely unequal bargaining power between fast food workers and employers across the industry. If signed into law by Governor Newsom, the legislation will give workers a seat at the policymaking table to engage as equals with franchisees, franchisors, and government agencies through a 10-member Fast Food Sector Council with authority to set statewide minimum wages and standards across the industry. Standards set by the new council will have a direct impact on over 550,000 California fast food workers, over 80% of whom are workers of color and two-thirds of whom are women.
Teachers’ unions reduce teacher stress. Anti-union laws significantly increase it.
Teaching, while rewarding, is one of the most stressful occupations in the U.S., and many teachers experience serious emotional and mental problems related to school stress. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated this phenomenon as teachers adapted to challenging working environments and navigated frequent technical difficulties in new online platforms, all while dealing with health concerns during in-person instruction.
Stress is the most common reason for leaving teaching early, and it is also associated with job absenteeism and poor teacher performance, negatively impacting student outcomes. As more schools face increased teacher turnover rates and intensified teacher shortages, it is essential to investigate what influences teachers’ job-related stress.
Abortion bans prove yet again there is no race-neutral policy
Earlier this summer, in a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court finalized the proposed overturning of landmark cases Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey which have protected the right to abortion in the U.S for decades. As a result, twenty-one states already have or are in the process of restricting abortion access completely. Other states will soon follow, resulting in the denial of abortion in over half the country. Though this decision was unsurprising, the blatant disregard by the Justices of the negative economic effects this decision will have on millions of women continues to be shocking.
Abortion bans negatively impact women’s economic well-being in various ways, from future earnings, college completion, and the broader issues of economic security and mobility. Though it’s clear this issue will negatively impact all women in this country, it is important to note that Black and Brown women are likely to face the negative economic consequences of this decision at a disproportionate rate.
State policy solutions for good home health care jobs—nearly half held by Black women in the South—should address the legacy of racism, sexism, and xenophobia in the workforce
Introduction
Home health care workers are part of the “care economy” that makes all other work possible.
These workers include nursing, psychiatric, and home health aides; personal and home care aides; and nursing assistants working in private households. They provide services and support for older adults, people with chronic illnesses, and people with disabilities allowing them to stay in their homes and communities, rather than nursing homes or other institutions. And the COVID-19 public health emergency further highlighted the importance of this workforce, who provide long-term care at a time when congregate settings are limited in their ability to support physical distancing or quarantining.
So why don’t we value these workers?
Jobs report doesn’t show signs of recession—yet—as labor market remains strong: The Fed should still be wary of raising interest rates much further
Below, EPI economists offer their initial insights on the jobs report released this morning, which showed 528,000 jobs added in July.
Rising inflation is a global problem: U.S. policy choices are not to blame
Key takeaways:
- An international comparison among OECD countries shows that rising inflation is a global phenomenon, not unique to the United States.
- This fact argues strongly that high inflation in the U.S. has not been driven by any unique American policy—not the American Rescue Plan and other generous fiscal relief during the pandemic recession and recovery nor anything else U.S.-centric.
- Some have argued that the global rise of inflation means that many countries— including the U.S.—overstimulated their economies and generated excess aggregate demand. But this explanation is not supported by the data. The countries with larger declines in unemployment over the past 18 months have not seen larger inflation spikes.
Consumer price data for June 2022 showed another month of rapid inflation, with overall inflation rising 9.1% year-over-year and core inflation (which doesn’t include volatile energy and food prices) rising by 5.9%. This level of inflation has obviously become a major political issue this year. But however this issue resonates politically, as an economic matter a common narrative that blames the Biden administration and its policy choices for causing the inflation is deeply misleading.
This is not simply a case for exonerating the Biden administration’s choices—how the recent inflationary outbreak is interpreted will have huge consequences for how policymakers respond. A loud chorus of economic analysts and influential policymakers continue highlighting the need for the Federal Reserve to continue raising interest rates sharply to slow growth to “rein in” inflation. This approach risks terrible consequences and threatens to cast aside the amazing policy achievement of a full jobs recovery from the pandemic recession.
What to watch on jobs day: Can wage growth normalize without substantially higher unemployment?
On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) will release its monthly report on the state of the labor market. In addition to top-line payroll employment growth and changes in labor force participation, probably the most anticipated measure is the pace of nominal wage growth.
Even with the recent contraction in gross domestic product (GDP), the labor market has been expanding at a steady rate and wage growth continues to fall short of inflation. Despite this, many remain worried that abnormally high nominal wage growth (relative to pre-pandemic) will prevent inflation from returning to more-normal levels in the year ahead. In this jobs day preview post, we take a closer look at wage growth using several different measures to gauge just how worried we should be that wage growth will not normalize in the coming year without aggressive policy measures that cause collateral damage (like higher unemployment) in the labor market. We find that most of these measures show decelerating wage growth in very recent quarters.
Job openings declined in June but remain much higher than pre-pandemic
Below, EPI senior economist Elise Gould offers her initial insights on today’s release of the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) for June. Read the full Twitter thread here.
Slight correction. Job openings are down each month since March’s series high. That’s three months in a row of declines. Please pardon the error in counting months when it’s now August and the data are for June.
— Elise Gould (@eliselgould) August 2, 2022
Not a recession—yet: The Fed’s overly aggressive interest rate hikes increase risk of recession
Yesterday’s data showing negative gross domestic product (GDP) growth for the second consecutive quarter has sparked a debate about whether the U.S. economy is in recession. Below are some quick thoughts interpreting the numbers, and some larger questions about recession and inflation.
- We’re very likely not in recession currently, even though we’ve had two straight quarters of negative GDP growth. The “two straight quarters” criterion for a recession is a rough rule of thumb. The more generally accepted arbiter of business cycles in the U.S. is the National Bureau of Economic Research Business Cycle Dating Committee, which weighs changes in many economic variables to determine the start and end dates of recessions. The most notable statistics arguing against the view that we’re in recession currently are unemployment and employment growth. Both remain quite strong.
- The negative growth in the first quarter of 2022 was mostly driven by statistical quirks that hid some real strength in the economy. Specifically, exports were quite weak and imports quite strong, but both of these measures can be pretty volatile. Net exports in the second quarter, for example, were positive and added to growth. But, if I had to choose one measure of the strength of the domestic economy that stripped out volatile measures that could be introducing noise in our assessment, I’d choose domestic demand growth (known officially as final sales to domestic purchasers)—this is a measure of spending by U.S.-based households, businesses, and governments that strips out volatile changes in firms’ inventories. In the first quarter, this domestic demand growth was acceptably strong, rising at a 2.0% rate.
- Conversely, fundamental growth in the second quarter was weak. Domestic demand growth actually shrank in the quarter. On top of that fundamental weakness, a statistical quirk—a huge decline in the contribution to GDP made by changes in firms’ inventories—also weighed unusually on growth.
- In short, the negative growth in the first quarter of 2022 looked much worse than it was. This is far less true for the negative growth in the second quarter.