It was a good year for jobs. As Bloomberg notes:
The Labor Department estimates that nonfarm employers added 252,000 jobs in December, bringing the total for 2014 to almost 3 million jobs — the biggest year of gains since 1999. The unemployment rate declined to 5.6 percent from 5.8 percent in November, and its lowest level since June 2008. That said, the job market is still far from normal: Only 77 percent of people aged 25 to 54 have a job, compared with the pre-recession average of 80 percent.
Still:
… wages aren’t rising fast enough. As of December, the average hourly wage for private-sector workers stood at $24.57, up only 1.7 percent from a year earlier. That’s just barely enough to keep up with consumer prices, which are estimated to have risen 1.7 percent during the same period — lower than the Fed’s target inflation rate of 2 percent.
Not yet time, then, for a chorus of “Happy Days Are Here Again.”
Just ask Senator Warren.
