by Frank Stricker

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Employment Situation report for January appeared on February 7. There were important revisions in the basic population numbers that the Bureau uses in its sampling process. That meant significant changes in some of the numbers, including that fewer jobs were created in 2023 and 2024 than we thought. But notably, three of the top job creators were in health, government, and social assistance, which may not be big job creators in the near future. Also, the revisions did not result in large changes in unemployment rates.

In fact, one striking outcome about unemployment rates was that there was no striking change in the newly figured rates. The rate fell from 4.1% in December to 4% in January. It had dropped from 4.2 to 4.1 between November and December. Nothing big, but down is the right direction. However, there has not been much change in this unemployment rate over the last 12 months. It’s been 3.9, 4.0, 4.1, and even 4.2 a couple of times.

Meanwhile, the payroll survey of non-farm employers showed a lowish number of job additions. Just 143,000. That is worse than the average monthly growth of 166,000 in 2024. And that average was worse than the average of 216,000 a month in 2023. That may not seem like much of a difference between 2023 and 2024, but these things add up. The annual difference would have amounted to about 600,000 more jobs in ’23.

A Bigger Picture

In general, the impact of new population controls on the data seems less important than the fact that real unemployment is much higher than the official rate. The Full Count of the National Jobs for All Network yields a real unemployment rate of 9.5%, when we include part-time workers who want full-time work and job-wanters who are not searching in the ways that fit the Bureau’s definition of really looking for work. The BLS’s own fuller unemployment rate was 7.5% in December and January. Either way, the idea that 4% unemployment is close to full employment is a bad one.

Living Standards

Are dozens of millions of workers struggling just to make ends meet?  Of course they are, as usual. Low wages have not been fixed and high prices are still a big problem. Price increases may be easing but that does not mean that prices will fall. And if Trump’s full tariff program goes into effect, prices will start rising faster. For now, the good news is that price increases are fairly moderate, and less than wage increases. By one calculation, average wages increased 4.1% over the year while prices increased only 2.9%. (Fingers crossed until we see the latest Consumer Price Index and Real Earnings reports on February 12.)

Some commentators have suggested that rarely used indicators show how much people are struggling. For example, Kelly Evans of CNBC suggested that a decline in the average work week from 34.3 hours in November to 34.1 hours in January is not because employees are slacking off but because they need more time for side hustles and second jobs. And it is true that the percentage of employed workers who have multiple jobs rose from 5.1% last January to 5.3% this January. That’s not much of a change, but we should keep an eye on these kinds of numbers.

 A Right-Wing Depression

And the job situation will probably get much worse in the coming months. Right-Wing extremists who are running government policy are on a path to bring on a big depression. It would seem obvious that if the attack on government employees continues, millions of people will be added to the unemployment rolls, and they will be fighting for private-sector jobs and positions in local and state governments that cannot possibly expand fast enough to keep the official unemployment rate down around 4%.

Frank Stricker is on the board of the National Jobs for All Network and writes for NJFAN and Dollars and Sense. In 2020 he published a book called American Unemployment: Past, Present, and Future (2020). He taught History and Labor Studies at California State University, Dominguez Hills, for 37 years.