The mainstream financial media coverage of today's Jobs Report was a joke. The reporting (if you can call it that) was either completely partisan or totally misguided. In either case, it royally missed the mark.
Here are a couple handpicked gems:
-
"Trump can't take credit for Friday's jobs report": Business Insider
-
"Payrolls in U.S. Increase 227,000 While Wage Growth Weakens": Bloomberg
Okay,
The headline numbers put jobs added for January at 227,000 which was better than expected. Average hourly earnings were 2.5% year-over-year versus 2.8% in December.
More importantly, year-over-year jobs growth (which better depicts the long-term trend) actually accelerated in January, to 1.65% versus 1.5%, after declining for the past 23 months. Meanwhile, wage growth actually grew for 80% of blue collar workers in the country (more on that below).
Fake News vs. Reality
It's no wonder President Trump blasts the media as "fake news." The Business Insider headline that Trump "can't take credit" for the January jobs report is false (and interestingly hedged in the actual story with what journalists call "weasel words," like "technically," which essentially invalidate the headline.)
Sure, the survey was conducted before Trump's inauguration. But Bloomberg's reporting ignores the effect of animal spirits -- the human emotion component that's embedded in the economy. In other words, claiming Trump had nothing whatsoever to do with job gains is like saying the dramatic rise (to cycle highs) in consumer and small business confidence following Election Day had nothing with Trump.
Just nonsense.
Wage Growth
On the decline in average hourly earnings (or wage growth) reported by Bloomberg, this number doesn't tell the whole story. Actually 80% of workers (i.e. non-supervisory workers) saw wages accelerate to +2.9% in January.
Bottom Line
Despite the best efforts of partisan journalists, the stock market marched higher on news of today's strong jobs report. Here's the key takeaway from Hedgeye CEO Keith McCullough:
