With a total of 517,000 new jobs created last month and total employment estimates revised up, the country now has the lowest unemployment rate in more than half a century.
The numbers cooled recession fears, and while some economists and policymakers fret that the robust labor gains are going to send us into an inflationary tailspin, inflation indicators have actually been trending positively even as hiring has remained robust. Perhaps some of the conventional wisdom about the need to bludgeon wage and job gains to suppress inflation isn’t so common sense after all.
What is common sense is using a pool of available, ready and willing workers to fill a strong labor need. Thousands of asylum-seekers are waiting a statutorily required six months between when they make their applications and when they can be issued work authorization, languishing even as they beg for the opportunity to fill available jobs and support themselves as they wait for their proceedings to play out.
