The Department of Labor has just announced this month's job figures, and it's more good news. March saw the creation of 180,000 new jobs. This means that since August 2003, more than 7.8 million jobs have been created, with nearly 2 million jobs created over the last 12 months. The economy has now added jobs for 43 straight months, and the unemployment rate remains at 4.4 percent, which is low by historical standards.

The news is also good on the pay and productivity fronts. Specifically:

Real after-tax income per person has risen by 10 percent since President Bush took office.

Real wages rose 1.8 percent over the past 12 months through February, which is substantially faster than the average rate of the late 1990s economy.

The economy has now experienced more than five years of uninterrupted growth, averaging 3.0 Percent a year since 2001.

Since the first quarter of 2001, productivity growth has averaged 2.8 percent, which is well above average productivity growth in the 1990s, 1980s, and 1970s.

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Posted by Paul at 09:04 AM  |    |