More Good Economic News

Reuters reports:

WASHINGTON • US employers added 128,000 workers to their payrolls in August, pointing to a solid economic growth that could let the Federal Reserve hold interest rates steady.

The closely watched Labour Department report, issued on Friday just ahead of the Labour Day holiday weekend, showed the unemployment rate dipped to 4.7 per cent from 4.8 per cent in July, suggesting the job market remains sturdy.

Other reports yesterday showed a slight slowing in factory activity last month, and big drops in both construction spending and pending home sales in July that offered the latest evidence of the air going out of the US housing market.

But consumer sentiment held up better in August than many economists had expected and analysts said the economy appeared to be decelerating, but not abruptly.

“It looks an awful lot like a soft landing, at least for now,” said Dana Johnson, chief economist at Comerica Bank in Detroit. “It’s an economy that is not firing on all cylinders – it’s got a clear concentration of weakness in the housing sector – but, otherwise, an economy that is moving ahead at something resembling a trend-like pace.”

Read it here.

And there's this from AP:

The tally of new jobs last month was slightly stronger than the 125,000 that economists were forecasting. The nation's unemployment rate dropped down a notch from a five-month high of 4.8 percent in July. Job gains for June and July also turned out to be better than previously estimated. In June, employers boosted payrolls by 134,000 positions and in July they added another 121,000.

"Today's (employment) report was solid and indicates that the economy is not falling away very quickly but it certainly wasn't so spectacular that it renewed oversized fears of inflation," said Carl Tannenbaum, chief economist at LaSalle Bank. "The report is right on the mark. Goldilocks may be coming. The economy is not too hot nor too cold," he said.

....

Over the 12 months ending August, wages grew by a strong 3.9 percent. The last time this figure was higher was in June 2001.

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Other recent economic reports suggest the economy's slowdown isn't as steep as some feared.

Read it here.

The Bush administration record on managing the economy is far and away the best of any administration in at least the past century. Will they get credit for it? Don't hold your breath.