Excerpt
SUMMARY: The recovering U.S. economy has made its strongest showing yet. Employers created a million jobs since November -- the best three-month average in 17 years. And January also boasted the biggest wage rise in six years. But not all sectors saw the same level of growth. To discuss the data, Jeffrey Brown speaks with Diane Swonk of Mesirow Financial.
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): Not only did today’s labor report show that more people found work in January; it also revised the numbers upward for November and December, making 2014 the strongest year for job gains since 1999. And more good news, the increase in wages last month was the largest in six years.
Diane Swonk is a senior managing director and chief economist for Mesirow Financial and joins me from Chicago.
And, Diane, it looks as though the upswing is bringing more people back into the job market. Can you tell us who, what age groups, for example?
DIANE SWONK, Mesirow Financial: Yes.
One of the biggest encouraging points about the job participation rate, where more people threw their hat in the ring, was that younger people were rejoining the labor force. Many of these people had been sidelined for many years; 25-to-34-year-old men, in fact, had the highest labor force participation rate in two years, a big jump there.
We also saw an increase in the 35-to-44-year-old age group. This is a group that the Federal Reserve had been watching carefully because they had been sidelined by the recession, but clearly they’re too young to retire and they had to come back at some point in time. So the fact that they were reengaged is quite encouraging.
"Will new manufacturing ease Mississippi’s ‘psychosis of poverty?’" PBS NewsHour 2/6/2015
Excerpt
SUMMARY: In Mississippi, where the unemployment rate peaks at 15 percent in some areas, pockets of new manufacturing have ignited hopes for an economic rebirth. And while signs of growth give some people hope for a new era, how much will the area's poor actually benefit? NewsHour's John Larson reports as part of our continuing series, "Main Street America."
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