Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell says he wants to see a full recovery of the U. S. labor market.And then began to raise interest rates. The employment report released last Friday showsThe US economy did not make much progress in this regard in April.
Last year, the Fed announced a comprehensive overhaul of its monetary policy strategy, including a revision of the definition of full employment to reflect "comprehensiveness and inclusiveness".
Powell said he would observe several indicators to judge progress. Let's take a look at these indicators through the data released by the Department of Labor last Friday.
Black unemployment rate
The unemployment rate among black Americans rose to 9.7% in April.
The unemployment rate for Hispanics remained unchanged at 7.9%, the unemployment rate for whites fell slightly to 5.3%, and the unemployment rate for Asians fell to 5.7%.
The income of the low-income class
Powell has cited wage growth indicators compiled by the Atlanta Federal Reserve. The index assesses the income trend of the bottom 25% of American workers. As of March, the most recent month for which data are available, the 12-month average of median wage increases for this group rose to 4.3 per cent, compared with 3.5 per cent for the entire labour force.
Friday's report also showed preliminary signs of firm wages for low-paying jobs. The average hourly wage in the leisure and hotel industries increased by 1.7 per cent, with 331000 workers returning to work, bringing wages basically back to pre-epidemic trends.
Labor force participation rate of people without college diploma
The job prospects of Americans without college degrees continue to be worrying, according to Friday's report. The labour force participation rate of high school graduates aged 25 and older with no college education rose to 55.3 per cent in April, but it was still 3 percentage points lower than in February 2020.
At the same time, the labour force participation rate of people aged 25 and over without a high school diploma fell to 44.2%.