I struggle to explain the current economy. Gone are the days of inventory-driven booms and busts. We hated the layoffs but at least the economic boom was robust and benefited everyone. It was the rising tide that lifted all boats. Now it seems that neither good or bad economic news affects the economy. We have several years of lousy retail sales growth that does not seem to matter. We are “experiencing the strongest streak of employment growth since the 1990’s” but that does not seem to matter. Almost all of our economic and job growth comes the health care sector but that does not matter. Even lower prices for gasoline do not matter. This is not my father’s economy. The doldrums we are experiencing seems to have more in common the crisis of confidence that President Carter spoke about in his “Malaise” speech but with one significant difference. Based on recent history it looks like the traditional correlation between jobs and economic growth is considerably weaker than in President Carter’s economy. I am not alone in my confusion. Lance Roberts voices similar concerns in his article, Is There A Problem With The BLS Employment Reports?

IF we were truly experiencing the strongest streak of employment growth since the 1990’s, should we not be witnessing:

1. Surging wage growth as a 4.9% unemployment rate gives employees pricing power?
2. Economic growth well above 3% as 4.9% unemployment leads to stronger consumption?
3. A rise in imports as rising consumption leads to demand for goods.
4. Falling inventories as sales outpace production.
5. Rising industrial production as demand for goods increases.

Obviously Mr. Roberts was expecting a much stronger correlation between job and economic growth than we are seeing. The more interesting question has to be, why are businesses hiring when it looks like that hiring more people does not translate into growing sales?

Charles Smith shows in this chart the growing disconnect between jobs and economic growth has been going on for a long time.

Over the last forty years we have chosen to become a country less dependent on labor. Part of this decline can be explained that global trade has encouraged countries like the United States to ship low wage jobs to countries with lower labor costs. A good portion of our textile business went over seas for this reason. Ironically this “land of opportunity” has less opportunities for low wage jobs than ever before and an even bigger problem with middle class jobs. Every developed country is desperately trying to hold on to its middle class jobs and, in some cases such as China, increase them. So if you believe financial engineering bubble is over then we are left with growing the economy in a way my father would be comfortable with, growing the middle class by encouraging product development at small and medium size businesses. The heavy hand of government regulations combined with increased cronyism seems to have been more advantageous to the firms that got most of their earnings from financial engineering rather than product development. The millennials and Hispanics need to start sifting through the policies that worked in the past and tweak them for this new generation. So if the health and wealth of America depends largely on the health and wealth of the middle class, what are the competitive advantages that will convince businesses to keep their middle class jobs in America?