WASHINGTON – The U.S. economy added 235,000 jobs in February, according to government data issued Friday.
Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had expected the nation to add 200,000 jobs in the first full month of Donald Trump’s presidency.
The unemployment rate dipped to 4.7 percent, compared with 4.8 percent in January. Wages rose by 6 cents to $26.09, following a disappointingly low 3-cent increase in January.
A separate survey published early in the week by ADP and Moody’s Analytics showed the private sector adding 298,000 jobs in February, blowing past economists’ expectations for the figure of 189,000.
Measures of business and consumer confidence have risen in recent months, due in part to the continued long-run recovery of the economy, and in part to expectations of a more business-friendly environment under the Trump administration. In early March, Gallup’s U.S. Economic Confidence Index, a measure of how Americans rate current economic conditions, rose to the highest level in its nine-year history.
On Wednesday morning, President Trump tweeted that January and February were “the strongest consecutive months for hiring since August and September 2015,” citing a report on the workforce by social networking site LinkedIn.
Trump’s ambitious pledges to slash corporate taxes, cut regulations and boost spending on infrastructure have helped push stock markets to record highs in recent weeks. Yet some economists question whether other pledges, like a hiring freeze for the federal workforce, a reduction in immigration and a more combative attitude to international trade could ultimately weigh on growth.
The administration is already confronting the challenge translating campaign trail promises into legislation, as it prepares to issue a portion of its budget around March 16.
The release of February’s jobs data was the final hurdle before the Federal Reserve’s March 14-15 meeting, when the central bank is widely expected to announce an increase in its benchmark interest rate. On March 3, Fed Chair Janet Yellen added her voice to a chorus of governors and reserve bank presidents who had signaled in public speeches that a rate hike was likely to come in March.
“On the whole, the prospects for further moderate economic growth look encouraging,” Yellen said in a speech to the Executives Club of Chicago.
Before the release of the jobs data on Friday morning, the odds of a March rate increase had climbed to more than 88 percent, up from only 25 percent at the beginning of February, according to futures contracts monitored by the CME Group’s FedWatch program.
Josh Feinman, chief economist at Deutsche Bank Management, said the March rate hike doesn’t mean the Fed will tighten monetary policy more aggressively in the years to come. “They’ll probably say rates will stay fairly low, a shallow trajectory. But look, the economy looks like it’s making progress,” he said. “We don’t need zero rates anymore.”
(c) 2017, The Washington Post ยท Ana Swanson
