A watch factory in Detroit, Michigan. Low wage growth means many people are still living paycheck-to-paycheck.
Credit: Jeff Kowalsky/AFP/Getty

January marked the 100th consecutive month of job creation in the United States – a record-breaking streak of job creation that has left employers scrambling to find workers and dragged the long-term unemployed back into the market.

Yet even now, 20m jobs later, there are some parts of the US economy that have yet to reflect the positive image projected by the continuous job growth and low unemployment rate.

“That we’ve had the unemployment rate at or below 4% since last February is obviously historically remarkable,” said Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate.com. “But the composition of the workforce or employment obviously paints a much more complicated story.”

What troubles analysts like Hamrick, as well as the central bankers at the Federal Reserve, […]

Read the Full Article