McService Job Nation?
Reader Moonmac argues the case that we are in a recession, in a rejoinder my paper “Recession since 2022? A Critique“:
McService Job Nation disagrees even though they’re employed. Gainfully is a different matter.
I think the data is suggests otherwise. While employment is growing at limited service restaurants (aka fast food restaurants), wages are growing both relative to average wages, and in real terms.
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Figure 1: Employment in limited service restaurants, 000’s (blue). Source: BLS.
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Figure 2: Average hourly wages in limited service restaurants (blue, left scale), in private nonfarm payroll sector (red, right scale), both in 2023$ (deflated using CPI-all urban). Source: BLS, and author’s calculations.
What is it about people that they don’t look at freely available data? Is it Excel-phobia, or they can’t do division even with a calculator?
More By This Author:
Revised Paper: No, We Haven’t Been In A Recession Since 2022September Coincident Indexes
If The Official Inflation Rate Is Correct, The Real Policy Rate In Russia Is Now 12.4%