NYT: Yeah, everything we knew about the jobs market was wrong

Still, there is a bigger lesson contained in the data, one that is important beyond any one month s tally of the job numbers: that the American economy is capable of cranking at a higher level than conventional wisdom held as recently as a few years ago. As the economy continues to grow well above what once seemed like its potential, without inflation or other clear signs of overheating, it s clearer that the old view of its potential was an extremely costly mistake.

This in fact was precisely the argument Trump made in 2015-16, and that the regulatory and monetary policies of the Obama era were holding back a bigger expansion. Media analysts largely ridiculed the idea, even after it began paying off in mid-2017 and later again in early 2018 after the tax-reform package passed. However, the signs were there all along, especially in wage stagnation. Having spent the last decade paying close attention to the data produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and historical models, I have long argued that the stagnation of wages both before and especially after the Great Recession pointed to an underuse of labor in the US economy, and that government policies were getting in the way.

via hotair.com

Anyone who’s ever tried to do anything knows you could increase the productivity of the US economy by a zillion percent by getting rid of obviously rent-seeking regulation. Trump has done a little bit of that.