Jobs and Tweetie Bird's Truth

   For more than six years, the labor market has expanded, businesses have added 15.6 million jobs and the unemployment rate has dropped to its lowest level since August 2007.
   In November, the jobless rate dipped again, to 4.6 percent, as payroll employment increased by 178,000, the Labor Department reported.
   Professional business services, health care and construction led the gains in employment, the report said.
   Add this to the spate of reports in recent days that the American economy is steadily growing, even as some warn of an exodus of jobs to other nations. But it's also true that while employment at some firms is down, overall production is up, as technology enables more output per worker. In turn, this calls for higher skills, and thus higher wages.
   Couple that, however, with wage levels in the U.S. and compare them with wage levels for similar jobs elsewhere. If an American worker collects $20 an hour, while a worker in Mexico, for example, is paid $5 an hour for a nearly identical job, it's not hard to figure why a manufacturer would want to relocate to the lower cost region.
   There's nothing really new about this phenomenon. That's why textile firms left New England and moved to the Carolinas after strong unionized labor negotiated higher paychecks a hundred years ago. There was also the matter of cheaper, more efficient energy costs.
   Meanwhile, news reports have been full of stories about how President-elect Donald Trump was behind the effort to stop the Carrier company from shutting down a plant in Indiana and moving to Mexico, meaning a thousand or more workers would be jobless.
   But thanks to a vigilant news media, we know that the company got tax incentives worth a reported $7 million as part of the deal. Moreover, the deal was arranged at the state level, where Mike Pence is still governor and not yet vice president of the U.S. So the financial hit will bite Indiana taxpayers. In addition, another thousand or more jobs will still be cut from Carrier employment rolls. And it's likely that Carrier's parent company cooperated so it would not jeopardize federal contracts.
   So much for watching out for the little guy.

   The bottom line is that the U.S. economy is healthy and growing, even as it suffers growing pains when manufacturers adjust their technology. More people are working and income levels, according to other data sets, are rising.
   This may not be the great news that low-technology workers and low-income families want to hear, since their income is stagnant, but the overall economy continues to recover from the Great Recession of eight years ago.
   The benefits touted by the Great Deal Maker and Twitter in Chief are scattered and largely go to corporations. Some jobs were indeed saved by the Carrier deal, but an even larger number at the same firm will still go away, even as the company picks up a fat check from Indiana taxpayers.
   The larger picture, however, is one of economic health, regardless of what the Twitter in Chief (or is it chief twit?) claims.
   As for helping "average workers," he seems to be stacking the Cabinet deck with his corporate and Wall Street buddies who contributed bigly to his election campaign.