However strong (or weak) last month’s figures are judged to be, they are a legacy of the Obama administration, based on surveys before Mr. Trump took office on Jan. 20. Still, given the timing, the January job figures end up serving as one benchmark against which a new president’s stewardship of the economy is judged. But those additions were countered by a revised estimate that showed December’s gains were smaller than first reported. The disappointing overall wage growth can be traced to the financial industry, which saw a 0.1 percent drop in pay. Analysts, backed by research from the Federal Reserve, have been recalibrating their measures of what constitutes a strong number of hires, given how far the headline unemployment rate has fallen.

Source: New York Times February 03, 2017 10:01 UTC