For the first time since the financial crash in 2008, U.S. unemployment has dropped below 5 percent. In additional good news for workers, wages are finally rising, ticking up half a percentage point in January.
"The progress we've made going from 10 percent to under 5 percent, that's a testament to American workers, American businesses, American people being resilient and sticking to it," said President Obama at a Friday press conference in response to the news.
But economists caution that things are far from hunky dory. For one, the economy only grew at 0.7 percent during the final quarter of 2015, causing some concern that another global economic slowdown — even another recession — could be afoot.
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The Chinese economy, to which the U.S. is inextricably linked, has slowed down dramatically in the past year, the oil industry is in crisis and a strong dollar has seriously harmed the ability of exporters, particularly in tech, to sell abroad. All of these anxieties are reflected in an increasingly volatile stock market.
More employers clearly sense a need to raise wages in response to higher employment. A recent example was Wal-Mart's decision to hike pay for its lowest-paid workers late last year, a decision that reflected both the increased difficulty in retaining and attracting hourly workers as well as the increased pressure from politicians and advocacy groups on retail and fast food employers to pay employees a living wage.
And of course, states and cities that have taken action to raise the minimum wage may have also had an impact on the overall average pay for U.S. workers. The New York Times reports that such increases went into effect in a dozen states at the beginning of the year.
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