Should-Read: Elise Gould: Strong employment growth and promising participation, but wage growth continues to fall short

Should-Read: Elise Gould: Strong employment growth and promising participation, but wage growth continues to fall short: The economy added a strong 313,000 jobs in February….

…The unemployment rate held steady at 4.1 percent, while the labor force participation rate (LFPR) and the employment-to-population ratio (EPOP) saw sizeable gains, 0.3 percentage points each, restoring them to levels last seen in September 2017. At 79.3 percent, prime-age EPOP, meanwhile, is the highest it’s been since June 2008…. Despite these impressive gains in employment and participation… nominal hourly wage growth remains relatively disappointing at 2.6 percent year-over-year, so we clearly have a ways to go before reaching the 3.5 percent wage growth—at a minimum—that would be consistent with the Fed’s inflation target and estimates of potential productivity growth…