title:  Obama Can’t Stop Winning As New Jobs Report Shows U.S. Economy Still Kicking Ass
text: Today, I would hate to be a Republican strategist. Why? Because with the election only 10 months away, I have to tell my candidate that the economy is still growing robustly and shows no signs of weakness. If anything, it still has room for explosive growth even after adding another 292,000 jobs in December:The jobless rate, which has declined since topping the 10 percent mark in October 2009, is now hovering just above what economists consider full employment   the point where further declines could start to push up inflation.The average monthly gain in jobs last year were closer to the 2013 average of 199,000 a month, but short of the 260,000 figure reached in 2014. The remarkable thing is how consistent employment growth has been over the past three or four years,  said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody s Analytics.  We re getting at least 200,000 jobs per month on a consistent basis. That s quite an achievement. The only downside to this report is that there was no growth to average hourly wages. That s been the  slow  part of this slow recovery. On the plus side, once we reach the  full  employment mentioned above, wages will grow and grow rapidly. Companies will be competing for employees and the way to do that is by offering higher pay. This, by the way, is one of the reasons Corporate America has not been all that gung-ho about heating up the economy. High unemployment means low wages, the second favorite phrase next to  Golden Parachute  for CEOs.But, once wages start going up, people will have more money to spend and that increases demand. Increased demand, of course, requires more people to fill that demand and that means more jobs which means more people have money to spend and so the cycle goes. Slowing or reversing this cycle was the express purpose of the Republican s austerity mania in which they insisted pulling money out of the economy would  help  it. A crippled economy is good for Republican political ambitions.Fortunately, Obama fended off most of their bullshit cuts and instead implemented policies to avoid inflating the economy on a fragile bubble. It may have been slow but the Obama Recovery is incredibly stable (did you even know the rest of the world s economy is a mess?) and so far resistant to shocks. If we keep up this pace, Obama will be handing his (Democratic) successor a solid foundation from which to build a bridge to the future.Maybe they can find jobs for all the Republicans that will be out of work come election day?Featured image via Black Water Dog/Pete Souza