Reader Moonmac argues the case that we are in a recession, in a rejoinder my paper “Recession since 2022? A Critique“:
McService Job Nation disagrees even though they’re employed. Gainfully is a different matter.
I think the data suggests otherwise. While employment is growing at limited service restaurants (aka fast food restaurants), wages are growing both relative to average wages, and in real terms.
Figure 1: Employment in limited service restaurants, 000’s (blue). Source: BLS.
Figure 2: Average hourly wages in limited service restaurants (blue, left scale), in private nonfarm payroll sector (red, right scale), both in 2023$ (deflated using CPI-all urban). Source: BLS, and author’s calculations.
What is it about people that they don’t look at freely available data? Is it Excel-phobia, or they can’t do division even with a calculator?