JQI Index declines 0.13 percent in February
Washington. The monthly U.S. Jobs Quality Index (JQI) issued by the Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA) and its partners dropped slightly to 79.41, down by 0.13 percent from its revised level one month earlier. This means new production and non-supervisory jobs are continuing to pay less than the mean weekly income for such positions.
Professor and author Daniel Alpert, who helped devise the JQI, said, “Today’s strong jobs report presages some improvement to the overall JQI next month. Having said that, the JQI is still near its March 2012 low, having retraced almost all of its improvement from 2012 through 2016. Last year’s jobs formation, especially in the second half, was too highly concentrated in low-wage, low-hour jobs.”
Said Jeff Ferry, CPA Chief Economist, “The U.S. economy keeps creating new jobs. But not enough of them are ‘good jobs’ that can sustain a prosperous middle class. Congress needs to embark on an industrial policy that values manufacturing. Realigning the overvalued U.S. dollar and decoupling from China’s predatory regime are important steps to help jumpstart middle class job creation here at home.”
The JQI assesses job quality in the United States by measuring desirable higher-wage/higher-hour jobs versus lower-wage/lower-hour jobs. This provides a helpful snapshot of the changing overall health of the U.S. jobs market.
Read more about the U.S. Jobs Quality Index.
