Does It Really Get Better?

Lost in Friday’s jobs report amid the expectations game and the immediate reaction by financial markets to the headline numbers came more evidence that the jobs being created in this economic recovery are not much to write home about. Nearly a quarter of the increase in nonfarm payrolls came from the “food service and drinking establishments” category.

This story at CNBC probes the deeper meaning of developments like this.

The American Dream used to be a house to call your own that you paid for with a steady paycheck after an honest day’s work. But in this post-financial-crisis nation, the dream for many now means having a part-time job and being able to rent an apartment.

And with unemployment and wages stagnant, as well as uncertainty about the costs of the new health care act for employers, the pared-down expectations may be a trend for years to come.

“The quality of the jobs being added are quite low, especially relative to the jobs that were lost,” said an economist from a major Wall Street investment bank, who declined to be named because he hasn’t published on this trend yet. “Homeownership, especially for the younger, is quite low, showing perhaps some secular decline.”

Unprecedented levels of people working “part time for economic reasons” and the great disparity in the jobless rate for those with a college degree and those without (at a time of very expensive higher education and soaring student loan debt) make this a particularly challenging time for younger Americans in particular.

It’s hard to see how things will get better, that is, unless we get another full-fledged asset bubble and, as we’ve learned in the past, that improvement will surely be temporary.