Jim Saxton: “each month the Joint Economic Committee has the opportunity to receive job growth data from the Labor Department's…”

“each month the Joint Economic Committee has the opportunity to receive job growth data from the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics. This month, the JEC was pleased to receive good news; fortunately, good news of two kinds: First, many good paying jobs are being created in large numbers in the U.S. economy; and, second, job growth continues at a rapid rate. The June payroll employment increases pushed the total employment gains since August to 1.5 million jobs. According to the new data released a week ago by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, job growth continues today as the payroll employment increased by 112,000 jobs in June. During the past few days, however, some have contended that most of the recent employment gains are in low wage jobs. Quite the contrary is true. Occupations that are relatively well paid accounted for over 70 percent of the net increases in employment between June of 2003 and June of 2004. Although this does not mean that all of the jobs that were created in these categories were high-paying, most of them were. The jobs in these occupational categories are generally highly paid. It does indicate that most of the recent employment gains have not been disproportionately in low-wage occupations, as some in this House have claimed.”