"The unemployment rate remains under 4%, so now it's been under 4% for over two years running. It has not been like this for over 50 years," US Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su tells Yahoo Finance's Jennifer Schonberger in Washington, D.C., attributing consistent jobs growth as a product of President Biden's "strong, steady leadership with a vision."
Secretary Su weighed in on Biden's State of the Union address — the sitting president summarizing the economic progress made under his administration. In theme with International Women's Day (March 8), she also discusses the prominence of women in the US workforce and the challenges they still face.
"Women's labor force participation rate for prime-age women in the last month was almost at the all-time high again, almost matched that what you talked about last spring. But, yes, the pay gap remains persistent. And we have to do everything we can to end that," Acting Secretary Su states. "It's unfair — we see that women, even if you have the same level of education, you're working in the same type of job, in the same industry, women's pay statistically is lower than that of men. Now, some of that is old-fashioned discrimination, and we have to address that, but some of it is really the occupational segregation that persists."
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- I'm joined now by acting Labor Secretary Julie Su. Secretary Su, always great to see you.
JULIE SU: You too.
- Thanks so much for joining me. So the top line nonfarm payroll number coming in stronger than expected. But yet again, we saw large downward revisions to the prior months. The unemployment rate ticking up. Is the job market gently cooling in line with some of the anecdotal evidence that we've been seeing?
JULIE SU: I'll put it this way. I think this is another strong jobs report, showing just how astounding the recovery has been since President Biden came into office and how we are in a point of continued sustained growth. So 275,000 jobs added last month. The unemployment rate remains under 4%. So now it's been under 4% for over two years running. It has not been like this in 50 years.
And labor force participation continues to go up. And so all around, this is a sign of just how strong our economy is. And remember, none of this was promised, right? None of this was-- in fact, most people predicted the opposite. And so I think this is what happens when you have strong, steady leadership with a vision. And that's what President Biden has provided.
- When you look at the source of job growth over the past month, again the lion's share coming from the government and health care as we've seen over the past months. What does that tell you about the strength of the job market?
JULIE SU: I think it's important to note that the job growth is fairly broad-based. It's multiple industries. It is in health care. Hospitals have seen major growth in the last month. We also saw in restaurants and bars. We saw an uptick in transportation warehousing. We saw social assistance. So even if you pull out the government jobs, there's over 200,000 jobs created last month. And so I would say this is a continued broad-based recovery, not limited to certain industries. And that's again a part of how we define economic strength.
- And this is in line with the soft landing, you think?
JULIE SU: I think this is like the very definition of the softest landing you can imagine.
- Last night, President Biden gave his State of the Union Address. And he has proposed raising the corporate tax rate, raising the minimum corporate tax rate. How do you expect, if that were to occur, it would impact job creation and job growth? Could it hurt?
JULIE SU: So President Biden talked about everyone getting their fair share, right? That's what he's talking about when he says we should not have billionaires paying less in taxes than a teacher or a firefighter. And so what we have certainly seen over the last three years, and 2023 was a big year for this, is that when workers get their fair share, it's better for everybody.
The strong labor market that we saw last year, the continued growth that we see is in the very same moment that workers are demanding and winning higher wages, better retirement security, health benefits and the like. So I don't think that what we've seen demonstrates that choice between corporations paying their fair share and job creation. In fact, under President Biden's vision for the economy, they really go hand in hand.
- In addition to it being the day after the State of the Union and Jobs Day, today is International Women's Day. And I know you and I have talked a lot about women in the economy. Labor force participation for women reached an all time record high last spring. But despite that, the pay gap between men and women remains wide. Women only earning $0.83 on the dollar versus men, even as wages have continued to grow at a strong clip. So why has progress stalled? Why is the pay gap still so wide?
JULIE SU: Right. So the first point about women's labor force participation rate remains important, right? Women have powered this economic recovery. We've talked about this several times. Women's labor force participation rate for prime age women in the last month was almost at the all time high again, almost match that you talked about last spring. But yes, the pay gap remains persistent. And we have to do everything we can to end that. It's unfair.
We see that women, even if you have the same level of education, you're working in the same type of job, in the same industry, women's pay statistically is lower than that of men. Now some of that is old-fashioned discrimination, and we have to address that. But some of it is really the occupational segregation that persists. So women in industries where the pay is lower.
Care work, for example, right? We talk about we have to build a care infrastructure that meets the needs of working people, and a lot of them are working women, and that also increases the quality of those care jobs. That's how we are going to make sure that women can fully participate.
We did a study that showed that if this country invested in paying leave and other policies that are family-supporting and also in care, like child care, that five million more women would enter the labor market. That's $775 billion in economic activity each year. So those investments pay off, and I think we have to think about what are the costs if we don't get those things right, and that's why the President also last night called for some of those policies.
- And before I let you go, Secretary Su, you're headed to North Carolina next week, is that right, to talk about raising the quality of jobs for women in this country?
JULIE SU: Yeah. Everywhere I go, that is a theme. Again, it's a matter of equity. It's also a matter of being smart, right? There's almost 15 million jobs created since the President came into office. Everywhere I go, employers say, how am I going to find the workers? And one way is to tap into the full talent of the American people.
And women want to work. I see this everywhere I go. It's demonstrated in the overall macro numbers. But also when I talk to women, women are in training programs. Trades women, right? Women in the trades who are getting their hands dirty and laying pipe 30 feet underground and building buildings hundreds of feet in the air. They're doing jobs that aren't traditionally-- haven't been traditionally thought of for women, and women are demonstrating that when given a shot, we can do anything. And so everywhere I go, we're making investments in and promoting the strength, and the resilience, and the talent of women.
