Here's the strange bad news in the latest jobs report

Why are both unemployment and inflation so low?

Things still aren't looking good for the lowly worker.
(Image credit: Gary Waters/Ikon Images/Corbis)

Last Friday's jobs report was a mixed bag. On the one hand, we had mediocre job gains of 151,000. On the other hand, the unemployment rate finally broke through the 5 percent floor and fell to 4.9 percent. It hasn't done that since February 2008.

Even better, that unemployment rate is pretty much where mainstream economists think full employment resides. That's when the matchup between the number of people looking for work and the number of jobs available is so tight that workers can begin bargaining up wages, because employers fear losing them to competitors.

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Jeff Spross

Jeff Spross was the economics and business correspondent at TheWeek.com. He was previously a reporter at ThinkProgress.