About those job and wage gains:

In fact, last month, the BLS reported that year-over-year, from May 2017 through May 2018, average “real”—that is, inflation-adjusted—hourly wages for the largest cohort of U.S. workers fell by 0.1 percent. That cohort comprises “production and non-supervisory” workers, and it makes up about 80 percent of the privately employed U.S. workforce. The cohort’s average real hourly May-to-May wages fell from $22.62 to $22.59. While their wages rose 2.8 percent during that period, inflation went up 2.9 percent. Rising gasoline prices were a big part of that rise.