Notwithstanding many who for their own political reasons “wish it weren’t so”, the nation’s economy continued to grow and strengthen through June with average hourly earnings increasing 0.2% for the month. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), year over year, real average hourly earnings grew 1.5 percent from June 2018 to June 2019 while the average workweek dropped 0.3 percent yielding an overall increase of 1.2% in real average earnings. At the same time, the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 3.7% with the economy adding 224,000 new jobs during the month. We also hasten to add that through Q1, the Bureau of Economic Advisors reported that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew at an annualized rate of 3.1%, an increase of almost a full point over Q4 2018 growth rate of 2.2 percent.