The DFW area tacked on another 10,000 jobs during the month of June according to numbers released by the Texas Workforce Commission. That was more than a third of the 27,200 positions gained in Texas during the month. The unemployment rate for the Dallas-Fort Worth- Arlington MSA posted a 3.8 percent, just slightly below the 3.9 percent figure at this time last year. Midland Texas still held the lowest unemployment rate in Texas at only 2.4 percent.

While the Dallas area still posted solid job gains during the month of June, the unadjusted numbers show that Houston was easily the best performing job market during the month with 23,200 positions added during the month of June, helping to shave of almost a half a percentage point from last year’s unemployment rate in Houston.

Where Dallas and Houston, and virtually every job market in the state, are falling short is paychecks. Average weekly wages for Texas employees are falling short of inflation. With a CPI of 3.9 percent and year-over-year wage growth of only 2.8 percent, Dallas-Fort Worth workers are falling further and further behind when adjusting for inflation. You can send your thanks to the Dallas branch of the Federal Reserve for this new conundrum. Some really bad fiscal policy during the past 12 months is also contributing to the problem.

So where did all of the money from the recent tax cut package go you might ask? The data is in, and not surprisingly corporate America threw a spectacular party for the folks in the C suites, smashing consecutive records for corporate share buybacks during the first and second quarter of the year. While this has helped to keep stock prices afloat, the tax cut scam has done absolutely NOTHING for the average American worker.

Failed monetary and fiscal policy continues to wreak havoc in the housing markets. This is why affordable starter homes are in high demand even as other, more expensive segments of the market are cooling.

“Trickle-Down Theory – The less than elegant metaphor that if one feeds the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.”  John Kenneth Galbraith