One of the economy’s bright spots is the job market — and it may be even brighter than it seems. Not only are there more jobs (1.3 million so far in 2016), but they may be better-paying, according to a new analysis by economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The Fed economists report that middle-wage workers — earning roughly $30,000 to $60,000 — represent the fastest growing segment of the labor market. By contrast, earlier in the recovery, low-wage and high-wage jobs dominated employment increases.

The labor market was supposedly becoming economically “polarized,” just as society was becoming politically polarized. Now, the new analysis suggests that the labor-market polarization “may have peaked, and middle-wage jobs could be ready for a renaissance,” as my Post colleague Ylan Q. Mui wrote in a nice blog post on the New York Fed study.

Assuming that the trend lasts through Election Day, it’s probably a plus for Hillary Clinton. It doesn’t eliminate jobs as an issue, but it blunts discontent. Here’s what the New York Fed study reported.

Although middle-wage occupations represent about half of all jobs — teachers, factory workers, truck drivers, construction workers — they accounted for only 22 percent of new jobs between 2010 and 2013. Lower-wage occupations — earning $30,000 or less as fast-food workers, sales clerks, janitors — accounted for 40 percent of new jobs, well above their 30 percent share of existing employment. And high-paying occupations — with median wages of $60,000 or more, earned by doctors, lawyers, managers and engineers — represented 38 percent of new jobs, despite being only 20 percent of existing jobs.
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