Friday's positive news on job growth did little to boost hope that wages are rising, with a senior White House official saying Americans' paychecks will only grow if tax reform is accomplished.
"We're still not growing wages in this country," White House economic adviser Gary Cohn told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street."
"We do believe that tax reform will help us drive real wage growth in the United States, which is something really important to the administration."
Cohn said if lawmakers on Capitol Hill are able to pass tax reform legislation soon and President Donald Trump signs the bill into law, paychecks will look different in the early part of 2018.
"We know that American workers, once this tax bill is passed, they'll start seeing their paychecks change early next year when withholding tax cards are changed," Cohn said.
"We think we are in a prolonged period of wage growth starting the beginning of next year, which is something we haven't seen for the last eight or 10 years, and that's really important to us."
The House and Senate have both passed different versions of a tax reform bill in recent weeks. Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said Thursday members of both chambers already are negotiating about the next steps in the legislative process.
Friday's jobs report showed 228,000 jobs were added to the economy in November, higher than the median economist estimate of 195,000.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.