Tag Archives: unemployment

business news, economic news

These numbers are mind boggling … to be sure

I always have considered the study of economics to be a fairly precise endeavor. Experts look at hard data and make determinations based on what they see as hard evidence of trends.

I also am not an expert on these matters, so take this brief blog post with a grain or two of salt if that suits you.

Thus, when economists project a jobs report that looks toward a 20 percent unemployment rate nationally and the loss of about 9 million non-farm jobs in the past month, I tend to take those projections seriously. I mean, the pandemic has slammed the brakes on the national economy.

That didn’t happen today when the U.S. Labor Department released its latest monthly jobs report.

Labor’s bean counters said the nation added nearly 3 million jobs and the jobless rate dropped from 14 percent to 13 percent in the past month.

How in the name of data-driven study did they miss the mark so badly?

If this had been done during the administration of, say, Barack Obama, we could expect to hear accusations immediately coming from, oh, Donald Trump that the numbers were cooked up. That they were phony. That the Labor Department is being run by a cabal of partisan hacks intent on feathering the president’s political fortunes.

Donald Trump, though, is the immediate beneficiary of these stunning numbers … and this stunning misreading of the nation’s economic standing.

I won’t question the veracity of this jobs report, given my own stated belief that the Labor Department is run by professionals who know what they heck they are doing. I have defended the Labor Department when Donald Trump hurled baseless accusations about previous jobs reports.

At least they know what they’re doing, um, most of the time.

However, I look forward to a thorough explanation of just how the best and the brightest economic minds in the nation missed this call by a country mile.

national news

George Floyd would be glad to see jobs report?

Yep, Donald John Trump said today that the man killed by Minneapolis cops — whose death has spawned a national protest movement against police brutality — would be happy to see the jobs report that stunned economists and politicians.

He conflated a national tragedy with a stunning increase of 2 million jobs and a reduction in the jobless rate from 14 percent to 13 percent.

Trump said, “Hopefully George is looking down right now and saying this is a great thing that’s happening for our country. This is a great day for him, it’s a great day for everybody. This is a great day for everybody. This is a great, great day in terms of equality.”

George Floyd is still dead. The Minneapolis cops who killed him are charged with murder in his death. The nation grieves for Floyd’s memory and is demanding fundamental change in the way many police departments handle cases involving African-Americans.

And the president of the United States seeks to suggest that Floyd would be happy at the good news suggesting an economic rebound?

Is this guy for real? Well, he is … I am disheartened to say. Donald Trump simply cannot — or will not — respond appropriately to anything.

Yes, the nation got some good news economic news today. I am cheered by the prospect of businesses filling many of the jobs that were emptied because of the coronavirus pandemic. Then we have Donald Trump making outrageous predictions about the economy storming back at record levels.

What’s more, he is seeking to turn a national tragedy into a political plus for him. Absolutely bizarre!

business news, economic news

266,000, 3.5 percent: Numbers are great, Mr. POTUS, however …

You bet that those numbers released this morning from the U.S. Labor Department are pretty darn stellar.

We added 266,000 jobs to our private payrolls in November; unemployment ticked down to 3.5 percent, retaining a full-employment ratio in the work force.

Those are impressive figures, as Donald Trump will tell us. “It’s the economy, stupid,” he tweeted this morning, using a phrase made famous by Bill Clinton campaign guru James Carville in 1992.

Let’s wait, though, for yet another suggestion from the president that will declare, “You cannot impeach me. Look at the job I’m doing to boost the economy! The economy is going too well for you to impeach me!” 

Mr. President, the pending impeachment by the House of Representatives has nothing — zero, zilch — to do with the economy. Indeed, presidents don’t get impeached based on how they are handling the nation’s economic health, unless they commit some sort of “high crime and misdemeanor.” Near as I can tell, Donald Trump’s trouble has nothing to do with the economy.

It has everything to do with other matters relating to how he has abused the power of his office to solicit a foreign government to help him win re-election. The articles of impeachment that will come from the House will speak to that abuse of power, perhaps to obstruction of justice or to obstruction of Congress.

The economy? It won’t be mentioned anywhere in those articles.

So, Mr. President, you may stop referencing the economy in the context of impeachment. It’s a non-starter.

economic news

Jobless rate is great … but it doesn’t negate misbehavior by POTUS

One of the dodges employed by Donald Trump’s apologists who are fighting against the impeachment tide that is splashing against the president is the strength of the national economy.

Indeed, so does the president speak to that issue.

Unemployment is at a 50-year low, Trump and The Gang tell us. They ask: “Why impeach a president who is doing such a great job on the economy?”

Here’s my answer: Because the issues relating to the president’s probable impeachment by the U.S. House of Representatives have nothing to do with his performance as president, or the strength of the national economy.

The issues of grave concern center on whether the president has violated his oath of office or, as has been alleged, broken federal law.

It is the very same separation of these matters that drove Republicans to march toward impeaching President Clinton in 1998. They didn’t give a rat’s rear end about the nation’s economic health two decades ago. Did it matter to them that the federal budget was balanced on President Clinton’s watch? No. They said, with some justification, that the president perjured himself before a grand jury; he broke the law, they said and, therefore, had committed an impeachable offense.

I thought then that the impeachment was a waste of time, given that Clinton’s lie had to do with a relationship he was having with a woman who was not his wife. That relationship didn’t have a thing to do with the duties of his office.

The issues driving the pending impeachment of Donald Trump have everything to do with his conduct as president of the United States. They also have nothing to do with the jobless rate, or the growth rate of private-sector employment, or trade policy, or immigration policy or anything else on the president’s list of issues with which he must grapple.

Let’s just try to keep these matters in some perspective, shall we? The economy is doing well under Donald Trump’s watch. It’s a big deal, to be sure. It’s a tiny, infinitesimal deal, however, when we ponder this matter of impeachment.

economic news

Jobs report looks stellar; now, hands off the Fed, Mr. POTUS

Donald Trump has reason to smile this morning.

The U.S. Labor Department reports that the private sector added 263,000 jobs in April; the unemployment rate fell to a 49-year low of 3.6 percent.

This is the same Labor Department that Trump once disparaged as cooking the books when Barack Obama was president, when the Obama administration was presiding over similarly stellar job increases monthly.

The other guy’s success was a fabrication, said Trump. Not now. It’s all real now that Trump is in the saddle.

Hey, that’s all fine. He was wrong then to criticize the Labor figures when President Obama was in office. He is right now to hail them. It’s good news, Mr. President. Just say how much you appreciate everyone’s hard work and get on with “making America great again.”

One more thing, Mr. President. You should stop monkeying around with trying to seat lackeys and sycophants on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Stop trying to coerce Fed Chairman Jerome Powell into doing your bidding. The Fed is an independent agency charged with helping managing the economy.

The job figures indicate to me that the Fed is doing a damn good job.

Leave the Fed alone, Mr. President!

business news

Jobs report: once cooked up, now legit?

Donald John Trump has this maddening capacity for talking out of both sides of his mouth and for avoiding accountability for it.

The U.S. Labor Department’s jobs report this week is an example of it. The bean counters at the Labor Department reported that 223,000 jobs were added to non-farm payrolls in May. Unemployment fell to 3.8 percent.

Good news? Of course it is! The president should take a victory lap on this one. He hailed the report so much that he actually sort of spilled the beans an hour before the data were released, breaking with longstanding presidential protocol. Some critics are concerned that he might have manipulated stock markets around the world by offering that hint of the good news that was about to be revealed.

But wait! He once derided those same bureaucrats’ findings when they delivered stellar jobs report numbers during the Barack Obama administration. He called them phony, cooked up. He said the actual jobless rate during President Obama’s time in office was many times greater than what the Labor Department said it was.

So, which is it? Were they cooked up then and have gained validity just because Trump is in office?

This is the kind of duplicity that Trump gets away with. It simply is astonishing in the extreme that the man’s “base” continues to cheer him on, giving him more incentive to keep lying to the nation.

Weird.

business news, national news, political news

Trump hogs credit he denied to his predecessor

Donald J. Trump was always oh, so quick to denigrate the economic successes of Barack H. Obama.

But … wait! Now it appears that with the nation’s economy continuing to rock along, he is seeking to take some — or most — of the credit for himself.

Politico reports that the president, faced with low poll ratings despite a brisk economic recovery, is staking more of his political fortune on the continuing spike in economic activity.

Thus, the success he refused to acknowledge during President Obama’s two terms in office is now becoming an opportunity for him to seize during his own time in the White House.

It’s almost laughable. No, actually it is laughable.

Trump derided the monthly jobs boost recorded virtually throughout Obama’s terms in office. He used to contend the job growth was phony; the Labor Department cooked up the numbers, he said, to make the president look good.

Now that he’s on the watch, the job numbers are like the Gospels, according to Trump. Which is it, Mr. President? Are they phony or are they holy?

Trump will deserve credit if his economic policies continue to produce healthy job and wage growth. He’ll deserve the credit in due course.

However, he shouldn’t try to scarf up the credit that rightfully belongs to the momentum built by his presidential predecessor and preceding Congresses long before he declared his presidential candidacy.

business news

This a ‘disaster,’ Mr. President?

The job numbers came in this morning — and they look pretty darn good.

The U.S. Labor Department reported today that the economy added 211,000 non-farm jobs to payrolls in April and the unemployment rate fell to 4.4 percent.

The boost in jobs was considerably greater than analysts had predicted. The jobless rate has inched a bit closer to what one might consider to be “full employment” in the United States.

Donald J. Trump used to disparage the Labor Department figures as phony, bogus, cooked up, fake. That, of course, was during the Obama administration. The president doesn’t say those things now that he’s on the job.

Hey, I’ll give the president credit for presiding over this sparkling jobs report. Let there be many more of them.

I do have one question: A little more than three months into your presidency, is this the economic “disaster” and the “mess” you have said repeatedly you inherited from Barack Obama?

business news, International news, national news, political news

Economy now off the table for 2016 campaign?

Let’s allow this declaration: Barring an unexpected collapse that could occur at any moment, the state of the nation’s economy will not be an issue in the 2016 campaign for president of the United States.

The Labor Department released more job numbers today. They’re good.

The economy added 252,000 jobs in December; unemployment fell from 5.8 percent to 5.6 percent.

Is it a perfect score? No. Wages took a slight dip in December, compared to the substantial growth they showed the previous month.

Republican contenders for the White House, though, are going to have to look beyond our borders for issues to toss against Democrats — namely against Hillary Rodham Clinton. Those opportunities aren’t going to be that easy to exploit against the former secretary of state, former U.S. senator, former first lady and prohibitive frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The economy? Well, I’ve noted before how the Obama administration took bold steps early on to stop the free fall it inherited when Barack Obama took the presidential oath on Jan. 20, 2009.

The economy is picking up considerable steam now.

The war on terror? It’s still going on. Yes, the president said the “war on terror is over.” He misspoke. The nation continues to hunt down killers, who continue to strike at innocent victims, such as those most recently in Paris.

Let’s face this cold, harsh fact: The war on terror is unlike any war we’ve ever fought. There will be no way to declare victory. The 9/11 attacks brought forward what intelligence analysts and deep-cover agents have known all along, that terrorists are out there plotting against us.

That fight will go on, and on, and on.

At home, though, the economy has recovered.

business news, national news, political news

Jobs report due; get ready for unfounded griping

The Labor Department reported today that claims for unemployment benefits fell to a 14-year low.

This comes on the eve of its monthly jobs report, due out Friday.

So, what will happen? Usually, when the jobless claims dip as they did this week, it means a glowing jobs report is sure to follow.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/us-jobless-claims-fall-to-14-year-low/ar-BBdiTRM

I’m not going to predict any numbers here, because I have no clue what they’ll be. I’m thinking, though, the job growth in the private sector will match the recent trend, which has been very good.

So, how will the Obama administration’s critics react to this latest bit of sparkling economic news?

They’ll say, “Oh well, the Christmas buying season is almost here and retailers are hiring temporary help to assist with the boost in business.” They’ll pooh-pooh the numbers as a seasonal aberration. Big deal. Where’s the beef? The economy is still in dire straits. Didn’t the mid-term elections just prove that Americans are uneasy about the economy and the direction the country is heading?

This goes to show what politics does to reality.

The reality is that the economy has come back. It’s getting even stronger.

I heard an oil-and-gas analyst today suggest that lower fuel prices are going to give consumers more disposable income to spend at shopping malls across the country, suggesting a booming holiday shopping season that commences with Black Friday the day after Thanksgiving.

Oh, but that’s all smoke and mirrors, the critics will say.

Fiddlesticks.