Economy On 🔥🔥🔥: Biden Adds Another 272,000 Jobs In Killer May Jobs Report
Suck it, mainstream media!
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Well this just has to be embarrassing for Yahoo Finance:
They were so sure this May’s job numbers were going to be weak that they went ahead and made that prediction. The problem with betting against President Joe Biden’s economy, though, is that it’s the strongest economy since the end of World War II. Sooner or later, it will inevitably cool down but there are precious few signs of that happening right now.
This has not dimmed the press’ ardent fervor for doomcasting. In just the last two weeks or so, the Washington Post insisted that the economy was in trouble despite the actual data saying otherwise. Cable news reporters are rending their garments that people aren’t traveling while talking about how Memorial Day Weekend was setting records for most people traveling ever. It’s a psychosis that has taken hold of the entire media ecosystem that the economy is going to collapse AT ANY SECOND.
So everyone is shocked and surprised and amazed when month after month after month, Biden’s economy blows away expectations and delivers the jobs Americans need:
When hiring slowed sharply in April, many wondered if the jobs market had entered a new trend of weaker growth. The May jobs report suggests that is not the case.
“It appears that the rumors of the death of the labor market were an exaggeration,” Thomas Simmons, US economist at Jefferies, wrote in a report to clients Friday.
Simmons said it looks like April was an “anomaly, not the death knell” and hiring is “back on track.”
Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM, told CNN the May jobs report was “very strong” and dismissed the unemployment rate increase as “statistical noise.”
“It’s still the strongest labor market since the 1950s,” Brusuelas said. “Good news is good news.”
Never forget, the press spent three solid years trying to manifest a recession by convincing the public that an economic collapse was going to happen AT ANY SECOND.1 They successfully managed to convince more than half of the country that we are, in fact, in a recession despite a record of job and wage growth unmatched in almost 70 years.
The goal, of course, was to kneecap Biden’s campaign because presidents with strong economies rarely lose. And the press desperately wants Trump back in office because he makes them a lot of money. Biden is booooooring and does not create exciting news.
But he does create jobs and raise wages:
Workers made $34.91 an hour, on average, in May. That’s an increase of 14 cents from April, or 0.4%. From a year earlier, average hourly earnings were up 4.1% last month.
Wage growth has been steadily trending down over the past year and is well below the nearly-6% annual increase in March 2022. While it means that Americans’ wallets have continued to fatten these past few years, it’s an issue for the Fed because it might stand in the way of inflation inching closer to the central bank’s 2% target. That’s because high labor costs can be passed on to consumers, though it’s important to note that Americans can rake in robust wage gains without stoking inflation — if labor productivity is keeping up. It remains to be seen if last year’s productivity boom will persist this year.
And even if wage growth resumes slowing in the coming months, it is still well above pre-pandemic trends. From 2007 to 2020 (when the pandemic distorted economic trends), year-over-year wage growth never rose above 3.7%.
There are really two things going on here. The first, as I mentioned, is the press hates Biden because he’s costing them millions in revenue. But the second is that Biden’s economic policies are extremely dangerous because they’re working. The billionaires that own American media are watching a government that works for the people and not for them and it infuriates them.
This kind of nonsense cannot be allowed to continue or the rabble might start expecting more. Better jobs. Better pay. Pensions. Universal healthcare. Accountability! It would be chaos! Better to bury this kind of news and lull the suckers into believing that everything is terrible. Then the pro-business idiot can get back in power and cut our taxes and blow up the economy again. Put an end to this surge in unions and empowered workers monkey business.
Those are the stakes in November. Trump will immediately sabotage the economy on behalf of his billionaire donor puppet masters and every mention of Biden’s economic miracle will be erased from history. But if we win? Just imagine what we can still do to take our money and power back from the thieving fucks who have been hoarding it since the 80s.
Look at this month’s job report and imagine that for another 4 years.
There are 150 days until the 2024 election. Vote blue like your life depends on it.
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IT COULD BE HAPPENING RIGHT NOW! RIGHT THIS VERY SECOND! PANIC! PANIC RIGHT NOW!
...and the right wingnuts are doing the "yeah, wait until the numbers are revised down!" song and dance. They cannot handle that regardless, it's been net job gains (vs. TFG's yuuge net losses, even before COVID). Effing crybaby losers.
I have also kept "a close eye on your posts", Justin, but I agree with your general assessment, and like you, I am not in the tank for Biden, just willing to give credit where it is due, rather than nitpick the good news. As for the crop of naysayers and Trump-whisperers who see doom in every good report, they are facilitated by reporters (and at least one thoroughly corrupted network) whom I suspect only have a dim appreciation for the nuances of their subject matter. Even only marginally corrupted CNN's articles on the recent news juxtaposition the solidly positive news with "cautions" regarding the unemployment rate and labor participation rate blips, while others quibble about the number of part time jobs, but nowhere is there sufficient information to assess reliably the actual meaning or import of any of those naked snapshot data points. When I was earning my degree in economics, one of the things stressed repeatedly is that trends, not single data points are needed to even begin to assess statistical indicators such as these. As you note, one may quibble and nitpick around the edges, but the trend has been solidly positive - for years now. Data points such as a 0.1% blip in the unemployment rate (where in the labor sector, in what part of the country?), a small change in the labor participation rate (are we in the middle of the boomer retirement wave?), or the part time jobs numbers (without identifying where those jobs are and who is getting them) do not and cannot give reliable information about the status and health of the huge American economy - certainly not enough information to justify running around with one's hair on fire (or even sitting back and gently tut-tutting like Christopher Robin and Pooh - "Tut tut, looks like rain.")
There are a lot of moving parts in this system. Even inflation is a complex, multimodal aggregate, not a uniformly systemic experience. Several items (housing, energy, services) account for much/most of the inflationary experience - very important items certainly, but they are things that call for fine-tuned policy responses, not the "meat-axe", indirect, sometimes systemically brutal approaches the Fed wields. Indeed, some commodity prices, like gas prices, are responsive to international forces (oil production, refinery capacity), not domestic government policy. Not much any president could do if Saudi Arabia cuts production or decides to shut down part or all of its Port Arthur TX refinery for maintenance in early July. The Youngstown SCOTUS case in the 1950s held that the president could not seize private property to restore steel production even in wartime. So, there we are.
Keep up the good work, Justin. Keep calling it like you see it. The smart money is on you.