Tag: jobs
June Report: Every Job Lost During Pandemic Is Back

June Report: Every Job Lost During Pandemic Is Back

A strong June jobs report released on Friday showed that the private sector has now recovered every job that was lost during the COVID-19 pandemic when millions of people were laid off during former President Donald Trump's tenure.

The news came after the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the economy added 372,000 jobs in June, exceeding economists' expectations and keeping the unemployment rate at 3.6 percent, a level most economists regard as "full employment."

The milestone came a little more than two years after the COVID-19 pandemic began, which caused the stock market to plummet and employers to slash 22 million jobs.

The private sector has bounced back faster than many had previously thought it would. Some economists had predicted it could take as many as four years for the millions of jobs that were lost to return.

The White House celebrated the jobs number, touting the speed of the recovery from the pandemic slump.

"This has been the fastest and strongest jobs recovery in American history, and it would not have been possible without the decisive action my administration took last year to fix a broken COVID response, and pass the American Rescue Plan to get our economy back on track," President Joe Biden said in a statement.

Biden, who rarely brings up his predecessor by name, said the employment situation is now better than it ever was during Trump's time in office.

"We have more Americans working in the private sector today than any day during Donald Trump's presidency — more people than any time in our history," Biden said.

Brian Deese, the director of the National Economic Council, also celebrated the news that the private sector is now at pre-pandemic levels. "The strength of this labor market is historic," Deese told the Washington Post on Friday.

The report has eased some fears of an impending economic recession. Even Fox Business said the jobs report "doesn't look like an economy in recession."

Good economic news could help Democrats in this year's midterm elections, as economic concerns top voters' list of issues heading into November.

Democrats, for their part, touted the stimulus bills they've passed as one of the reasons for the labor market's recovery, including the American Rescue Plan in 2021.

"This isn't a coincidence," Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) tweeted, referring to the fact that the job market recovered from its pandemic losses. "This is thanks to our recovery efforts like the American Rescue Plan."

Democratic lawmakers also called out their Republican colleagues who voted against their efforts to stimulate the economy with increased government aid.

Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) chastised Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA) after the Georgia Republican criticized Biden for the 3.6 percent unemployment rate, despite saying the same number was "strikingly low" in 2019 when Trump was president.

"You call an identical unemployment rate 'strikingly low' and credited the president for creating a third as many jobs, but then of course, that president was a Republican," Beyer quipped.

Reprinted with permission from American Independent.

Why Does The Press Keep Rooting Against Biden?

Why Does The Press Keep Rooting Against Biden?

Like clockwork, the first Friday of the month brought another blockbuster jobs report. The U.S. economy under President Joe Biden added another 400,000-plus new jobs in March, it was announced last week.

Biden is currently on pace, during his first two full years in office, to oversee the creation of 10 million new jobs and an unemployment rate tumbling all the way down to three percent. That would be an unprecedented accomplishment in U.S. history. Context: In four years in office, Trump lost three million jobs, the worst record since Herbert Hoover.

Yet the press shrugs off the good news, determined to keep Biden pinned down. “The reality is that one strong jobs report does not snap the administration out of its current circumstances,” Politicostressed Friday afternoon. How about 11 straight strong job reports, would that do the trick? Because the U.S. economy under Biden has been adding more than 400,000 jobs per month for 11 straight months.

The glaring disconnect between reality and how the press depicts White House accomplishments means a key question lingers: Why is the press rooting against Biden? Is the press either hoping for a Trump return to the White House, or at least committed to keeping Biden down so the 2024 rematch will be close and ‘entertaining’ for the press to cover? Is that why the Ginni Thomas insurrection story was politely marched off the stage after just a few days of coverage last week by the same news outlets that are now in year three of their dogged Hunter Biden reporting? (ABC This Week included 19 references to Hunter Biden yesterday.)

Just look at the relentlessly dour economic coverage. For the press, inflation remains the dominant, bad-news-for-Dems economic story. Even on Friday, the day the stellar jobs report was released, “inflation” was mentioned on cable news nearly as often as “jobs,” according to TVeyes.com.

Axios contorted itself by claiming Biden’s promise to add “millions” of new jobs (which he’s already accomplished), was being threatened because there aren’t enough workers, because so few people are out of work— or something.

The home-run report itself was often depicted as a mixed bag. These were some of the glass-half-empty headlines that appeared in the wake of the latest runaway numbers:

• “America’s Job Market Is On Fire. Here’s Why It Doesn’t Feel Like It” (CNN)

• “Booming Job Growth Is a Double-Edged Sword For Joe Biden” (CNN)

• “Why a Great Jobs Report Can’t Save Joe Biden” (CNN)

• “Unemployment Hits Pandemic Low in March, But Uncertainty Looms Ahead” (Washington Post)

• “Biden Gets a Strong Jobs Report, But a Sour Mood Still Prevails” (Washington Post)

Totally normal journalism, right? The president announces another blockbuster jobs report and the press presents it as borderline bad news.

Reprinted with permission from Press Run

Wut? Ron Johnson Tells Wisconsin That State ‘Has Enough Jobs’

Wut? Ron Johnson Tells Wisconsin That State ‘Has Enough Jobs’

Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, who probably shouldn’t be waiting by the phone for MENSA to call, just told his constituents in Wisconsin that he won’t fight for high-paying jobs for them because, “It’s not like we don’t have enough jobs here in Wisconsin.”

Yep. He really said that. He’s not working to get Oshkosh Corp. to build U.S. Postal Service vehicles, creating about 1,000 jobs, because Wisconsin ... already has jobs. “The biggest problem we have in Wisconsin right now is employers not being able to find enough workers,” he said, sticking to the GOP narrative that President Joe Biden has destroyed everything because COVID, inflation, and the deficit.

“I wouldn’t insert myself to demand that anything be manufactured here using federal funds in Wisconsin,” Johnson told Wisconsin reporters after an event in Wisconsin. “Obviously, I’m supportive of it. But in the end, I think when using federal tax dollars, you want to spend those in the most efficient way and if it’s more efficient, more effective to spend those in other states, I don’t have a real problem with that.”

Oshkosh Corp. won a contract to produce as many as 165,000 electric postal service delivery vehicles last year, and intends to move the manufacturing to Spartanburg, South Carolina. One of the big differences in those two states: In Wisconsin, the labor force is organized. In South Carolina, it will likely be nonunion labor.

Johnson’s fellow Wisconsinite, Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat, doesn’t not agree. “To me, it’s simple—I want Oshkosh Defense to manufacture trucks in Oshkosh with Wisconsin workers,” Baldwin said in a statement. Which is what senators and representatives are supposed to say about the potential for good-paying manufacturing jobs in their home states. Baldwin said she would “continue to urge Oshkosh Defense and the Postal Service to further scrutinize the final production location in South Carolina based on the strength of our existing, experienced workforce in Wisconsin.”

This is not Johnson’s first questionable brush with the employment question in recent weeks. Last month, back in Wisconsin he opined on inflation and the worker shortage, again, and decided to blame it on the government being too helpful to people. First off, unemployment benefits should be reduced, he said, to force people back on the job.

Also, people should not be getting any help paying for child care so that they can continue to work because ... reasons. “People decide to have families and become parents, that’s something they need to consider when they make that choice,” Johnson said. “I’ve never really felt it was society’s responsibility to take care of other people’s children.”

Instead, he said, society has the responsibility to provide opportunities for people to get jobs to support their families. As long as those aren’t union jobs in his state making the next generation of postal service vehicles. No, it doesn’t make any sense. It’s Ron Johnson.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

As Millions Lose Jobs, Republicans Still Boast About Employment

As Millions Lose Jobs, Republicans Still Boast About Employment

More than 30 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits in the past six weeks, as the economy craters during the coronavirus pandemic. But based on their campaign websites, Donald Trump and a number of his Republican allies are still running for election on pre-COVID-19 job numbers and Trump's 2017 tax cuts bill.

As of April 14, the website of Trump's 2020 reelection campaign contained a section bragging about the "lowest" unemployment in years and said Trump had "jump-started America's economy into record growth" and millions of new jobs. At that point, about 17 million Americans had filed new unemployment insurance claims, wiping out the 6.1 million new jobs Trump claimed to have created.

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