USA Strong as September Jobs show strength

It’s been a gamut of reactions on the American economy over the last few years as the country faced down the realities of the COVID pandemic, and the September Jobs Report from the United States Labor Department has given a longer more nuanced look at the world’s first economy, and has shown what can only be seen as, dare we say it, resilient; but, perhaps the best evaluation is strong, as the US economy added 254,000 jobs, far exceeding the 150,000 expected, and it has also proved to be a pivotal move for future movements from the Federal Reserve Bank as it further calibrates interest rates.

The report also moves the idea of a recession further away from the naysayers who much like Cassandra of mythology, have erroneously predicted a pending recession, often told to us, as we have reported before, in hushed tones, often over fresh produce in the supermarket, or on the crosstown bus.

Those fears allayed, and hopefully put to rest, but this strength has given a push to the waning days of the Biden administration, and also a major push towards the candidacy of Kamala Harris, the Democratic contender for the presidency, and against her rival former President Donald Trump, who in a number of polls has held an edge in how potential voters feel about who has the economic strength in handling an economy once burdened by the pandemic and the subsequent supply chain bottleneck that kept supplies from everything from diapers to blenders on backorder. 

Nevermind the fact that presidents have little control over the economy as a free market economy like the US tends to self regulate, or as early undergraduates may remember: the legendary “unseen hand”; Adam Smith anyone?

President Biden in a statement from the White House said that, “with today’s report, we’ve created 16 million jobs, unemployment remains low, and wages are growing faster than prices,” but most importantly, “Under my Administration, unemployment has been the lowest in 50 years, a record 19 million new business have been created, and inflation and interest rates are falling.”.

An unemployment rate of 4.1 percent, underscores the historic record quoted by Biden, and with 7,000 jobs in September, but up from 137,000 since the pandemic.

“It’s an incredible number,” said Diane Swonk, the chief economist at KPMG humorously reported, and added, “The labor market is apparently not cooling as rapidly as we thought. It’s either the most magnificent soft landing we have ever achieved or there is going to be some further consternation about how sustained this can be.”

Another keypoint is that Black unemployment has decreased to 5.7 percent, considered as The New York Times reported, a bellwether for employment, since they are the last to be hired, and the first to be fired.

According to The New York Times, “By several measures, the job market is historically strong. People in their prime working years of 25 to 54 are employed at a rate previously seen only in the early 2000s. Average hourly earnings are strong — and climbing — even when adjusted for inflation. Women in their peak working ages are participating in the labor market at the highest levels on record.”

Wages are now up 4 percent from a year ago, now outpacing the rising prices, but as has been reported inflation has gone down, but there is some suspicion that larger grocers, in particular, have depended on consumers used to paying higher prices to continue to do so, now that the die has been cast.

Nevertheless, “That means buying power is slowly being restored,” said Mark Hanrick, Bankrate’s senior economic analyst. But, as the old adage states, perception is one tenth of the law, and , saying that 40% of Americans are dissatisfied with the economy.

Taking a stronger stance was Heather Boushey with the Council of Economic Advisers, who said, “This is the kind of strong, steady pace that is delivering for people all across the country., and added, “You continue to see evidence that this remains a strong and healthy but not too fast, not too hot economy.”

As seen in prior reports the heavy hitters are still restaurants and bars, as well as construction that has continued its upward climb, a move that Boushey attributes to the Biden administration's prioritization of infrastructure semi conductors and clean energy that has resulted in 25,000 new construction jobs.

Labor force participation has hit 62.7 percent for peak aged workers those aged 25 to 54 years old.

The numbers reflect this reality: Healthcare along with education at 81,000; Leisure and Hospitality at 78,000; at 31,000; and Construction at 25,000.

For the Federal Reserve, it's’ unlikely at its next meeting, in November, that we are going to see significant cuts as it has calibrated these in a series of long running data point decisions; and,earlier with former Chair Janet Yellen who told the Wall Street Journal in 2015, “My own preference would be able to proceed and tighten in a prudent and gradual manner,” and with the current Chair Jerome Powell, who told reporters last week, “Our design overall is to achieve disinflation down to 2 percent without other kinds of painful increase in unemployment that has often come with disinflation processes”, and emphasized, “We haven’t completed that task.”

Examining and fact checking the Vice Presidential debate

In the wake of Tuesday’s presidential debate between Sen. JD Vance and Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota all who viewed it agreed it was more civil than was expected, as many felt that it was going to be a "throw down” between the two very different candidates, especially since the many volatile, and even vile attacks by the former, and would probably include attacks on the military records of the latter in the National Guard, while some expected Walz to attack the more egregious attacks by Vance on Haitian immigrants living in Springfield Ohio that he accused of kidnapping and eating pets and ducks in local waters.

Walz was also expected to contest Vance’s statements of women without children as “childless cat ladies” who, bereft of being a mother, lacked the necessary intelligence to function in American life.

That would be a lot to unpack what has been expected to be a very close election between their bosses, former president Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Walz came out of the gate visibly nervous but soon relaxed and was able to gain hold on the debate stage, despite his earlier warnings to Harris that he was no debater. Vance, who has scored the lowest favorability of any vice presidential candidate,(a negative 11 according to a CNN poll) in recent history must have been keenly aware of the fact and decided to rival the fabled “Minnesota Nice” aspect of his Democratic rival.

Vance as is well known has given scores of interviews and comments on a variety of media platforms extolling the virtues of Trump and his record, albeit weak, and demonizing Harris as a “Flip Flopper” despite his own record of likening Trump to Hitler and some embarrassing gaffs, most recently, in a store, in front of a display of eggs with a sign stating $2.99 a dozen, while blaming Harris for increasing them to $4.00 a dozen while holding a carton of 24 eggs, while his 7 year old son tried to point out his mistake by pointing at the sign.

Walz, on the other hand has gained a plus four net favorability, due in no small measure to his “everyman” image, and what has seemed apparent, a genuinely nice guy persona, evident on the campaign trail.

The expectation that Vance would outshine Walz, and attack him. on his misstating his title and record in the Guard, and his recollection of when he was in China and if so, was it during the uprising in Tiananmen Square, was low hanging fruit that the senator did not pounce on.

Vance to his credit, often referring to the governor as Tim and expressed empathy when he learned that Walz’s son had witnessed a shooting and said, “Christ have mercy.” A penitential response from the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Mass, or a heartfelt response from the senator, We like to think of the latter.

He is also a chameleon to some, an opportunist to others, a scion of Silicon Valley under the tutelage and mentorship of billionaire Peter Thiel, and who when pressed upon learning of Walz as Harris’ running mate was asked if they had anything in common by reporters, stated, “Well, look, I mean, yeah, we’re white guys from the Midwest.” and “I guess there are similarities there.”

That aside what Vance excelled at on Tuesday, and was often overlooked by some observers was that he lied continuously for nearly 90 minutes on almost every topic, even with a glaring falsehood that Trump did all he could to save the Affordable Care Act, that he and other Republicans have given the derisive label of “Obamacare,” when in fact Trump did everything he could to weaken and destroy President Obama’s signature piece of legislation, and key to his legacy, and even filed a lawsuit, that was later thrown out.

Blaming the nation’s lack of affordable housing on immigration, all illegal, and overlooking the fact that Haitian immigrants, especially in Ohio, a state he represents, are legally in this country under the Temporary Protected Status program..

Migrants were in fact, in Vance’s opinion, responsible for all of the ills of American society, and Walz’s truth telling did no good, as Vance was playing to his base, or to use a church held term, “preaching to the choir.”

In the scheme of things, vice presidential debates don’t count for much, save some memorable lines between Dan Quayle and Lloyd Bentsen, when the former claimed that he had a much experience as Jack Kennedy, and Bentsen famously quipped that he knew “Jack Kennedy, Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine and senator you're no Jack Kennedy.”

Walz, for the most part, was error free with the glaring exception of misrepresenting Trump’s stance on contraception, and one that he has changed his position over the decades, along with abortion and seeing that it is a winning issue for Democrats is now embracing contraception and IVF 

Of all the moments in the debate this showed Walz as his strongest and he categorically denied that doctors in Minnesota could end the life of a 9 month old baby after an abortion.

Before we cite the record from our friends at factcheck.org, let’s shake our collective heads in disbelief as Vance continuously pounded on Harris as if she was president, and ignoring the fact that vice presidents are not policy makers, don’t create executive actions, don’t create policy ,and don’t rule in a country where there is the rule of law, but that did not stop him from uttering such nonsensical lines as, “why didn’t Kamala Harris do. . . “ and :”Why not do them now?”

Of note, Harris never held the title of “Border Czar” and was only tasked by Biden to examine the root causes of immigration from the Southern Border; and, neither she, nor any president or vice president set grocery prices.

Was this another cudgel to beat the vice president, or was it a tactical admission that she might just win the presidency, and that he is rehearsing his stump speech in the future?

As promised, some fact checking of the debate from Factcheck.org:

“Vance claimed that housing “is totally unaffordable because we brought in millions of illegal immigrants to compete with Americans for scarce homes.” But economists and housing experts say that the primary reason for the tight housing market is the decline in new residential construction that followed the Great Recession.

Walz misleadingly linked former President Donald Trump’s tax cuts to “an $8 trillion increase in the national debt, the largest ever.” But trillions of that debt were due to bipartisan COVID-19 relief packages. And the debt increase so far under the Biden administration is nearly as high.

In describing an abortion law Walz signed in Minnesota, Vance said physicians were no longer required to provide life-saving care to infants “born alive.” But he neglected to say that the law still requires such infants to be given proper medical care and be “accorded immediate protection under the law.” Such cases pertain to situations involving induced labor for medical reasons such as fetal abnormalities.

Vance claimed that “we have 320,000 children that the Department of Homeland Security has effectively lost.” An August inspector general report said about that many unaccompanied minors who illegally entered the U.S. had not shown up for immigration court between fiscal years 2019 and 2023, or had not received a summons to appear in court. The report did not say they were “lost.”

Walz falsely claimed that “their” Project 2025 will establish a registry of pregnancies, referring to what might happen under a Trump-Vance administration. However, the Trump campaign has disavowed Project 2025. The conservative document advocates mandatory state reporting of abortions and miscarriages, but not the tracking of pregnancy in general.

Walz said that Project 2025 “is going to make it more difficult, if not impossible, to get contraception and limit access, if not eliminate access, to infertility treatments.” Some policies in the document could in effect limit contraception and infertility treatments, but Trump has said he does not want to restrict access to contraception and that he would expand access to in vitro fertilization.

Vance incorrectly claimed the U.S. has the “cleanest economy,” while falsely hinting that carbon emissions might not be driving climate change. 

Vance claimed that because of Vice President “Kamala Harris’ open border, we’ve seen a massive influx in the number of illegal guns run by the Mexican drug cartels.” But the concern of the U.S. and Mexican governments has been American-made guns trafficked from the U.S. to Mexico.

Walz said “less than 2%” of the border wall that Trump promised “got built.” That undersells the amount of wall built during the Trump administration relative to what was promised.

Vance blamed Harris for “letting in … 25 million illegal aliens.” That’s a grossly exaggerated figure.

Walz countered that illegal border “crossings are down compared to when Donald Trump left office,” which is true when comparing the last two months to the last two months under Trump. But looking at Harris’ entire time as vice president, illegal border crossings are up substantially.

Vance claimed that Harris “let fentanyl into our communities at record levels.” That’s not clear. The amount of fentanyl seized by border officials has increased during the Biden administration, which may indicate that more fentanyl is crossing the border undetected.

Walz said that the “last 12 months saw the largest decrease in opioid deaths in our nation’s history.” Provisional data show that reported opioid deaths have declined significantly in the 12 months ending in April. But the figure is still higher than it was at the start of the Biden-Harris administration.

Vance claimed that Trump “could have destroyed” the Affordable Care Act, but instead “worked in a bipartisan way to ensure that Americans had access to affordable care.” Trump did try to destroy the ACA, including by backing a lawsuit that would have nullified it.

Walz said that if Trump had repealed the ACA “you lose your preexisting conditions,” adding that if you’ve “got asthma, too bad.” Ending the law would significantly reduce protections for those with preexisting conditions, but before the ACA, employer-based plans couldn’t deny issuing a policy.

Vance slightly overstated the inflation rate for groceries under Biden and ignored macroeconomic causes for rising prices when blaming Biden and Harris for food inflation.

Walz claimed that “Donald Trump hasn’t paid any federal tax in the last 15 years,” but that’s not quite right. The former president didn’t pay federal income taxes in 2020, but he did pay various amounts between 2015 and 2018. Trump also did not pay taxes in 10 of the 15 years before he became president.”

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