The U.S. added 187,000 jobs in July, less than economists expected, as the unemployment rate fell to 3.5%, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data released Friday.
Economists had anticipated the country would add 200,000 jobs in July compared to 209,000 jobs in June and that unemployment would remain the same at 3.6%, according to Reuters. The U.S. economy grew 2.4% for the year in the second quarter of 2023, outdoing expectations of 2%.
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One of the top international credit rating agencies has downgraded the United States government’s credit rating from the highest level of AAA down one tier to AA+, a serious economic signpost as U.S. debt continues to soar and deficits remain elevated.
Fitch Ratings made the decision, pointing to the U.S. government’s high national debt and deficits as well as an “erosion of governance.”
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Friday’s jobs numbers show the labor market is softening due to Bidenomics and Bidenflation. Only 187,000 jobs were created last month. That’s below expectations, 40% less than the 12-month average, and the lowest level since the pandemic. Previous months’ employment growth was also revised down significantly, taking the sheen off recent jobs reports.
Average wages grew slower than core inflation, meaning Americans’ real wages and living standards remain stagnant. Friday’s numbers come on the heels of this week’s JOLTS report showing the fewest number of job openings and the fewest number of Americans quitting their jobs since the pandemic.
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In a continuing trend of mixed signals from the Biden Administration, NASA of all agencies has gone on record as opposing a new lithium mining project in Nevada.
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Top semiconductor manufacturer Qualcomm announced a new round of layoffs on Wednesday, even after the industry received huge subsidies from the Biden administration, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Qualcomm, a major American producer of semiconductors, announced a new round of layoffs after seeing a 25% decline in its mobile-phone chip business compared to the previous year, according to the WSJ. The semiconductor industry has received huge subsidies from the Biden administration through the CHIPS and Science Act, which was signed into law in August 2022 and included $52 billion in subsidies for domestic semiconductor manufacturers.
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Amid growing criticism of its environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment practices, BlackRock has announced that it will offer retail investors in its largest exchange-traded fund (ETF) the opportunity to participate in its “Voting Choice” program. Open to institutional clients since January 2022, this program allows investors to choose from a limited set of options to guide BlackRock in voting their shares. While perhaps an effective PR tool, Voting Choice is little more than a ruse that neither empowers investors nor diminishes BlackRock’s power to impose its ESG goals on American businesses.
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On Tuesday, the Biden Administration deliberately chose to not refill the strategic petroleum reserve (SPR) after depleting it to combat a surge in gas prices last year.
According to the Daily Caller, the report from Bloomberg said that the administration considered it to be “too expensive” to refill the vital reserve supply, as the current price of a barrel of oil is roughly $80. The SPR is still at a record low level after Biden released at least 180 million barrels in 2022, in an effort to reduce historically high gas prices prior to the 2022 midterm elections.
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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis unveiled his economic plan to revamp the U.S. economy at a presidential campaign event in Rochester, New Hampshire, on Monday.
He launched his “Declaration of Economic Independence” platform at a manufacturing facility with local business owners and workers suffering from 40-year high inflation, higher costs and regulatory burdens resulting from what he says are Biden administration policies.
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Several leading American asset managers have decreased their support for environmental, social and governance (ESG) resolutions since 2021, according to a new report by InfluenceMap, a nonprofit that tracks climate policies in Western corporations.
InfluenceMap’s report assigned BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street and Fidelity environmental stewardship grades of C+ or lower, which indicates that each firm exhibits “a lack of effective climate stewardship processes and use of shareholder authority to engage companies to transition” to a green energy, net-zero carbon emissions future. The report also noted that 2022 saw a “considerable” drop in corporate support for ambitious green shareholder resolutions, a development that coincides with increased Republican scrutiny of corporate ESG policies and mandates.
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Last week, gas prices reached an 8-month high in the U.S. at $3.714 per gallon, following a high volume of production cuts from OPEC. That number has since increased, which an analyst pinned directly on the ongoing heat wave taking place throughout the country.
On Monday, gas averaged $3.757 per gallon, up more than 16 cents from a week ago, according to AAA. Patrick De Haan, the lead petroleum analyst at the fuel savings site GasBuddy, explained how the heat wave contributed to this uptick.
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U.S.-based solar panel manufacturer First Solar may receive up to $11 billion in subsidies from the government thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), according to The Wall Street Journal.
The company expects to receive up to $710 million in subsidies this year alone, which is an amount equivalent to nearly 90% of its predicted operating profit for this year, according to the WSJ. Philip Shen, managing partner at investment bank Roth Capital Partners, estimates that the IRA may end up giving First Solar up to $11 billion in subsidies over the course of the next decade.
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After a mysterious company suddenly made a nearly billion-dollar purchase of farmland surrounding an air base in California, some in Congress are sounding the alarm over national security concerns.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, over 52,000 acres worth of land in Solano County was purchased for $800 million; the land surrounds Travis Air Force Base. The purchase was made by a company called Flannery Associates, with a company attorney claiming that it is registered in Delaware and controlled by U.S. citizens, receiving at least 97 percent of its capital from American investors, with the remaining 3 percent from Irish and British investors. Nevertheless, the company’s low profile and sudden mass purchase of such strategically significant land has raised alarms in Congress.
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Rather than donating to organizations that support abortion like some mainstream diaper makers, the new EveryLife diaper brand supports its customer base by donating to pro-life organizations.
EveryLife debuted on July 13 as an alternative diaper option to mainstream liberal diaper brands.
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Newly released federal inflation data shows that inflation ticked up in June.
The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis Friday released its Personal Consumption Expenditure, a favorite inflation marker for the Federal Reserve, which showed a 0.2% increase.
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The U.S. Federal Reserve Board announced another increase to the federal funds rate Wednesday, raising the target range to 5.25 to 5.5%, the highest rate in 22 years.
The Fed Board also left the door open to another hike.
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The U.S. economy grew at a rate of 2.4% in the second quarter of 2023, according to gross domestic product (GDP) statistics released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) on Thursday morning.
Real GDP increased by 2.0% in the first quarter of 2022 after being revised up from an initial estimate of 1.1%, according to the BEA. Economists expected the GDP would be around 2% in the second quarter of 2023, following high inflation and an interest rate increase from the Federal Reserve on Wednesday.
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A new study reveals that nearly 75 percent of all U.S. hospitals were able to post positive operating income at the height of the Chinese Coronavirus pandemic, primarily due to relief funds provided by the government.
As Axios reports, the analysis by JAMA Health Forum shows that the average hospital’s operating margins – the difference between revenue and expenses – hit an all-time high in 2020 and 2021, the first two years of the pandemic. Many hospitals continue to post improving operating margins even after 2022 despite the rising inflation, which some have attributed to the massive profits in the first two years of COVID.
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Billions of dollars in scheduled offshore wind developments in waters of the U.K. and U.S. have been paused or canceled in recent weeks, according to Bloomberg News.
Three major offshore wind-related contracts have fallen through as rising costs and economic concerns have saddled developments off the American and British coasts, according to Bloomberg. While offshore wind proponents remain confident in the long term viability of offshore wind, the recent cancellations may be a sign of more substantial troubles for offshore wind despite strong support from the Biden administration, according to Bloomberg.
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July marked the beginning of Fiscal Year 2024 for 46 of the 50 states. It also closes the books on most state legislative sessions in what was an incredible 2023 for hard-working taxpayers.
In recent years, we’ve seen significant income tax relief in the states. Notably, 10 states – Kentucky, West Virginia, Montana, Utah, Arkansas, North Dakota, Indiana, Nebraska, Connecticut, and Ohio – have cut personal income taxes (PIT) in 2023. With the new addition of West Virginia, North Dakota, and Connecticut, 22 states have cut personal income taxes since 2021, with several of these states cutting taxes multiple times during that period.
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In February 2021, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell told Congress, “We are not climate policymakers here who can decide the way climate change will be addressed by the United States. We’re a regulatory agency that regulates a part of the economy.” When Powell said that, less than a month into the Biden administration, inflation was 1.6%.
Just eight months later, in remarks on November 22, 2021, President Biden said Powell – then up for renomination and facing stiff opposition from congressional progressives – “made clear to me: A top priority will be to accelerate the Fed’s effort to address and mitigate the risks – the risk that climate change poses to our financial system and our economy.” At that time inflation was 6.8%, on its way up to a 40-year high of 9.1%.
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A few weeks ago, I argued the Biden Administration would use the new SAVE plan to enact student loan forgiveness with or without the approval of the Supreme Court. Since then, the administration has announced details which highlight the SAVE plan offers even more generous forgiveness terms.
This talk about student loans has brought about a question for Ask an Economist this week. Garrett from Ohio says,“One of the most prominent arguments against student loan forgiveness is that the borrowers are forcing the greater population to pay off their debts for them.
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Wells Fargo, one of the largest banks in the United States is facing a lawsuit from its Hispanic employees that accuses the centuries old bank of engaging in predatory lending practices against customers of the same ethnic origin.
The lawsuit, filed June 30 in a Texas federal court, accuses Wells Fargo of pressuring Hispanic employees in San Antonio to redirect Latino customers away from home equity lines of credit to more expensive but profitable refinancing options without furnishing the usual disclosures, according to a complaint filed in court.
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It may take decades to refill the U.S. strategic petroleum reserve (SPR) after President Joe Biden released unprecedented amounts from its supply in 2022, according to Bloomberg News.
Aging infrastructure, higher oil prices and budget constraints have impeded the administration’s efforts to substantially replenish the SPR after Biden tapped its supply to tame spiking energy prices in the lead up to the 2022 midterms, according to Bloomberg. The massive underground salt caverns that hold the SPR oil now sit half-empty with no easy route to replenishment, and experts say it could take decades to refill the reserves, according to Bloomberg.
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A new online marketplace that promotes itself as a conservative and patriotic alternative to Amazon is preparing to ring the bell on the New York Stock Exchange and take the company public.
According to the Daily Mail, the San Diego-based PublicSq, which first launched in August of 2022, has already drawn the support of prominent America First figures such as Donald Trump Jr. and former Arizona Senate nominee Blake Masters. The company plans to attract more investors by highlighting its status within the so-called “parallel economy” of conservative alternatives to larger, left-wing businesses, according to excerpts from an investor call on Tuesday.
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The International Cycling Union (UCI), the world cycling governing body, announced Friday that it will bar biological males who transition after puberty from competing in the women’s division, the Associated Press reported.
Recent public outcry over transgender athlete Austin Killips, the first openly transgender athlete to win a U.S. race in the female division, prompted the cycling officials to review the transgender athlete policy and ban males from the woman’s division.
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The biggest bank in America announced huge profits Friday after previously striking a deal with federal regulators to buy the failed First Republic Bank.
JPMorgan Chase reported $14.5 billion in net income for the second quarter of 2023, which is up 67% compared to the previous quarter and 40% excluding First Republic, according to JPMorgan’s earnings release. First Republic failed in May after a bank run, requiring federal regulators to seize the bank and have other large banks bid on its sale, leading JPMorgan to acquire the bank and maintain funds for depositors.
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An economist says “American families are having to eat the rotten fruit from the tree of government overspending” after the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Wednesday that the consumer price index, a key measure of inflation, rose 0.2% in June.
“It’s great news for the consumer that inflation has slowed dramatically from 40-year highs, but we’re still in terrible shape,” EJ Antoni, a research fellow for regional economics in the Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal in a written statement. (The Daily Signal is The Heritage Foundation’s news outlet.)
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Surgeons at Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) are using a medical robot to assist with vaginoplasties, or the surgical construction of a vulva and vagina, according to various posts on the organization’s website.
OHSU’s gender program, urological program and reconstructive urology referral center all boast of a high volume of clients on their respective web pages, and Dr. Blair Peters, a surgeon leading the gender program, boasted that the gender surgery clinic had “the highest volume on the West Coast” and could operate two robot-assisted vaginoplasties daily, according to a recent report from the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal. In addition to vaginoplasty, OHSU offers phalloplasty (the surgical construction of a penis), non-binary genital “nullification” surgeries and mastectomies.
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Despite increasing mandates from various state governments to produce and purchase more electric vehicles, many of the new cars are simply sitting on the dealers’ lots as consumers refuse to buy them.
According to Axios, research from Cox Automotive has highlighted the struggles that electric vehicle (EV) producers face as customers are reluctant to make the switch from gas-powered vehicles to electric. Cox carried out a midyear industry review which was presented to journalists and stakeholders, showcasing the uneasy future for EV manufacturers.
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In a move eerily reminiscent of the failed Solyndra, President Joe Biden’s Department of Energy has doled out massive loans in green energy initiatives to corporations.
Remember Solyndra? Way back in 2009, the administration of Barack Obama, newly inaugurated and stoked with the ideological fire of environmental zeal, greenlit a $535 million loan guarantee to a company by that name to mass produce easy-to-install cylindrical solar units.
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The U.S. economy added 209,000 jobs in June, according to the latest establishment survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, less than expected as 306,000 were added in May, as hiring slowed down nationwide. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate remained about the same at 3.6 percent.
Historically, when hiring slows down by establishments, that usually coincides with economic slowdowns and recessions. In the recent cycle, the 2020 and 2021 recovery from COVID notwithstanding, hiring peaked at about 5.2 percent annualized increase in Feb. 2022. Now, it’s down to 2.5 percent.
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For the first time since the COVID pandemic, the U.S. Department of Agriculture released the fiscal year 2022 national payment error rate for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
The PER measures how accurately SNAP agencies determine benefit amounts and eligibility. A payment error means the agency either underpaid or overpaid the recipient, which can result from an error by the agency or a recipient or fraud.
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Six states in the south are seeing rapid growth in the share of national gross domestic product (GDP) as people flock to the region, while states in the northeast are faltering, Bloomberg reported.
Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Georgia and Tennessee are in the middle of a $100 billion wealth migration that started during the COVID-19 pandemic as businesses and people moved south, according to Bloomberg. States in the northeast lost approximately $60 billion in 2020 and 2021, falling behind the six southern states in collective GDP for the first time.
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OPEC, the world’s largest oil cartel, is looking for new members, the group’s secretary general told reporters Wednesday, according to CNBC.
Secretary General Haitham al-Ghais told reporters at a Vienna conference that he is actively working to grow OPEC — currently comprised of 13 members based primarily in the Middle East, Africa and South America — noting that he had recently visited several oil-producing countries including Malaysia, Brunei, Azerbaijan and Mexico, although he stressed that he was not suggesting those countries in particular had been invited to join OPEC, according to CNBC. The cartel has been working alongside Russia and other nonmember nations in the larger OPEC+ alliance to prop up oil prices via a string of production cuts, to mixed results.
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The U.S. economy added 209,000 jobs in June, according to the latest establishment survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, less than expected as 306,000 were added in May, as hiring slowed down nationwide. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate remained about the same at 3.6 percent.
Historically, when hiring slows down by establishments, that usually coincides with economic slowdowns and recessions. In the recent cycle, the 2020 and 2021 recovery from Covid notwithstanding, hiring peaked at about 5.2 percent annualized increase in Feb. 2022. Now, it’s down to 2.5 percent.
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Far too many Americans cannot afford the most basic necessity of life: a decent place to live.
Rental and purchase costs for quality apartments and houses simply price out many working-class citizens.
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Mark Levin, author and host of “Life, Liberty & Levin” on Fox News, claimed in a Wednesday tweet that Target told him it will not carry his new book because customers may be offended by the title.
Target reportedly informed Levin’s publisher, Simon & Schuster, that the retail giant will not carry his new book, “The Democrat Party Hates America,” which is set to be released on Sept. 19, because the title may offend customers, Levin said on Twitter. Target has been the center of several recent controversies that include selling LGBTQ merchandise for children during Pride Month and funding an anti-militarization group.
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The U.S. poverty rate rose for the first time in 10 years as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, with job losses, especially in the country’s biggest cities, among the largest contributing factors, according to a recently released U.S. Census Bureau report.
The rate increased from 12.3% in 2019 to 12.8% in 2021.
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I’ve often thought there is something providential about the Declaration of Independence being drafted and promulgated throughout the American Colonies the same year that Adam Smith’s book “The Wealth of Nations” was published.
After all, both texts were revolutionary, and both were fundamentally concerned with protecting and promoting liberty.
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ByteDance, the CCP-linked parent company of popular shortform video platform TikTok, is trying to enter the book publishing industry, The New York Times reported Saturday.
The company filed in late April for a U.S. trademark for a publishing firm, 8th Note Press, and has already begun reaching out to some independent authors for the rights to sell their books, the NYT reported. TikTok has helped some books become bestsellers in the past several years, posts using the #Booktok hashtag have been viewed more than 91 billion times and the combined sales of 100 authors with large BookTok followings eclipsed $760 million in 2022, a 60% surge from the year prior.
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Individual spending on Fourth of July food items has risen to $93.34 on average across the U.S., the highest the National Retail Federation (NRF) has recorded since it began collecting this information in 2003.
The cost of one person’s July Fourth foods rose about 10 percent over the past year from $84.12, according to NRF. Inflation remained twice as high as the Federal Reserve’s target in May, according to a Labor Statistics (BLS) report, and the price of energy and food increased 4.0 percent on an annual basis last month.
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UPS Teamsters members are threatening to go on strike if the United Parcel Service cannot reach a deal with its 340,000 unionized employees by July 5.
Unionized UPS members marched on Sunday in five states, carrying signs with the phrase: “Just practicing for a just contract.”
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by Nick Pope Several state attorneys general are engaging in legal battles against President Joe Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to determine whether or not his administration will be able to impose its costly plan for implementing a regulation designed to further incapacitate the American coal industry. Multiple states…
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With one of the fastest-growing populations in the U.S., Florida’s electricity consumption is steadily rising.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Florida is the second-largest electricity producer nationally, second to Texas. Natural gas fuels the vast majority of electricity in the state, accounting for three-fourths of the state’s net generation capacity.
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XPO Logistics employees ousted the Teamsters Union from their workplace after colleagues in other states also successfully ousted them with free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
In Hialeah, Florida, XPO Logistics employees, led by Martin Garcia, successfully voted to oust Teamsters Local 769 union officials from their workplace.
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by Daniel Turner Although America’s energy producers are already under daily attack from the Biden administration, the eco-left is not content to limit their crusade to Washington DC. They are funding local groups in energy producing states to put in place endless hurdles to responsibly extracting energy. While the…
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“When you think about wages going up, when you think about inflation at its lowest by more than 50 percent than it was a year ago, that’s because of the work that this President has done. And he’s going to continue to focus on what we can do to lower cost for the American people. And so, that is incredibly important.”
That was White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on June 26, outlining President Joe Biden’s views on the current state of the U.S. economy, which have seen a diminution of the purchasing power of American households as high inflation set in following the more than $6 trillion that was printed, borrowed and spent into existence for Covid coupled with the economic lockdowns and production halts—literally too much money chasing too few goods.
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The big news in energy this week is that BlackRock CEO Larry Fink says he is no longer using the term “ESG” in his business communications. Even more, Mr. Fink is now “ashamed” to be a participant in the debate on the issue. At least, that’s what he initially said on Sunday to an audience at the Aspen Ideas Festival, where he was a speaker.
“I’m ashamed of being part of this conversation,” Fink said as quoted by Axios. But almost as soon as he made the admission, Fink took it all back when pressed by his session’s moderator. “I never said I was ashamed,” he said, even though he had just actually said that very thing. “I’m not ashamed. I do believe in conscientious capitalism.”
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Approximately 9% of America’s corporations moved headquarters since the beginning of 2022, the highest rate since 2017, with most corporations moving to Florida, Texas, and Arizona.
The states that corporations were most likely to abandon were Washington, New York, and California.
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The median existing-home price for all housing types declined 3.1% in May from the same month in the prior year – the biggest drop in more than a decade.
The national median existing-home price was $396,100 in May, down 3.1% from $408,600 in May 2022, the National Association of Realtors said.
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