In the darkness, sometimes there’s a flash of light. Maybe not enough to blind you, but enough to see the shift in the wind — and ascertain there could be hope in the face of a shitload of shitty news.
Last Tuesday’s big win in Kansas is just one example, and today is further evidence Joe Biden might have a chance to keep pushing America forward. Despite some shitty job-approval numbers, Joe is looking better:
For Biden, this has gotta rank as one of the best weeks of his presidency so far
* al-Zawahiri announcement
* deal with Sinema and Manchin
* Kansas beats back abortion restrictions
* July jobs report— Sam Stein (@samstein) August 5, 2022
And that jobs report was indeed a blockbuster:
The US economy added a "sizzling" 528,000 jobs in July, dropping the unemployment rate to 3.5 percent, lower than it ever was during the Trump administration. Thanks Biden. https://t.co/SCAb8kl77L
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 5, 2022
Details via MarketWatch this morning:
The U.S. added a sizzling 528,000 new jobs in July and the unemployment rate fell to pre-pandemic levels in a muscle-flexing display for the economy. Yet the robust report could add to inflation worries and push interest rates even higher.
The increase in hiring blew past Wall Street estimates. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had forecast 258,000 new jobs.
Hiring was broad-based as businesses created the most new jobs in five months. The number of people working finally returned to February 2020 levels — the last month before the pandemic.
The unemployment rate, meanwhile, slipped to 3.5% from 3.6%, the government said Friday, matching the lowest level since the late 1960s.
…
“The labor market remains a pillar of strength, holding up the economy even as the economy slows around it,” said senior economist Daniel Zhao of Glassdoor.
“A stunningly strong jobs report shows that small cracks in the labor market haven’t slowed the engine of the expansion,” said corporate economist Robert Frick of Navy Federal Credit Union, but “this isn’t the news the Fed wanted to hear, and this will likely cause it to push rates higher, faster.”
News that should be easy to do journalism on can be tough when outside-reality is the goal:
lol
here's how Fox News is currently covering the latest blockbuster jobs report — that the White House "misses forecast" because they anticipated it being lower pic.twitter.com/sngFes3UgX
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) August 5, 2022
Notes on the Fox bullshit via Media Matters late this morning:
But while this overwhelmingly positive July jobs report is largely being celebrated by economists, it was instead cause for concern at Fox News. Rather than talking honestly about what the report revealed, or amending the network’s talking points to accept the reality of a strong labor market, Fox opted to simply lie about the state of the economy.
During an appearance on Fox & Friends, Fox Business host Charles Payne attempted in vain to throw cold water on the data, pivoting to partisan talking points about inflation and supposedly lagging labor force participation to deflect from the topline numbers:
Payne admitted that the July report “was a strong number” before confusingly claiming monthly job creation “had been trending lower” in recent months. (This is false; monthly job creation has been fairly steady.)
Completely overlooking that the BLS data show the economy has recovered all of the jobs lost during the Trump administration, Payne also complained that the labor force participation rate remains slightly lower than it was in February 2020 “despite the fact that wages are higher and jobs are plentiful.”
Payne then lied about overly generous welfare programs discouraging work, falsely claiming “people who are leaving their jobs are making significantly more than people who are staying at work.”…
Ironically, Fox’s lame attempt to deflect from positive economic news stands in stark contrast to how the very same network personalities were discussing the jobs report ahead of its release.
Just minutes earlier, and prior to the release of the BLS data, Fox & Friends co-host Will Cain previewed the upcoming release by hyping forecasts that predicted the jobs number would be much lower. While attempting to mock the Biden administration, Cain stated that “as is the case with everything with politics these days, reality doesn’t matter; it’s only a matter of how you define it.”
Irony is way-lost on these people.
Despite the workforce shocker, once again here we are…
(Illustration out front: ‘Joe Biden,’ acrylic by Billy Jackson, and found here.)