THAT is 100,000 jobs OFF of what was expected…..
The government also knocked down the hiring numbers for March and April…
While the jobless rare remains at 3.6%?
People gotta stop talking about a ‘robust’ economy….
There isn’t one here in America…
And with Donald Trump doing his sidewalk act?
Things are gonna get worst…
It’s almost like the guy doesn’t really want a second term….
The latest report was a disappointing showing that will stoke fears the economy is softening as the Trump administration’s trade war with China and potentially Mexico escalates.
The Federal Reserve has signaled that it would consider a rate cut in the event of economic weakness, and May’s data is likely to be an important factor in their decisions.
“This gives us a real sense of deceleration in the U.S. economy,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at accounting firm Grant Thornton. “We knew this was occurring, but this could be a summer of discontent. It also gives the Fed a green light to cut rates.”
Most analysts expect the economy to slow in the current quarter, after a growth rate of 3.1 percent in the first three months of the year. Both retail sales and factory orders declined in April, a sign that consumers and businesses are growing more cautious.
Any other president (with his Secretaries of Labor, Commerce and the Treasury) would see this as a sign for mild stimulus directed at average consumers, average wage-earners and immediate, job-producing investment.
While different patties and administrations would prefer different tools (e.g. increased government spending, investment credits or tax-cuts directed towards consumers and small buisiness), they’d all try things that nudged the economy and economic behaviour in a positive direction and avoid measures that would accelerate negative trends.
But not this administration. Almost no one outside it except for a few short-sighted special interests thinks that a potential trade war with China, Mexico, Canada or (after Brexit) the European Union will do anything but hurt American jobs and business.
Even businesses that once might have benefitted from a high-tariff U.S. staying out of NAFTA and the WTO have now so completely adapted and rearranged their chains of supply, fabrication and distribution in ways that make any disruption in international trade would hurt.
And (sadly) the Chinese have so thoroughly, consciously and systematically decimated many Western businesses which once benefitted from higher tariffs (e.g semiconductors, watchmaking and costume jewellery) that those businesses and their (often highly-skilled) workers will never revive Stateside, no matter what tariffs Trump raises or by how much.
Back when NAFTA and the WTO (let alone the TPP) were still issues, I was very conflicted whether to support them, or to stand against them with the majority of democratic socialists and trade-unionists. But now they’ve been uncorked, they can’t just be put back into the bottle, even though I think some major reforms are called for (e.g. in labour rights and the environment).
Those trade agreements, by the way—together with financial deregulation—were one of the causes which divided such “Third Way” thinkers and politicians as the Clintons, Tony Blair, François Hollande, Michel Rocard, Gerhard Schroeder and Tom Friedman from the traditional left and its trade-union base.
With the Third Way vision having failed dramatically (although lingering on in fora such as Davos) after the 2007-8 financial meltdown, and nostalgic protectionist forces such as Trump and Brexit (let alone Chinese mercantilism) on the rise, I hope that things don’t get worse.
Dave,
I disagree with your first sentence. It does not make much sense to stimulate the economy when unemployment is low because the stimulus would have minimal effect.