The media has been touting the direction of the economy and then this morning the economy got punched in the nose.
For the first time since the government-imposed lockdowns of 2020, private jobs declined last month - falling by 28,000, while government jobs kept growing - adding 40,000 for the month and hitting a new record high.
Total nonfarm payrolls grew just 12,000 - but the story is much worse than that because the previous two months were once again revised downward. So the economy actually lost 100,000 jobs - almost all in construction, manufacturing, and business services.
Manufacturing continues taking it on the chin, dropping 46,000 in October. Including the annual benchmark revision–which won’t be incorporated into the monthly data until January’s report (manufacturing has now lost 184,000 jobs since January 2023).
Over the last year, government and the government-dominated healthcare sector have accounted for almost two-thirds of all job growth while professional and business services have now joined manufacturing in showing annual job losses. After health care and government, the next fastest-growing job category is low-paying leisure and hospitality. This isn’t a robust private-sector recovery; it’s downright anemic.
The loss of good-paying manufacturing and service sector jobs and the growth of low-paying ones is also showing up elsewhere in the data with the economy hemorrhaging 1 million full-time jobs over the last year and only adding part-time ones on net. There are now 1.3 million FEWER full-time jobs than in June 2023.
We were sipping our coffee yesterday morning and reading the Wall Street Journal (after getting the Hotline out the door), and this headline caught our eye:
That headline suggests Europe is on the rebound. But the unexpected "pickup in growth" was from a microscopic 0.2% to a tiny 0.4%. Amazingly, for the past three years since Covid ended Europe's annual growth rate has been BELOW an anemic 1.5%.
The fledgling U.S. economy looks like a Mario Andretti race car compared to that performance.
The left wants America to emulate European welfare-state socialism. We can't figure out why.
WASHINGTON STATE - Democrats have dominated the Evergreen State for decades (the last GOP governor was elected in 1980). But voters have often approved conservative ballot initiatives, and four of them will be on this year's ballot. One would prohibit state and local governments from restricting access to clean natural gas while another would end a carbon tax credit program designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Another would allow people to opt out of paying an existing tax that pays for long-term health care.
The most important vote will be on a repeal of the state's new excise tax on capital gains over $250,000. The new levy has already prompted a stream of wealthy people such as financial advisor Ken Fisher to leave the state.
MINIMUM WAGE - California voters will be asked if they gradually want to lift the state's minimum wage to $18 per hour, while voters in Alaska and Missouri will be asked whether they want it raised to $15 per hour.
In Arizona, voters will decide on a constitutional amendment that would allow tipped workers to be paid 7% percent less than the current wage of $11.35 per hour.
RENT CONTROL - California is in the midst of a housing affordability crisis. Progressives want to make it worse by repealing a law that prevents cities from imposing residential rent control or barring landlords from charging new tenants higher rents.
ELECTION RULES: Voters in Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon and Washington, D.C. will decide whether to establish ranked-choice voting, a scheme that complicates elections and disenfranchises some voters. Alaskans will decide whether to repeal their existing ranked-choice system. Voters in Arizona, South Dakota, and Montana will decide whether to end partisan primaries.
NON-CITIZEN VOTING: There are measures in eight states to ban non-citizen voting in elections. They are Wisconsin, Iowa, Idaho, Missouri, Oklahoma, Kentucky, North Carolina and South Carolina. Non-citizen voting is already illegal at the federal level, but cities in several states allow non-citizens to vote in local races. The League of Women Voters and 33 left-wing groups are actively opposing the measures.
For more information on these and other ballot initiatives that will be voted on next Tuesday go to the Americans for Tax Reform or Ballotpedia websites.
We hate to keep picking on Chicago, but the wheels are coming off there. It turns out (shockingly!!) that Mayor Brandon Johnson lied through his teeth when he pledged to voters he wouldn't raise property taxes. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that the mayor's $17 billion budget includes "steep property tax hikes" in order to fund a bloated budget (including no layoffs), a $300 million raise to pay for the nation's worst schools, and payments for bloated pension deficits.
It's a "pay for nonperformance" budget strategy. Johnson said it was "an excruciating" decision to break his promise and choose the teacher unions over the families who live in Chicago. Sure. We’re sure he lost a lot of sleep over this voter betrayal.
Chicago voters have only themselves to blame for this fiscal debacle. They chose Johnson – a teachers union organizer – over a reform candidate last year.
It's a useful reminder that elections do have consequences.
