US economy

Subterms

    Latest story

    188 Shares70 Views

    Companies are using inflation to price-gouge Americans – and making it worse | Robert Reich

    by

    We learned this week that the Consumer Price Index climbed 3.5% in March from a year earlier, up from 3.2% in February, and faster than most economists anticipated.This poses a conundrum for central bankers who have made it clear they want to see further evidence that inflation is cooling before they cut interest rates.The Fed’s high interest rates haven’t pushed America to the brink of a recession, fortunately, but they haven’t slowed inflation as much as policymakers had hoped.The question is whether Fed officials can cut interest rates at all this year.Joe Biden acknowledged that “prices are still too high for housing and groceries”, and said he was “calling on corporations, including grocery retailers, to use record profits to reduce prices”.What’s the president getting at?Corporate profits reached a record high in the fourth quarter of last year.The easiest explanation for record corporate profits at the same time prices remain elevated is that corporations have enough monopoly power to keep prices high.(Note that many corporations are also shrinking the size of the products you’re buying without lowering their prices – a variant of the same thing.)This is one of the biggest reasons the American public is not yet crediting Biden with a great economy. Most people still aren’t feeling it.In 2023, PepsiCo’s chief financial officer said that even though inflation was dropping, its prices would not be. Pepsi hiked its prices by double digits and announced plans to keep them high in 2024.If Pepsi were challenged by tougher competition, consumers would just buy something cheaper. But PepsiCo’s only major soda competitor is Coca-Cola, which – surprise, surprise – announced similar price hikes at about the same time as Pepsi and has also kept its prices high.The CEO of Coca-Cola claimed that the company had “earned the right” to push price hikes because its sodas are popular. Popular? The only thing that’s popular these days seems to be corporate price gouging.We’re seeing this pattern across much of the economy – especially with groceries. At the end of 2023, Americans were paying at least 30% more for beef, pork and poultry products than they were in 2020.Why? Near-monopoly power. Just four companies now control processing of 80% of beef, nearly 70% of pork, and almost 60% of poultry. So of course it’s easy for them to coordinate price increases.The problem goes well beyond the grocery store. In 75% of US industries, fewer companies now control more of their markets than they did 20 years ago.What should be done?First, antitrust laws must be enforced.Kudos to the Biden administration for enforcing antitrust more aggressively than any administration in the last 40 years. This administration has taken action against alleged price fixing in the meat industry – which has been a problem for decades.The Biden administration has sued to block the merger of Kroger and Albertsons – two giant grocery chains.Kroger operates 2,750 stores in 35 states and the District of Columbia. The company’s 19 brands include Ralphs, Smith’s, King Soopers, Fred Meyer, Food 4 Less, Mariano’s, Pick ’n Save, and Harris Teeter. Albertsons operates 2,273 stores in 34 states. Its 15 brands include Safeway, Jewel-Osco, Vons, Acme and Shaw’s. Together, Kroger and Albertsons employ around 700,000 people.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Biden administration is suing Amazon for using its dominance to artificially jack up prices, in one of the biggest anti-monopoly lawsuits in a generation.The Biden administration is suing Apple for using its market power to control its apps and prevent other businesses from offering them.The administration successfully sued to block the merger of JetBlue and Spirit Airlines, which would have made consolidation in the airline industry even worse.But given how concentrated American industry has become, there’s still a long way to go. Biden should make his antitrust enforcement against corporate power a centerpiece of his campaign.Second, big corporations must not be allowed to use their power to gouge consumers.Senator Elizabeth Warren and others recently unveiled the latest version of their Price Gouging Prevention Act.“Giant corporations are using supply chain shocks as a cover to excessively raise prices and sometimes charging the same price but shrinking how much consumers actually get,” Warren charges.The bill would empower the Federal Trade Commission (which would also get $1bn in additional funding) and state attorneys general to stop companies from charging “grossly excessive” prices, regardless of where alleged price gouging took place in a supply chain.The legislation would also protect small businesses – those earning less than $100m – from litigation if they had to raise prices in good faith during crises, and require public companies to disclose more about their costs and pricing strategies.I don’t have any illusions that this bill will find its way into law soon. Democrats hold a slim majority in the Senate, and not all Democrats support it. Meanwhile, Republicans and their business backers are dead set against it – and are eager to blame continued high prices on Biden, not on corporations.But this bill is just as necessary as aggressive antitrust enforcement – and an example of what could and will be done if Democrats sweep the 2024 elections.The record profits of large corporations are coming out of the paychecks of average Americans, who are still struggling to get by.Biden and the Democrats must say this loudly and clearly and tell the public what they are doing – and will do – to stop corporate monopolies and price gouging.
    Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com More

    More stories

    • 225 Shares71 Views

      in US Politics

      He voted Trump in 2016, Biden in 2020. He’s the kind of voter candidates are desperate to swing

      by

      For the past 35 years, Scott Richardson and his wife, Theresa, have run a small, cheerful restaurant and catering business outside Philadelphia. Occasionally Yours has long been a community meeting spot in the town of Swarthmore. More recently, it has taken on another, unexpected, role – on the stage of national politics.Richardson is an independent-minded small business owner in a key swing state – exactly the kind of person US presidential candidates are desperate to woo. In 2016, when Pennsylvania went Republican for the first time since 1988, he voted for Donald Trump. Then, in 2020, dismayed by Trump’s Covid response, he switched to Joe Biden, in no uncertain terms. Richardson’s vote tracked how the state went in both elections.This year, polls show Biden and Trump evenly matched in Pennsylvania, with approval ratings for both men at historic lows. And Richardson himself isn’t ecstatic about the options.“I just don’t understand how in a country of 300 and whatever we are, 50, 60 million people, that these are the two gentlemen that we have to choose from,” he says. “I just don’t understand how we can be in this position, but we are.”But he is clear on one thing: he’s sticking with Biden.“In 2016, I voted for Trump because I was ready to have it mixed up – you know, just turn things upside down,” he says. But “my definition of turning things upside down and what actually happened are two completely different scenarios.” Trump, he says, was “inept” when it came to handling the pandemic, doing far too little to confront it even when it was clear it was coming. In Richardson’s view, Biden got handed a “crappy, crappy economy” and has slowly been getting the US back on its feet.In July 2020, Richardson told the Washington Post it was now his “life’s mission” to swing voters from Trump to Biden. A month later, he was on stage, virtually, at the Democratic national convention, describing what his business had endured during Covid. “We’ve literally had to reinvent our business several times since the beginning of the year,” he told Eva Longoria, the host on that August evening. “To be honest with you, I’m just frustrated.” He wished Americans could just unite “on this one issue” and forge ahead. Once again, plenty of Richardson’s fellow Pennsylvanians seemed to share his view: the state went blue.As their 2024 rematch approaches, Biden and Trump are dueling for Pennsylvania for a second time. The result, as ever, could hinge on perceptions of the economy. And while some key figures look good for Biden – unemployment below 4%, the stock market breaking records, the rate of inflation way down from its 2022 peak – for many Americans, those numbers haven’t translated into a sense of financial wellbeing.Richardson has never been wedded to a particular party: he grew up in a deeply Republican area of upstate New York, spent years as an independent, registered Republican to support Bob Dole in the 90s, then switched to Democratic to back Barack Obama. Now both parties are vying for people like him.When it comes to the economy, “I don’t believe in fast change,” he says. The economy “couldn’t get much worse than when [Biden] took over”. But now he’s seeing “slow growth, consistent employment numbers”.He has seen inflation gradually decline at the smaller suppliers he uses. “Lettuce was $3 for a nice beautiful head, and then during the inflation it maybe went for $4.50. And now it’s like $3.25.” That doesn’t mean things are easy, especially for people with low incomes: “I mean, you’re going into the grocery store, it used to cost you $100. Now it costs you $150.”Still, Occasionally Yours is thriving. As the world reopened, customers returned to the restaurant, and demand for catering grew. “People got really, really anxious to have parties,” he says. Sales last year were “through the roof better” – up more than 20%, he says.Richardson acknowledges that his own experience isn’t necessarily representative; different industries experience different headwinds. “But it seems to me that people are still spending money.”He credits much of his own business’s recent success not to the economy but to its capacity for change. Over the years, Occasionally Yours has seen a succession of redesigns and menu updates. “People say ‘if you build it, they will come’,” he says. “My experience is if you put an avocado on it, they will come.”He thinks some of his pro-Trump friends with small businesses are misdirecting their anger at Biden, when their real enemy might be big-box stores. “Maybe you’re blaming factors on politics that maybe aren’t as big a factor in your life,” he says, “but the news tells you that they are.”There are some areas, he says, where politics can have a big impact. Richardson has been most impressed by the bipartisan infrastructure bill that Biden pushed.“I’ve been to Florida, up into New England and over into Ohio and across the north – there is not one state, one county, anywhere I traveled that doesn’t have a damn bridge torn apart, or something being fixed,” he says. “It’s something that, in my opinion, our country needed for many, many years and now it’s actually getting done – and those are great-paying friggin’ jobs.” He has questions about how the country will pay for it, but “a country, you know – you need to invest in it in order for it to get better”.View image in fullscreenRichardson has also benefited from a rare experience: he’s met the president in person. In June 2020, he got a call from the then candidate’s team asking if he’d like to join a roundtable for small business owners. He agreed – not because he was a particular fan, but because “who the hell wouldn’t? What an opportunity.”His first words to Biden were “I voted for Trump in 2016”. “And I believe what [Biden] said to me was, ‘We all have our crosses to bear.’”At the meeting, Richardson was touched by Biden’s reaction to a woman’s story of grief at losing someone to Covid. Biden told the woman: “I can tell you from personal experience: there will be a time in your life when the thought of your loved one will bring a smile to your face instead of a tear to your eye.” He’d heard Biden say it before, “but when you’re right there listening to him and how sincere he was … from that point on I was voting on the character of the man,” Richardson says. “I’ve met other politicians and, to me, they were phoney as hell.”That roundtable led to his appearance at the DNC, filmed from the restaurant. “I mean, I was nervous nervous, heart racing, I’m gonna have a panic attack type of thing.” Afterward, there was some political backlash: the restaurant got a few one-star reviews from strangers, and Richardson received a few profanity-laced phone calls. Still, “it was something that I’ll never forget, a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”Now, after 35 years of working every weekend, Richardson is ready to pass the baton: three and a half decades to the day after the Richardsons signed the lease to open their restaurant, a new business is taking over the location. The Richardsons are retiring.In the meantime, he’s hoping not to see the dawn of a new Trump era – in addition to the former president’s handling of the economy and Covid, Richardson is disgusted by his business practices. “He played all these games for so many years. And because of his ego, he gets drawn into being president, which is the maximum ego trip. It exposed all his private matters … I think it’s gonna come back to haunt him.” More

    • 175 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Voters may at last be coming round to Biden’s sunny view of the economy

      by

      Joe Biden has spent most of his presidency insisting to Americans that the economy is on the right track. Poll after poll has shown that most voters do not believe him. That may be changing.After months of resilient hiring, better-than-expected economic growth and a declining rate of inflation, new data shows that Americans are becoming upbeat about the US economy, potentially reversing the deep pessimism Biden has struggled to counter for much of the past three years.That trend could reshape campaigning ahead of November’s presidential election, in which Biden is expected to face off against Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination. Experts believe the president’s case for a second term will benefit from more optimistic views of the economy – but the hangover from the inflation wave that peaked a year and a half ago presents Republicans with a potent counterattack.“Over the last couple of years, people have been feeling the most pain on day-to-day spending, on things like groceries and gas prices and prescription drugs. And, fortunately, those prices are beginning to come down, which gives Democrats a stronger hand than we had just a few months ago,” said Adam Green, co-founder of advocacy group the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.“For a campaign that says that they want to finish the unfinished business of the Biden presidency, our polling shows that it’s perfectly OK to acknowledge that there has been pain, and there’s more business to do,” said Green.He added that the Biden campaign should “really focus the voters’ attention on the forward-looking agenda of one party wanting to help billionaires and corporations, and the Democratic party wanting to challenge corporate greed and bring down prices for consumers”.Biden has been unpopular with voters, according to poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight, even as employment grew strongly and the economy avoided the recession that many economists predicted was around the corner. While it’s not the only factor, pollsters have linked voters’ disapproval with Biden to the wave of price increases that peaked in June 2022 at levels not seen in more than four decades, and which have since been on the decline. An NBC News poll released this month showed Biden trailing Trump by about 20 points on the question of which candidate would better handle the economy, a finding echoed by other surveys.But new data appears to show Americans believe the economy has turned a corner. Late last month, the Conference Board reported its index of consumer confidence had hit its highest point since December 2021, while the University of Michigan’s survey of consumer sentiment has climbed to its highest level since July of that year.View image in fullscreen“The people who give positive views of the economy, they tend to point to, the unemployment rate is low, and they also point to that inflation is down from where it was,” said Jocelyn Kiley, an associate director at Pew Research Center, whose own data has found an uptick in positive economic views, particularly among Democrats.Trump and his Republican allies have capitalized on inflation to argue that Biden should be voted out, though economists say Biden’s policies are merely one ingredient in a trend exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and global supply chain snarls that occurred as a result of Covid-19. Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor who is the last major challenger to the former president still in the race has said the economy is “crushing middle-class Americans”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut voters’ improving views of the economy could blunt those attacks ahead of the November election, where the GOP is also hoping to seize control of the Senate from Biden’s Democratic allies and maintain their majority in the House of Representatives. Lynn Vavreck, an American politics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said Trump might have to fall back to tried-and-true tactics from his 2016 victory over Hillary Clinton, such as promising to institute hardline immigration policies.“The economy is growing. People don’t really say that they feel good about it, but if you’re gonna load up your campaign on those people’s feelings, I feel like that’s a little risky,” said Vavreck, who has studied how economic conditions can affect presidential campaigns.“You could do that, and that would be a bit of a gamble, or you could find an issue on which you believe you are closer to most voters than Joe Biden, that is not about the economy, and you could try to reorient the conversation around that issue.”There is already evidence that harnessing outrage over the flow of undocumented immigrants into the United States is key to Trump’s campaign strategy. The former president’s meddling was a factor in the death of a rare bipartisan agreement in Congress to tighten immigration policy in exchange for Republican votes to approve assistance for Ukraine and Israel’s militaries.With the economy humming along, Trump is apparently nervous that the US economy could enter a recession at an inconvenient moment. “When there’s a crash, I hope it’s going to be during this next 12 months because I don’t want to be Herbert Hoover,” he said in an interview last month, referring to the US president who is often blamed for the Great Depression that began 95 years ago.Even though the rate of inflation has eased, albeit haltingly, prices for many consumer goods remain higher than they were compared with when Biden took office, which his opponents can still capitalize on, said the Republican strategist Doug Heye.“Consumers go to the grocery store, and they spend money, and they’re upset with what things cost, and that should always be what they’re talking about,” Heye said.While Biden has been quick to take credit for the strong hiring figures during his administration, polls show that hasn’t landed with voters. In recent months, the White House has shifted strategy, announcing efforts to get rid of junk fees and accusing corporations of “price gouging”.Evan Roth Smith, head pollster for the Democratic research firm Blueprint, said that lines up with his findings that voters care less about job growth and more about the fact that everything costs more.“Voters just felt a prioritization mismatch between what they were experiencing, the kind of pressures they were under, which isn’t that they didn’t have jobs, it’s that they couldn’t pay their bills,” Smith said.“Makes all the sense in the world that if the White House and president and the Biden campaign are touting this stuff, that they are going to make headway, and are making headway with voters in getting them to feel like Joe Biden in the Democratic party do understand.” More

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Fellow Republicans, it’s time to admit that the US economy isn’t bad

      by

      The Republican primaries are under way and – not surprisingly – the candidates have been ganging up on Bidenomics. Spoiler alert: they don’t like it. Fact check: they are wrong.To a man – and one woman – the Republican candidates all say that the US economy is bad and that Americans are struggling financially. They’re warning about sky-high deficits, over-the-top government spending and a potentially catastrophic level of national debt. They point out that interest rates are at a 20-year high and the costs of core things like food, gas and housing are significantly more than they were just a few years ago. They point to a downturn in manufacturing and falling small business confidence.“Bidenomics is crushing American families,” said the Republican candidate Nikki Haley. “We’re paying more for gas, groceries and other basic necessities.”“I’ll rip up Bidenomics on day one of my presidency,” the Florida governor and presidential challenger Ron DeSantis warned.Yes, prices and rates are up. But really? Is the economy so bad? I’m a Republican and a small business owner with hundreds of clients in many industries and honestly the economy isn’t that bad. In fact, it’s been really, really good.Just ask Donald Trump, who implicitly admitted this when he recently said he hoped for a “crash” and that it would “be in the next 12 months because I don’t want to be Herbert Hoover”.If you don’t believe me, just look at the numbers.Last quarter’s gross domestic product showed growth of 5.2%. That’s a number that dwarfs all other pre-Covid recovery numbers in recent memory. Unemployment is at a record low. Each month the economy is adding hundreds of thousands of new jobs. There are millions of more open jobs available today compared with 2019.Yes, prices are higher, but inflation is down from a 9% annual rate to about 3%, so whatever the Federal Reserve did to offset the treasury’s spending on fiscal programs seems to be working. The stock market is near all-time highs, as is household wealth. Credit card delinquency rates are lower than they’ve been for the past 30 years as are delinquencies on all loans across the banking system. Holiday retail sales were strong and online sales boomed. Plenty of capital is available for businesses that need it and corporations have more cash on hand than in any year before the pandemic.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionI speak to dozens of industry associations each year and here’s what I’m hearing: just about everyone had a good 2023. The CEOs of our major banks reported strong earnings, after taking into consideration special assessments and one-time charges. Retailers and restaurants have recovered from the pandemic. Convention traffic in Vegas is back to normal. There are almost as many travelers through the airports as there were before Covid. Businesses in the service industries recorded their 12th consecutive month of growth.Sure, there are struggles. Businesses in the real estate industry are challenged by high housing prices and a 13-year low in home sales. Manufacturing has been in contraction for the past 14 months. Media companies are flailing. Technology firms are struggling to find financing. The cost of capital is slowing down financing for small businesses. However, we live in a giant country. California’s economy is as large as that of the entire United Kingdom. North Carolina’s economy is bigger than Sweden’s. Texas’s is bigger than Canada’s. Not every business is going to be doing well in an economy this size. There will always be those that are struggling, be it because of their location, their industry, or the makeup of their customer and supplier base.There are plenty of things that could knock things off course in 2024. Wars. Oil prices. A terrorist attack. Another pandemic. If you want to find the bad in the economy you can do it. And that’s what all the Republican candidates are doing and fair enough, it’s an election year. It’s also true that Bidenomics may not be the reason behind our strong economy. But saying the US economy is bad just isn’t true no matter who you vote for. More

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      The Rebels review: AOC, Bernie, Warren and the fight against Trump

      by

      In 2017, mere months after Donald Trump settled into the White House, Joshua Green of Bloomberg News delivered Devil’s Bargain, a mordantly amusing but deadly serious take on the 45th president and his relationship with Steve Bannon, the far-right ideologue who became Trump’s chief strategist. With wit, insight and access, Green informed, entertained and horrified. More than six years later, both Trump and Bannon face criminal trials. Then again, the band may soon be back together – in the West Wing.Green is acutely aware of the economic and social cleavages that roil the US and divide Democrats ranged against the Republicans’ rightward turn. With his new book, The Rebels, he shifts his gaze to three notables of the Democratic left: two senators, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a congresswoman from New York. Once again, Green’s work is smart, sharp and smoothly written.Warren and Sanders failed in bids to become president. In 2020, his second such primary campaign, Sanders won early contests but saw his ambitions crash in South Carolina. That heavily African American primary electorate wasn’t all that keen on Brooklyn-bred progressivism, as Sanders offered.As for Warren, she failed to win a single contest and finished third in her home state, behind Sanders and Joe Biden. What worked for her in debates, congressional hearings and the faculty lounge did not resonate with voters. A highly contentious claim to be Native American raised damning questions too.Still, Warren’s critiques of the mortgage meltdown and resulting displacements provided intellectual heft for the populist left. Furthermore, unlike Biden she was intellectually brilliant and not beholden to Delaware and its credit card giants. Warren was a harsh critic of Wall Street too. The two billionaires in the 2020 race, Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer, regularly felt her sting. Ditto Tim Geithner, first treasury secretary to Barack Obama and another key character in Green’s book.Warren made an impact. Green writes: “Knowing [Trump’s] commitment to economic populism was merely rhetorical, Bannon fretted that Warren would lure away blue-collar voters with a program he described as ‘populist Democratic nationalism’.”In the House, Ocasio-Cortez, who at 34 is decades younger than Warren, Biden and Sanders, is the one member of the “Squad” of progressives who possesses the tools and dexterity to play politics nationally. She is emotionally grounded.At one 2019 hearing, the congresswoman widely known as AOC filleted Mark Zuckerberg over Facebook’s ties to Cambridge Analytica, the now-defunct data-harvesting and research firm owned by Bannon and the rightwing Mercer family. She also put the wood to Exxon over its early but non-disclosed knowledge about global heating and its effects.All three of Green’s subjects convey seriousness. Humor, less so. Nonetheless, the book offers a valuable recapitulation of the crack-up of the New Deal coalition, the impact of Ronald Reagan’s victories and the continued reverberations of the Great Recession of 2008.The Democrats hold the White House and the Senate but their future is unclear. Non-college graduates, regardless of race, find less to love in the historic home of working America. Green seizes on the havoc wrought by economic liberalization, financialism and expanded trade with China – factors that have driven a wedge between the Democrats and what was once their base.Convincingly, Green argues that neo-liberalism is in retrograde and that Biden is more a transitional figure than a harbinger of what comes next. Even so, Biden tacked left – instead of pivoting toward the center – as he faced Trump in 2020.In 2021, on inauguration day, Biden issued the Executive Order on Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government. His White House intoned: “Advancing equity is not a one-year project – it is a generational commitment that will require sustained leadership and partnership with all communities.”Good luck with that. The controversial fall of Claudine Gay, the first Black president of Harvard, who came under sustained conservative fire over the Israel-Hamas war, student protest and allegations of plagiarism in her work, is just one recent illustration of how tough such terrain will remain.Green traces many Democratic dilemmas to 1980, when Reagan handily defeated an incumbent president, Jimmy Carter. Afterwards, Democratic mandarins concluded that the old-time religion of lunch-bucket liberalism needed to make room for market-based economics. Reagan’s embrace of tax cuts and reduced government resonated with the public. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama came to stand as heirs of that strategic decision. But it was about more than “it’s the economy, stupid”, as Clinton would learn on the job.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“You mean to tell me that the success of the program and my re-election hinges on the Federal Reserve and a bunch of fucking bond traders?” Clinton told Robert Rubin, his treasury secretary, a former head of Goldman Sachs.James Carville, the guru of Clinton’s first victory, later said that were he to be born again, he wanted to be reincarnated as the most powerful thing in the world: the bond market.Green homes in on the close relationships that existed between the Obama administration and Wall Street. In 2008, for all the then Illinois senator’s talk of hope and change, he was the financial sector’s choice for president over John McCain. Green quotes Geithner’s pitch to Obama for the treasury slot, and describes how Geithner beat out Larry Summers, Rubin’s successor, to secure the job.Green also examines how in saving the financial system despite its players’ unadulterated greed and stupidity, Geithner helped incubate resentments that haunt the US today.“In a crisis, you have to choose,” Geithner said. “Are you going to solve the problem, or are you going to teach people a lesson?”In 2016, when Trump beat Hillary Clinton, voters did the latter. Ten months from now, they may do so again.
      The Rebels: Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the Struggle for a New American Politics is published in the US by Penguin Random House More

    • 175 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      US adds 216,000 jobs in December as stronger than expected rise caps robust year

      by

      The US workforce added 216,000 jobs last month, more than expected by economists, capping another robust year of growth in the face of higher interest rates.Policymakers, weighing when to start cutting borrowing costs, are closely monitoring the strength of the labor market as they try to guide the world’s largest economy to a so-called “soft landing”, where price growth normalizes and recession is avoided.American employers had been expected by economists to add about 164,000 jobs in December, down from 173,000 the previous month. Recruitment across the public, healthcare, social assistance and construction sectors helped drive growth as 2023 drew to a close.Overall, Friday’s official data showed that 2.7m jobs were added in the US economy over the course of last year – down from 4.8m in 2022.While its growth has slowed, the labor force has defied fears of a downturn after the Federal Reserve launched an aggressive campaign to pull back inflation from its highest levels in a generation. It remained resilient last year in the midst of layoffs and strikes.The headline unemployment rate stood at 3.7% in December, according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in line with November.While last month’s jobs growth reading was significantly higher than forecast by economists, the agency revised its estimates for October and November lower. As a result, the US workforce in these two months was some 71,000 jobs smaller than previously reported.As price growth continues to decline, officials at the Fed – which last hiked interest rates in July – are now mulling the future of its battle. Jerome Powell, the central bank’s chairman, said last month that the historic tightening of monetary policy was probably over, and that discussions on cuts in borrowing costs were coming “into view”.The official jobs report is closely scrutinized by Wall Street each month for signs of how the US economy is faring. The S&P 500 started the day slightly higher in New York.Nancy Vanden Houten, lead US economist at Oxford Economics, said: “There is a lot of noise in the data, but we continue to expect that there will be enough evidence of a further loosening in labor market conditions and a decline in inflation more broadly to allow the Fed to begin cutting rates in May.”Growth in private sector employment “continues to slow relentlessly, even after the upside surprise” in December, said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. “Behind the headline, the trend in job growth is slowing, with more softening to come.” More

    • 188 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      It’s the democracy, stupid … and other issues set to shape the 2024 US election

      by

      Whether or not the 2024 US presidential election presents the expected Joe Biden v Donald Trump rematch, much will be at stake.From the future of reproductive rights to the chances of meaningful action on climate change, from the strength of US support for Ukraine in its war with Russia to the fate of democracy in America itself, existential issues are set to come to the fore.Economy“It’s the economy, stupid.” So said the Democratic strategist James Carville, in 1992, as an adviser to Bill Clinton. Most Americans thought stewardship of the economy should change: Clinton beat an incumbent president, George HW Bush.More than 30 years later, under Joe Biden, the post-Covid recovery seems on track. Unemployment is low, the Dow at all-time highs. That should bode well for Biden but the key question is whether enough Americans think the economy is strong, or think it is working for them in particular. It seems many do not. Cost-of-living concerns dominate public polling, inflation remains high. Republican threats to social security and Medicare might offset such worries – hence Biden (and indeed Donald Trump) seizing on any hint that a Republican candidate (see, Nikki Haley) might pose a threat to such programmes.EqualityRon DeSantis made attacks on LGBTQ+ rights a hallmark of his attempt to “Make America Florida”. The hardline governor’s tanking campaign suggests how well that has gone down but Republican efforts to demonise all forms of so-called “woke” ideology should not be discounted. There have been tangible results: anti-trans legislation, book bans and restrictions on LGBTQ+ issues in education, the end of race-based affirmative action in university admissions thanks to the conservative-packed supreme court.Continuing struggles on Capitol Hill over immigration, and Republicans’ usual focus on crime in major cities, show traditional race-inflected battles will play their customary role on the campaign trail, particularly as Trump uses extremist “blood and soil” rhetoric in front of eager crowds. On the Democratic side, meanwhile, a distinctly worrying sign: Black and Hispanic support for Biden is no longer such a sure thing.AbortionHigh-ranking Democrats are clear: the party will focus on Republican attacks on abortion rights, from the Dobbs v Jackson supreme court ruling that struck down Roe v Wade last year to the forthcoming mifepristone case, draconian bans in Republican states and candidates’ support for such bans.For Democrats, it makes tactical sense: the threat to women’s reproductive rights is a rare issue on which the party polls very strongly and has clearly fuelled a series of electoral wins, even in conservative states, since Dobbs was handed down.Trump, however, clearly also recognises the potency of the issue – while trying to dodge responsibility for appointing three justices who voted to strike down Roe. Haley and DeSantis have tried to duck questions about their records and plans on abortion. Whoever the Republican candidate is, they can expect relentless attacks.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionForeign policyThe Israel-Gaza war presents a fiendish proposition for Biden: how to satisfy or merely mollify both the Israel lobby and large sections of his own party, particularly the left and the young more sympathetic to the Palestinians.Proliferating protests against Israel’s pounding of Gaza and the West Bank show the danger of coming unglued from the base. A recent Capitol Hill hearing, meanwhile, saw Republicans claim a political victory with the resignation of the president of the University of Pennsylvania over alleged antisemitism amid student protests for Palestinian rights.Elsewhere, Biden continues to lead a global coalition in support of Ukraine in its fight against Russia but further US funding is held up by Republicans seeking draconian immigration reform, some keen to abandon Kyiv altogether. Throw in the lasting effects of the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan (teed up by Trump but fumbled by Biden), questions about what the US should do should China attack Taiwan, and the threat Trump poses to US membership of Nato, and heavy fire on foreign policy is guaranteed throughout election year.DemocracyIf Biden is happy to be seen as a protector of democracy abroad, he is increasingly keen to stress the threat to democracy at home. After all, his most likely opponent refused to accept the result of the 2020 election, incited the deadly attack on Congress of 6 January 2021, has been linked to plans to slash the federal government in a second term, and has even said he wants to be a “dictator” on day one.Trump will no doubt maintain the lie that his 2020 defeat was the result of electoral fraud as various criminal cases proceed towards trial, 17 of 91 state and federal charges concerning election subversion. For Biden, the issue has been profitable at the polls. DeSantis and Haley, though, must dance around the subject, seeking not to alienate Trump supporters. The New York Times sums up their responses, dispiritingly, thus: DeSantis “has signed restrictions on voting rights in Florida, and long avoided questions about 2020”; Haley “said Biden’s victory was legitimate, but has played up the risk of voter fraud more broadly”.ClimateIf Trump threatens US democracy, the climate crisis threatens the US itself. From forest fires to hurricanes and catastrophic floods, it is clear climate change is real. Public polling reflects this: 70% of Americans – strikingly, including 50% of Republicans – want meaningful action. But that isn’t reflected in Republican campaigning. Trump says he doesn’t believe human activity contributes to climate change, nor that climate change is making extreme weather worse, and is opposed to efforts to boost clean energy. Haley does believe humans are causing climate change and making weather worse, but worked for Trump as UN ambassador when the US pulled out of the Paris climate deal and opposes clean energy incentives. DeSantis is closer to Trump – and wants to end regulation of emissions.Biden’s record on climate may be criticised by campaigners but his record in office places him firmly against such Republican views. More

    • 200 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Change is coming. The question is: what kind of change will it be? | Bernie Sanders

      by

      We are living in the most difficult moment in modern history. If you feel anxious and overwhelmed about what’s going on, you’re not alone. The extraordinarily challenges we face are very real, but we can never let them become excuses for checking out of the political struggles that address these crises and will define our future.Our nation and, indeed our planet, are at a critical juncture. It is imperative that we recognize what we are up against, and what we must do to move our politics toward justice and human decency. And we can start by acknowledging that the American people have been through a lot, and that their confidence in politics and in government has been shaken.The Covid pandemic, the worst public health crisis in 100 years, took over a million lives in our country, and millions more became ill. The pandemic created the most painful economic downturn since the Great Depression, disrupted the education of our young people, increased isolation, anxiety and mental illness.The climate crisis is ravaging the planet. The last eight years have been the hottest on record and floods, droughts, forest fires and extreme weather disturbances have brought death and destruction to almost every part of the globe. Scientists tell us that unless there is a major reduction in carbon emissions over the next several decades, the planet will become increasingly uninhabitable.Amid unprecedented income and wealth inequality, with three people owning more wealth than the bottom half of American society, a handful of oligarchs control the economic and political life of our nation for their own greedy ends.With a dysfunctional government, and growing economic anxiety for millions of Americans, 60% of whom live paycheck to paycheck, faith that our flawed democracy can respond to the needs of working families is ebbing, and more and more Americans believe that authoritarianism might be the best way forward.Artificial intelligence is exploding. There are deep concerns not only that this new technology will displace millions of workers but about the real possibility that human beings could actually lose control over the future of society.The US healthcare system is broken beyond repair. Despite spending twice as much per capita as any other country, 85 million are uninsured or underinsured, our life expectancy is declining and we have nowhere enough doctors, nurses, dentists or mental health practitioners.Our educational system is in crisis. Childcare is too often unaffordable and unavailable, many of our public schools are unable to attract the quality teachers they need, and 45 million Americans struggle with student debt. In 1990, the US led the world in the percentage of 25- to 34-year-olds who had college degrees. Today, in a competitive global economy, we are in 15th place.And, oh yes, Donald Trump, who is becoming more rightwing and extremist every day, is leading many of the presidential polls. In a recent speech, using language that echoes Adolf Hitler, Trump stated: “We will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.” He also had strong praise for Hungary’s authoritarian leader, Viktor Orbán. In an interview, Trump said migrants were “poisoning the blood of our country”, promising in another speech that he would round up undocumented people on a vast scale, detain them in sprawling camps, and deport millions of people per year.Frighteningly, the growth of rightwing extremism is not just growing in the United States.As the Washington Post reports, “far-right parties have taken power in Italy, extended their rule in Hungary, earned a coalition role in Finland, become de facto government partners in Sweden, entered parliament in Greece and made striking gains in regional elections in Austria and Germany”. Within the past few weeks, a far-right candidate was elected president of Argentina and a rightwing extremist party won the most seats in the election in Holland.That’s the bad news. The very bad news. But there’s also good news.The good news is that all across the country workers and their unions are fighting back against corporate greed. We are seeing more union organizing and successful strikes than we have seen in decades. Whether it’s the Teamsters at UPS, the UAW at the big three automakers, the Screen Actors Guild (Sag) at the large media production companies, Starbucks workers, graduate students on college campuses, or nurses and doctors at hospitals, working people are making it clear that they are sick and tired of being ripped off and exploited. They are no longer sitting back and allowing large corporations to make record breaking profits while they fall further and further behind. They will no longer accept CEOs making nearly 350 times more than the average worker.The good news is that more and more Americans are making the connections between the reality of their lives and the corrupt and destructive nature of our uber-capitalist system which prizes greed and profiteering above any other human value.Whether they are Democrats, Republicans or independents, Americans want change – real change.They are disgusted by a political system which allows the wealthiest people in this country, through their Super Pacs, to buy elections. They want structural campaign finance reform based on the principle of one person, one vote.They are outraged by billionaires paying a lower effective tax rate than they do because of massive tax loopholes. They want real tax reform which demands that the wealthy and large corporations start paying their fair share of taxes.They are frightened for the future of this planet when they see oil companies make record-breaking profits as the carbon emissions they produce destroy the planet.They are offended to see ten giant pharmaceutical companies making over $110bn in profits last year, while they cannot afford the outrageous price of prescription drugs they need to stay alive.They are shocked as they see Wall Street investment firms buy up affordable housing, gentrify neighborhoods, while they are unable afford to afford the outrageous rents being charged by their unaccountable Wall Street landlords.They are humiliated by having to stay on the phone for an hour, arguing with an airline company machine about a plane reservation, while the industry makes huge profits.The American people today are angry. They are anxious about their present reality and worried about the future that awaits their kids. They know that the status quo is not working and that, in many respects, the system in breaking down.Change is coming. The question is: what kind of change will it be? Will it be a Trumpian, authoritarian type change that exploits that anger and turns it against minorities and immigrants, blaming them for the crises we are experiencing? Or will it be a change that revitalizes American democracy, unites and empowers working people of all backgrounds and has the courage to take on a corrupt ruling class whose greed is causing irreparable destruction in our country and around the world?There is no question but that the challenges we face today are enormous – economic, political and environmental. There is no easy path forward when we take on the oligarchs and the most powerful entities in the world.But, in the midst of all that, here is the simple truth. If we stand together in our common humanity – Black, white, Latino, Asian American, Native American, gay and straight, people of all religions, there are enormous opportunities in front of us to create a better life for all. We can guarantee healthcare to every man, woman and child as a human right. We can create millions of good paying jobs transforming our energy system. We can create the best educational system in the world. We can use artificial intelligence to shorten our work-week and improve our lives. We can create a society free of bigotry.But here is the other simple truth. None of that happens if we are not prepared to stand up and fight together against the forces that work so hard to divide and conquer us. This is a moment in history that cannot be ignored. This is a struggle that cannot be sat out. The future of the planet is at stake, democracy is at stake, human decency is at stake.Let’s go forward together and win.
      Bernie Sanders is a US senator, and chairman of the Senate health, education, labor and pensions committee. He represents the state of Vermont, and is the longest-serving independent in the history of Congress More

    • 163 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      Biden plans to use cold-war era law in attempt to lower US prices

      by

      The White House has announced it plans to use a cold-war era law to ease supply chain issues that the administration argues are contributing to higher inflation – a key electoral challenge to Joe Biden’s re-election chances next year as polling consistently suggests voters are not buying his Bidenomics pitch.In a statement, the White House said Biden will use the Defense Production Act to improve the domestic manufacturing of medicines deemed crucial for national security and will convene the first meeting of the president’s supply chain resilience council to announce other measures tied to the production and shipment of goods.“We’re determined to keep working to bring down prices for American consumers and ensure the resilience of our supply chains for the future,” said Lael Brainard, director of the White House national economic council and a co-chair of the new supply chain council, in a separate statement.The Defense Production Act of 1950, which was passed to streamline production during the Korean war, was last used in early 2021 during the coronavirus pandemic to accelerate and expand the availability of ventilators and personal protective equipment.The supply chain council is set to address issues ranging from improved data sharing between government agencies, supplying renewable energy resources and freight logistics.Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, will be co-chair of the council, which includes the heads of cabinet departments, the administration’s council of economic advisers, the US director of national intelligence, the Office of Management and Budget, and other agencies.Monday’s announcement arrived as the US economy appears to be doing well on paper. But the White House has acknowledged that improving economic picture is not shared by consumers, and the administration has explicitly tied the economy to the president by calling it Bidenomics.A recent Economist/YouGov poll found that only 39% of voters approve of Biden’s handling of jobs and the economy. And a separate Reuters/Ipsos poll puts the economy as the most important issue to Americans for the past two years.Even as the pace of inflation has slowed, consumers are shouldering an economic burden they had not experienced in years. Prices have risen as much in the past three years as they had in the previous decade, according to a report by Bloomberg, and it now costs almost $120 to buy the same goods and services a family could afford with $100 before the pandemic.According to Bloomberg, groceries and electricity are up 25%, used car prices have climbed 35%, auto insurance 33% and rent roughly 20% since January 2020. Housing affordability is at its worst on record. Auto-loan rates and credit card interest rates are also at a peak.As a result, many Democrats say it is time for Biden to adjust the economic message ahead of the 2024 election.In a statement, the White House said that “robust supply chains are fundamental to a strong economy”.“When supply chains are smooth, prices fall for goods, food, and equipment, putting more money in the pockets of American families, workers, farmers, and entrepreneurs,” the statement added.“Supply chain stress has eased measurably over the past year and the Biden administration’s announcement is another step in the right direction,” the Moody’s economist Jesse Rogers said.Rogers added: “While unlikely to resolve some of the more complex issues plaguing supply chains in one go, measures targeting pharmaceuticals, climate infrastructure, data security and logistics will bolster resilience and get the ball rolling on smart infrastructure and global cooperation.”In addition to domestic production measures, the administration said it will work to strengthen global supply chains internationally, including by developing early warning systems with allies and partners to detect and respond to supply chain disruptions in critical areas.Those include measures “to improve the weather, water, and climate observing capabilities and data-sharing” with countries “needed to produce global climate information and minimize impacts upon infrastructure, water, health, and food security”. More