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Kamala Gets Bad News Just Before Tuesday’s Debate

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OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.


The U.S. economy added 142,000 jobs in August and the unemployment rate marginally decreased to 4.2% from 4.3%, according to Labor Department data released on Friday.

A key element that will assist the Federal Reserve in deciding how big of an interest rate decrease to announce later this month is the labor market’s slowdown. The August statistics fell short of the 161,000 employment growth projected.

The updated report also includes noteworthy updates for previous months: Just 89,000 new employment were created in July, which is 25,000 fewer than first anticipated. The increases for June were reduced down to 118,000 from 61,000.

The economy is still creating employment, albeit at a noticeably slower pace. Despite being historically low, the unemployment rate has increased over the past 12 months.

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There have been indications of weakening in the labor market in recent months. Powell stated that the Fed opposes any more deterioration of the labor market.

CBNC’s “Squawk Box” broke down the concerning numbers and how it will be trouble for Vice President Kamala Harris in this election against Donald Trump.

Below is a transcript via Grabien:

Higher inflation eventually consumer slows down and markets slow down. Remember also employment markets are not preliminary indicator of recession. Employment markets tend to crack at the same time recession starts. Won’t see it in labor data before it happens. Structural recessions have happened due to pandemic. Due to banking crises. Due to technology falls. I don’t think we’re in a latter category but the type of recession eventually that comes due to this cycle of higher interest rates, higher inflation, stress put on the consumer eventually hits their savings rates, increasing delinquency rates, hits employment market already seeing some signs of companies slowing down in terms of hiring. Paused hiring already. The next step will be starting to see more layoffs. That then brings run of the mill more of a normal type of recession.

I was going to follow-up with betsy.

Go ahead. Go ahead and follow-up with betsy and then at 8:45. Who knows? Anything can happen.

Anything can happen. Betsy, a few minutes here. Give us your outlook on, when you say this is weak, how do you go from that to your view of the broader economy?

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So, you know, there’s a fine line between work — between weak and normalizing. And what I see here is the labor market is definitely weakening and we’re going to see people are outside the labor market having a hard time finding jobs. That’s going to cause some pain. That’s going to causes contraction in consumer spending. The question will be, you know, can we sort of manage through that with policy? I do think this is the ultimate test for the Fed right now. I completely agree with your idea of, you know, putting it out there. What’s the Fed trying to do? It’s trying to find the knewneut place, a place of employment and growth balanced with price growth. I don’t think it knows where that is but I think we can all agree now that rates are too high for that. And we don’t have a ton of experience. I just heard talk about a normal recession. I don’t know. We don’t have a ton of experience being in the place we’re at right now. And I think the Fed is blind. A little bit blind. I do think that they’ve got to bring rates down quickly before we start to see things worsening, because when I’m looking at job growth retreating in so many sectors, it says that we, you know, we need to do something. Not so much to bolster the economy but to at least take our foot off the brakes.

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