NEWS PICKS
“In the last two years, my administration has cut the deficit by more than $1.7 trillion – the largest deficit reduction in American history.”- BIDEN
A deficit occurs when the federal government’s spending exceeds its revenues.
Biden’s boast leaves out important context. It is true that the federal deficit fell by $1.7 trillion under Biden in the 2021 and 2022 fiscal years, including a record $1.4 trillion drop in 2022 – but it is highly questionable how much credit Biden deserves for this reduction. Biden did not mention that the primary reason the deficit fell so substantially was that it had skyrocketed to a record high under then-President Donald Trump in 2020 because of bipartisan emergency pandemic relief spending, then fell as expected when the spending expired as planned. Independent analysts say Biden’s own actions, including his laws and executive orders, have had the overall effect of adding to current and projected future deficits, not reducing those deficits.
U.S. Trade Deficit Hit Record in 2022
America’s imports exceeded its exports by $948.1 billion in 2022, up 12.2% from 2021, the Commerce Department said Tuesday.
“Additionally, over the last two years, a record 10 million Americans applied to start a new small business.”- BIDEN
This is true. There were about 5.4 million business applications in 2021, the highest number since 2005 (the first year for which the federal government released this data for a full year), and about 5.1 million business applications in 2022. Not every application turns into a real business, but the number of “high-propensity” business applications – those deemed to have a high likelihood of turning into a business with a payroll – also hit a record in 2021 and saw its second-highest total in 2022.
Former President Donald Trump’s last full year in office, 2020, also set a then-record for total and high propensity applications. There are various reasons for the pandemic-era boom in entrepreneurship, which began after millions of Americans lost their jobs in early 2020. Among them: some newly unemployed workers seized the moment to start their own enterprises; Americans had extra money from stimulus bills signed by Trump and Biden; interest rates were particularly low until a series of rate hikes that began in the spring of 2022.
“Near record low unemployment for Black and Hispanic workers.” -BIDEN
The Black or African American unemployment rate was 5.4% in January 2023, just above the record low of 5.3% set in August 2019.
The Hispanic or Latino unemployment rate was 4.5% in January 2023, not too far from the record low of 4.0% that was set in September 2019 – though the 4.5% rate in January 2023 was a jump from the 4.1% rate in December 2022.
“Unemployment rate is at 3.4%, a 50-year low.”-BIDEN
What official figures tell us (and what they don’t)
Let’s start with the misconceptions. An unemployment rate of 3.7% does not mean that 96.3% of people in the US are gainfully employed.
Nor does the official unemployment rate represent how many people are collecting federal unemployment insurance. A large percentage of people without jobs aren’t even eligible to collect unemployment, such as independent contractors, as well as employees who quit voluntarily or were fired for cause. And a lot of workers who do qualify for jobless benefits remain without work long after their aid runs out, which is usually around 26 weeks.
The BLS’ unemployment data comes from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, which interviews about 60,000 eligible households each month. For the main BLS figure, called the U-3, the number of unemployed people is recorded as a percentage of the civilian labor force. Individuals are classified as unemployed if (and only if) they meet the following criteria: They must be currently available to work and must have looked for a job in the last four weeks.
That means that someone without a job who is not “actively” seeking work — whether due to pessimism, family obligations or multiple other reasons — is considered outside of the labor force and excluded from the U-3 figure.
The widely cited U-3 rate doesn’t accurately represent the reality of joblessness in this country, but the BLS has another metric — called the U-6 — that is more comprehensive and revealing, even though it’s rarely mentioned by economists.
By factoring in the unemployed who have given up looking for a job (called “marginally attached” workers), as well as workers who settled for part-time employment but would rather work full-time, the U-6 rate tends to be around double the headline U-3 rate. According to the U-6 rate since September 2021, joblessness has been between 6.5% and 8.5%. Current rate it 6.6%.
“Families save more than $1,000 a year with tax credits to purchase electric vehicles and … energy-efficient appliances.” – BIDEN
EVs often have higher insurance rates.
In October of 2022, the average transaction price for a new car (of any powertrain) was $48,281 according to Kelley Blue Book. At the same time, the average electric car price was $64,249 (for new cars). That’s a difference of 33%!
“Here at home, gas prices are down $1.50 since their peak.” – BIDEN
As of the day of the State of the Union, the national average for a gallon of regular gas was $3.457, per data from the American Automobile Association. That was indeed down more than $1.50 from a record high of $5.016 in mid-June. But it was still up from a national average of $2.393 on Biden’s Inauguration Day in January 2021.
“I stand here tonight after we’ve created, with the help of many people in this room, 12 million new jobs – more jobs created in two years than any president has ever created in four years.” – BIDEN
Biden became president less than a year after the economy shed nearly 22 million jobs over two months, March and April 2020, because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The jobs recovery then began immediately after that, under then-President Donald Trump, but there was still an unprecedented hole to fill when Biden took office.
“I should have known this, but I didn’t until two years ago. Thirty million workers had to sign non-compete agreements with the jobs they take. Thirty million. So, a cashier at a burger place can’t walk across town and take the same job at another burger place and make a few bucks more. Well, they just changed it because we exposed it. That was part of the deal, guys, look it up.“
An investigation in Washington state in 2017 revealed that several fast-food chains, including Arby’s, Auntie Anne’s, Buffalo Wild Wings, Carl’s Jr., Cinnabon, Jimmy John’s, and McDonald’s, had been enforcing no-poaching rules that prevented employees from moving between franchises within the same chain – not, as Biden suggested, between rival chains. By 2018, all those chains agreed to end their no-poach practices at roughly 25,000 restaurants nationwide.
“Food inflation is coming down, not fast enough, but coming down. Inflation has f” – BIDEN
Food prices were up 10.4% in December 2022 from the year-before period, according to the latest available Consumer Price Index report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Food price inflation, as measured by the CPI, has slowly declined since hitting a 40-year high of 11.4% in August 2022.
Overall inflation, as measured by the CPI, was 6.5% in December 2022. The headline inflation rate has declined for six consecutive months since hitting a 40-year high of 9.1% in June 2022.
Biden’s claim that take-home pay has gone up is true if you start the calculation seven months ago; “real” wages, which take inflation into account, started rising in mid-2022 as inflation slowed. However, real wages are lower today than they were both a full year ago and at the beginning of Biden’s presidency in January 2021. That’s because inflation was so high in 2021 and the beginning of 2022.
The rule, which the Labor Department finalized last November, states that fiduciaries ‘may consider climate change and other environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors when they make investment decisions.
Missouri & Illinois among states with most Bigfoot ‘sightings
Democrats push back on Republican plan to limit jobless benefits in Missouri
