The Bureau of Labor Statistics released their jobs report today.
Job growth fared better than expected in April...Nonfarm payrolls increased 253,000 for the month, beating Wall Street estimates for growth of 180,000...The unemployment rate was 3.4% against an estimate for 3.6% and tied for the lowest level since 1969.
As Steve Benen pointed out, the last time the unemployment rate was this low, we hadn't landed on the moon yet and Woodstock was still a few months away.
In related news this week, Sen. Josh Hawley derisively laughed at Interior Secretary Deb Haaland when she told the truth.
With over 1 million acres of lush forests, diverse wildlife, and pristine glacial lakes and rivers, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is a unique treasure located in northern Minnesota. It is the most visited Wildernesses Area in the United States and the second largest Wilderness Area east of the Rockies. The BWCAW, which attracts more than 250,000 people each year, has more than 2,000 backcountry campsites, 1,200 miles of canoe routes, and over 230 miles of overnight hiking trails...
The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is home to some of the cleanest water in the world. Many of the lakes and rivers in the BWCA are so clear that you can see straight down to the bottom and visitors often pride themselves on drinking straight from the lakes and rivers.
These pristine waters are currently threatened by sulfide-ore copper mining, which would seriously harm the Boundary Waters watershed and the wildlife that calls it home.
So of course, Haaland defended her decision to ban new mining operations that would threaten this valuable resource. But Hawley proceeded to lecture Haaland - stating that "jobs for blue collar workers are also valuable resources" and asked why those would be "sacrificed in favor of her agenda for radical climate change?
Haaland responded by pointing to the fact that there are 1.9 jobs for every worker in the country right now.
In January, there were nearly 1.9 available jobs for every job seeker https://t.co/f0hha4a9R6 pic.twitter.com/CcG9l4rSec
— CNN (@CNN) March 9, 2023
That is when Hawley derisively laughed at Haaland and went into a rant about how many jobs we've lost to China over the last 20 years.
This is one of those moments when it is impossible to tell whether Hawley is ignorant or mendacious. Ignorance would mean that he missed the fact that the Associated Builders and Contractors just documented that "the construction industry will need to attract an estimated 546,000 additional workers on top of the normal pace of hiring in 2023 to meet the demand for labor."
All of the major news outlets - including the Wall Street Journal - have reported that the biggest challenge Biden's "blue collar blue-print for America" faces is the shortage of workers.
Hawley, who tries to brand himself as a champion of the working class, is either completely ignorant about what is happening today or he is lying through his teeth. We could split the difference and just say that he's an ignorant liar - which makes it all the more appalling that he would behave so obnoxiously to Secretary Haaland.
I've trouble putting it down to ignorance, even willful ignorance. Certainly a MAGA voter can get all his (gender intended) from the echo chambers of Murdoch outlets, social media, and the headlines and screaming jerks like Hawley himself that make it into mainstream media, where inflation is out of control and a major recession was due yesterday. But Washington types are in the midst of something else, indeed hanging on the latest financial news as if their career depends on it, for good reason. They even sit on committees like this one to hear expert testimony that the base does not.
ReplyDeleteBesides, think of just how many mistruths it's been counted up that Trump emitted every day in office. Who'd have time to accumulate that much misinformation?
It's even worse than lying, though. It's just reached a point where a Republican politician's narrative gets to define truth. He "knows" that China has taken jobs, which even has a core of truth in the face of the decline in manufacturing in an increasingly global, white-collar and service industry economy. So that's that. Not that Republican policies do in the least to address this, not even if every last acre of wilderness were eradicated, along with the jobs it supports and the energy future that is already creating jobs, but again, it's their story, so there! We have power because we make the truth, and we can make the truth because we have power.
I'm sorry, but for me much the same huge mistake runs through Nancy's frequent posts deriding de Santis as stupid and incompetent, as if a de Santis who got what he wanted would be any less awful -- and as if he and his party haven't done untold damage as it is. Doesn't he realize that his revocation of Disney's rights will never take effect and that, if it did, the costs, huge costs, would fall to Florida's citizens and their well-being? But so what, and who says that the GOP in power has the least interest in anyone's well-being but theirs?
DeleteHe'll still have had his sound-bite, so what else do you want? Now, it's true that he doesn't have a chance of gaining the nomination, although in his mind he may be positioning himself and gaining publicity toward a future election. But that's just because there's no route to success. Who wants the smart Trump when the dumb one is so satisfying? The media have also dubbed him a lousy campaigner, just as it dubbed Gore too smart, Biden too gaffe prone. And Hillary, well, a Clinton. But that's irrelevant too, part of the media's insider bubble where they, unlike the rest, can and must watch him campaign (and, with luck, hope for a personable enough candidate to bond with them).
MO senator 'SilverSpoon' Joshie portrayed himself in his initial state-wide campaigns as a man of Missourah (sic), even while he was denying that he would leave his initial post as MO AG in order to run for Senate, but having already assembled an election funding committee to do so. Former MO Senator John Danforth, a man whose judgment has been called into question due to two evidences: he backed SCOTUS Clarence Thomas against the testimony of Prof Anita Hiil, and now with Joshie, whom Danforth calls 'his biggest mistake.' But, back to Joshie: he is a man of money, of privilege, and of good intellect; he is, after all, a graduate of Ivy League colleges and law schools, one who seldom returned to MO to visit. But in his campaigns, he finds himself wearing (new) jeans, a (new) plaid shirt and sitting on a haywagon in the midst of two roads diverging in the woods. Which one shall he take? Shall he remain (as he had promised) as MO AG, or shall he follow the siren calls of monied sources and go on to face Senator Claire McCaskill in the general election? Hawley portrayed himself a man of the people, a shining man of the countryside, a man of MO. Since his election, funded by (probably) his buddies in the Federalist Society, Hawley has seldom darkened the skylines of MO, except to demonstrate his duplicitous nature as seen in Nancy's article. He couldn't care less about the 'blue collar' workers of the world, but as for their monied masters, well......they're likely to be Joshie's true masters as well. MO has a serious challenger against Hawley in the coming general: Lucas Kunce who does know MO's citizens pretty well, and who has a fine handle in Prince Josh's ways.
ReplyDelete