Commentary It looks as if we can add another line to the long list of lockdown harms. Sloth. This explains so much actually. For months, we’ve been watching working/population ratios and labor participation rates and have been stunned by how they both continue to plummet. We search for explanations. Early retirement. Women driven out due…

Commentary It took the better part of the weekend to unravel the truth behind the headlines that Biden presides over a job-creation machine. Looking at the details beneath the big claims paints a frightening picture not of a growing and enterprising economy but rather the opposite. What we find is a picture of an increasingly…

The U.S. economy added 528,000 new jobs in July, topping the market estimate of 250,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The unemployment rate dipped to 3.5 percent, down from 3.6 percent in June. The labor force participation rate slipped to 62.1 percent Average hourly earnings rose 0.5 percent month-over-month and 5.2 percent…

Commentary The Biden administration’s main talking point against the existence of recession is the unemployment rate. Sadly, a “rate” never hired or paid anyone. In the real world, there are signs of growing strains once you disaggregate the data by income expectations, gender, and other factors. There is no shortage of jobs available in lower-wage…

New Zealand’s unemployment rate has, against expectations, risen 0.1 percent to 3.3 percent in the June quarter, Stats NZ revealed. “Measures of spare labour market capacity have fallen over the year and remained low for several quarters, continuing to show a tight labour market,” Stats NZ senior manager Becky Collett said. Despite the slight increase,…

Commentary If you were on vacation last week, good for you. You missed one of Congress’s greatest-ever scams. They just approved some $750 billion (do these numbers even mean anything anymore?) to “transition” us from fossil fuels and coal over to reliance on the wind and sun, and also to subsidize a bunch of chip…

Commentary What a difference a press release makes, even when it is only talking about the past. As we rolled out of bed this morning, economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal were confident that economic output grew 0.3 percent in the second quarter. But then came the witching hour of 8:30am Eastern Time when…

Commentary As predicted, the Biden administration has spent the better part of the week explaining that tomorrow’s GDP report on the 2nd quarter, even if it is negative, does not mean we are in a recession. In his ham-handed way, Biden made it very plain: “We’re not going to be in a recession.” These days,…

Australian jobless rate tumbled to 3.5 percent in June, hitting the lowest level in 48 years as the job market continues to tighten. The change in the unemployment figure, which stood at 3.9 percent in May, well surpassed economists’ expectations, with Deutsche Bank economist Phil O’Donaghoe saying it was one of the best labour market…

The Australian jobless rate remained unchanged at a nearly 50-year low of 3.9 percent in May despite over 60,000 people getting a job. At the same time, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reported the underemployment rate dropped to 5.7 percent, hitting the lowest level since August 2008. Additionally, the participation rate, which represents the…