MAGA 2.0: May Posts Biggest Increase In Jobs In U.S. History–Unemployment Falls To 13.3%
President Trump said, “We built the greatest economy in the world, we’ll do it a second time.”
The nay-sayers said that we were headed for a Great Depression-era jobless rate of 20% and that point was expected in May.
Just yesterday, CNBC reported that millions more Americans had lost their jobs in May, and although some states were opening up, the situation was expected to be dire. We were heading for a 20% unemployment rate.
Millions more Americans lost their jobs in May, on top of the 20.5 million in April, and economists believe the unemployment rate rose to near 20%, the likely peak in the Covid-19 recession.
Economists are forecasting about 8.3 million jobs were lost, and that the unemployment rate rose to 19.5%, according to Dow Jones. That compares to an unemployment rate of 14.7% in April. The employment report, expected Friday morning, follows Thursday’s report that nearly 1.9 million people filed for unemployment claims last week.
“May was this transition month. The layoffs were very high, but in the latter part of the month, rehiring started. This employment report is probably the peak of the disaster in the labor market,” said Ethan Harris, head of global economics at Bank of America.
Source: CNBC (June 4, 2020)
I’ll do it again! https://t.co/ND3yBfM1lJ
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2020
But, like many who try to predict the future–they were wrong.
Employment stunningly rose by 2.5 million in May and the jobless rate declined to 13.3% according to data Friday from the Labor Department that was far better than economists had been expecting and indicated that an economic turnaround could be close at hand.
Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting payrolls to drop by 8.333 million and the unemployment rate to rise to 19.5% from April’s 14.7%. If Wall Street expectations had been accurate, it would have been the worst figure since the Great Depression.
As it turned out, May’s numbers showed the U.S. may well be on the road to recovery after its fastest plunge in history.
“It seems the damage from the nationwide lockdown was not as severe or as lasting as we feared a month ago,” said Scott Clemons, chief investment strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman.
Source: CNBC (June 5, 2020)
Life comes at you fast–even if you’re an economist.
The numbers were so amazing that President Trump tweeted about it repeatedly on Friday morning. He was absolutely crowing about the great news.
Really Big Jobs Report. Great going President Trump (kidding but true)!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 5, 2020
THESE NUMBERS ARE INCREDIBLE! @MariaBartiromo
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 5, 2020
I am so stunned. I’ve never seen numbers like this and I’ve been doing this for 30 years! Steve M. @MariaBartiromo
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 5, 2020
This is an AMAZING JOBS REPORT! Edward Lawrence @FoxNews
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 5, 2020
Congratulations to wonderful Charles Payne on having been so optimistic, and therefore correct. Market up BIG!!!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 5, 2020
Oh no, the Dems are worried again. The only one that can kill this comeback is Sleepy Joe Biden!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 5, 2020
It’s a stupendous number. It’s joyous, let’s call it like it is. The Market was right. It’s stunning! @jimcramer @CNBC
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 5, 2020
It is a stunner by any stretch of the imagination! @CNBC
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 5, 2020
But he’s not the only one furiously tweeting–Paul Krugman, one of the hacks of The New York Times, and known Person Who Is Wrong About Literally Everything™ was backpedaling furiously. He has to in order to keep up his #Resist street cred.
If you don’t recall, Krugman, who won a Nobel Prize in Economics in 2008, predicted that the election of one Donald J. Trump would plunge the entire world into recession. He actually called Trump “the mother of all adverse effects.”
Now that we had a “black swan” event– a novel coronavirus that the Chinese Communist Party allowed to become a global pandemic–has caused economies around the world to crash due to lockdowns, Krugman can claim that he was sorta right. The problem is, if Trump is at the helm and there is a recovery, then it exposes Krugman as the political hack that he is.
Although, he does a pretty good job exposing his political hackery himself.
I've been through a number of episodes over the years in which official numbers tell a story at odds with what more informal evidence suggests; often it turns out that there was something quirky (NOT fraudulent) about the official numbers. 2/
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) June 5, 2020
Whatever happened, these numbers should make you more, not less, pessimistic about the economic outlook. Why? Because they will reinforce the White House inclination to do nothing and let emergency aid expire 4/ https://t.co/yoo3F6TAo0
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) June 5, 2020
https://twitter.com/brad_polumbo/status/1268901337200242688?s=20
You can 100% discount the possibility that Trump got to the BLS. Not 98% discount, not 99.9% discount, but 100% discount.
BLS has 2,400 career staff of enormous integrity and one political appointee with no scope to change this number. https://t.co/Cden6rQyN6
— Jason Furman (@jasonfurman) June 5, 2020
that feeling when Paul Krugman spots himself in a mirror pic.twitter.com/MCLgVD8uzv
— Jeff Blehar is *BOX OFFICE POISON* (@EsotericCD) June 5, 2020
Watching Paul Krugman self-destruct is pretty delicious, but watching Bumblin’ Biden tweeting last night (and yes, I do know this wasn’t what he was talking about, but still…) “We can’t take four more years of this” right before the biggest increase in jobs in U.S. history, well, that’s pretty spectacular.
We can’t take four more years of this.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) June 5, 2020