The labor market continues to soften, with 199,000 jobs created last month, well below the recent average. Real job creation is far lower than this topline number suggests. Nearly 50,000 jobs were unproductive government jobs, continuing the trend of disproportionately high government job growth. The return of striking auto workers accounted for about 30,000 jobs. And 77,000 jobs were created in healthcare, which is a quasi-government industry. That leaves only about 40,000 jobs created in the real economy.
Real wages continue to stagnate, growing at the same rate as core inflation following significant declines in the first two years of Biden’s presidency. As usual, job creation in previous months was revised down in today’s report. Nearly one million more Americans are unemployed since April.
As JCN is highlighting in a new Times Square billboard, President Biden is the Grinch who stole Christmas. The labor market and economy are weakening just in time for the expensive holiday season when ordinary Americans and small businesses depend on a robust economy most. No wonder small business sentiment recorded by JCN’s most recent national SBIQ poll is at a record low.
Today’s jobs report comes on the heels of other bad labor market news. On Thursday, the ADP private-sector payroll numbers showed essentially zero jobs created at small businesses last month. On Wednesday, the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary report revealed 617,000 fewer job openings nationwide.
Meanwhile, core inflation continues to increase at twice the Federal Reserve’s target rate. Prices of goods and services are up by 20% since Biden took office, and anecdotal evidence suggests they are increasing even faster — something that anyone who’s been in a grocery store lately can attest to. According to our poll, two-thirds of small businesses believe prices are growing more quickly than topline rates suggest.
It’s no surprise Americans are feeling the economic pain. Half of American consumers plan to take on debt to pay for holiday purchases. A recent Financial Times poll shows only 14% of Americans say they are better off financially than when Biden took office. And if Americans feel worse off, they will act worse off, pulling back on consumer spending that drives the economy.
Small businesses are especially harmed. This holiday season is “make or break for a lot of local businesses,” notes Hallie Borden, owner of Andersonville’s Milk Handmade in Chicago. “A lot of us have gone through a couple of really hard years, but this year seems to be the hardest yet,” says Merl Kinzie, owner of a Chicago boutique called The SHUDIO. “A bunch of small business owners are in a group chat together, and we’ve all been experiencing this slowdown. It’s not something that we’re doing wrong or that we could change.”
Bidenomics is responsible for this bad economy. Its reckless spending and anti-energy policies have driven up prices. The deficit last year was $1.7 trillion, one of the highest on record, and a ridiculous number for an economy running at supposedly full capacity. These trillions of excess dollars have bid up prices and devalued the currency already in existence. Biden’s big government is crowding out private-sector, small-business opportunities.
No wonder House Democrats are dumping the Bidenomics moniker. Even President Biden has recently dropped it from his speeches, choosing to fearmonger over “MAGAnomics” instead. Biden and Democrats can run from the Bidenomics name, but that doesn’t mean they can hide from its bad results.
Alfredo Ortiz is president and CEO of Job Creators Network, author of The Real Race Revolutionaries, and co-host of the Main Street Matters podcast.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Alfredo Ortiz on December 8, 2023
