Well, it is official — and not a surprise to anyone who has followed the data — the US economy created fewer jobs than previously reported. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), preliminary annual benchmark revisions to the non-farm payroll numbers from April 2023 to March 2024 were the second largest on record and the biggest since the global financial crisis. Put simply, nothing is what it seems in today’s labor market.
What Happened to the Jobs?
Wall Street was waiting with bated breath for the Department of Labor’s updates to monthly jobs data as bank economists warned that the changes would reflect a weaker labor market. The numbers did not disappoint, with the revisions confirming that actual job growth was exaggerated by 818,000 in the 12 months ending in March 2024. This was 30% less than what the federal government initially reported.
Before the revisions, the average monthly employment gains were 242,000. Following the new data? The average increase was 174,000.
Of course, all the downward adjustments were in the private sector, as the government recorded a gain of 1,000. The most significant declines were observed in professional and business services (negative 358,000), leisure and hospitality (negative 150,000), retail (negative 129,000), and manufacturing (negative 115,000). In addition to the public sector, private education and health services and “other services” saw an upward change of 87,000 and 21,000, respectively.
The announcement was unsurprising as the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia sounded the alarm last year that the “BLS had overstated payrolls by 800,000 through Dec 2023.” Additionally, as Liberty Nation News has routinely reported, the master Excel coders have regularly revised the non-farm monthly payrolls report over the last two years.
While it cements a quarter-point interest rate cut at the Federal Reserve’s September policy meeting, the numbers present market watchers with questions. First, how would the jobs numbers have influenced the financial markets if they had been reported accurately? Second, would the Fed have loosened monetary policy earlier? Third, what about the political consequences?
Ultimately, everyone should prepare for further revisions in the coming year. It is the new normal.
Don’t Call It Price Controls
Vice President Kamala Harris recently unveiled her doctrine of Kamalanomics, which was essentially little changed from President Joe Biden’s economic policies. Her limited announcement of price controls, er, price gouging crackdowns, captured much of the attention — and for good reason! Despite the proposal clearly emulating this socialist scheme, the presidential campaign and the mainstream media want to inform everyone that these are not price controls.
But while her allies clearly wish to distance this public policy pursuit from such a disastrous concept, these same individuals and entities cannot distance themselves from previous statements and reporting. Case in point, Axios and Keynesian economist Paul Krugman.
First, the news outlet wrote on social media platform X: “Don’t call it price controls: How price gouging bans really work.” Fortunately, the post was slapped with a Community Notes fact-check. Readers alluded to the publication’s 2023 description of the UK’s proposed caps on grocery store profits as price controls. In 2022, the same organization called it price controls when it was discussed how to limit Russia’s profit from crude oil during a crisis.
Second, the Mises Institute’s Jonathan Newman quipped at the remarks between “Krugman-the-textbook-author” and “Krugman-the-columnist.” The President of Krugmanation has stated that he has not championed price controls but rather a ban on price gouging on groceries. “Of course, these are the same thing,” Newman noted. Indeed, even if you wish to label it as a price ceiling, Krugman has opposed this supposed prescription in the past, pointing to the typical arguments of shortages, low quality, wasted resources, and black markets. Today, however, Krugman is ignoring his past writings and trying to provide cover for the vice president.
Gold Glitters
You may not have noticed, but gold prices keep hitting fresh record highs this year and serving as one of the top-performing assets in the global financial markets. In fact, the yellow metal has posted 29 record finishes in 2024, topping $2,500 per ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Year-to-date, gold prices have rallied about 23%. The causes for the metal commodity’s substantial increase include investors penciling in the Fed cutting interest rates, the US dollar erasing its year-to-date gains, US Treasury yields tanking, solid central bank demand, and geopolitical tensions.
