The fact that about 370 thousand people were hired in July doesn’t preclude the possibility or even likelihood of recession developing. The labor participation rate- the percent of adult Americans working, was fairly low before Covid. Mass layoffs during 2020 because of Covid threw millions of boomers out of work and onto early retirement. The number of people that won’t return to work from skilled positions that may be more difficult to fill than unskilled may create millions of job openings besides those of people being hired to fill jobs that were canceled temporarily.
Usually it seems that at least 150,000 people are hired as a monthly average during a normal economy. Doubling that number as a post-Covid 19 return to near normal economics draft seems about right, in a horseshoe toss sort of way. I think no one believes that 350 thousand monthly job hires is the result of a booming economy and clever administrative management.
If the labor participation rate is still low compared to normal times with the ongoing exodus of boomers from jobs it is possible that recession or producing less is a natural level of economic activity. Maybe increased use of robotics will expand economic productivity as flow-charting product through-put designs are reconfigured to use fewer human employees. The Biden administration may search for more ways to flood the nation with increased illegal alien workforce cadre to keep their salads green on restaurant tables. They did get the Congress to spend 20 billion dollars on a domestic chip development stimulus- a fraction of what they spent on donating weapons, cash and future considerations to Ukraine’s comedian president and military.
It can be very difficult for boomers seeking to return to the workforce facing age discrimination. It is also a fact that once people start drawing social security retirement they can no longer change the amount with further work disincentivizing them to work. I do not know if they must pay into social security if they do return to work since the payments would do nothing for themselves. Maybe Congress should act to reform social security a little to address the reality of boomer retirements in 2021 and 2022 and let them return to work if they prefer for a few more years with their retirement payments suspended and a future fresh approach to retirement made to renormalize matters. A few extra years of work paying into social security can result in a better retirement check when one does retire, while early retirement and no work is deleterious.
Democrats are attempting to pass an environmental bill worth 70 billion a year for ten years as a reaction to global warming. Most objective people would say that is far too small of an investment that will not slow global warming sufficiently to terminate more deleterious effects ahead economically. Cynics might note the main reason that sum was proffered was the attempt to get Democrats re-elected in November.
The administration also seeks to let retirees on Medicare who can afford Plan B – a requirement for buying into Plan D that is the Medicare drug coverage- have the opportunity to negotiate drug prices as a collective bargaining unit in order to lower costs of drugs. Like Obamacare that left many of the poor out of its plan for many reasons, the Biden drug plan excludes poor retirees who can’t afford Plan B from getting reduced prescription drug prices in Plan D. If those making laws and implementing them were not so prosperous they would be able to comprehend that those Americans excluded from workforce participation much of their lives are also excluded from the collective benefits those better off share.
If President Obama had not been a former cocaine using tobacco smoking Harvard front man he would have included the poor in his medical plan so no citizens are excluded from Plan B and D when too old to fashionably be employed in the lunatic American society of the Democrat Party. If there are not too many Americans that poor, so few that rich Democrat politicians don’t notice them, it shouldn’t be too costly to their 33 trillion dollar economy to provide Plan B and D coverage for that fractional minority.
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