Another Republican President, Another Recession.

hanimmal said:

Im a lot more optimistic about our species, mainly because I look at us as operating at about whatever super small percentage that makes up the Wealthy White Heterosexual Male population (vs everyone in our species being able to succeed and lead our society) over the last couple thousand years.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. employers added a modest 199,000 jobs last month while the unemployment rate fell sharply, at a time when businesses are struggling to fill jobs with many Americans remaining reluctant to return to the workforce.

The Labor Department said Friday that the nation’s unemployment rate fell to a healthy 3.9% from 4.2% in November.

Omicron has sickened millions of Americans, forced airlines to cancel thousands of flights, reduced traffic and restaurants and bars and caused some major school systems to close, potentially keeping some parents at home with children and unable to work.

Still, the job market may be healthier than the modest hiring gain the government reported Friday. The aftermath of the pandemic has made the government’s employment figures more volatile, with one month’s data often followed by a sharply different trend a month or two later.

The economy has also shown resilience in the face of surging inflation, the prospect of higher loan rates and the spread of the omicron variant. Most businesses report steady demand from their customers despite chronic supply shortages.

Consumer spending and business purchases of machinery and equipment likely propelled the economy to a robust annual growth rate of roughly 7% in the final three months of 2021. Americans’ confidence in the economy rose slightly in December, according to the Conference Board, suggesting that spending probably remained healthy through year’s end.

Even with December’s modest gain, 2021 was one of the best years for American workers in decades, though one that followed 2020, the job market’s worst year since records began in 1939, a consequence of the pandemic recession. Companies posted a record number of open jobs last year and offered sharply higher pay to try to find and keep workers. Americans responded by quitting jobs in droves, mainly for better pay at other employers.

Economists have cautioned that job growth may slow in January and possibly February because of the spike in new omicron infections, which have forced millions of newly infected workers to stay home and quarantine, disrupting employers ranging from ski resorts to airlines to hospitals.

Alaska Airlines said it’s cutting 10% of its flights in January because of an “unprecedented” number of employees calling in sick. But because omicron is less virulent than previous COVID-19 variants and few states or localities have moved to limit business operations, economists say they believe its economic impact will be short-lived.

Still, Andrew Hunter, an economist at Capital Economics, a forecasting firm, calculates that up to 5 million people — roughly 2% of America’s workforce — could be stuck at home with COVID over the next week or so. Workers without sick leave who miss a paycheck are classified by the government as jobless. Any such trend could sharply lower job gains in the employment report for January, to be released next month.

Omicron will also likely weigh on jobs at restaurants and bars. The number of Americans willing to eat at restaurants started to slip in late December, according to the reservations website OpenTable. Restaurant traffic was nearly at pre-pandemic levels for much of November but had fallen nearly 25% below those levels by Dec. 30, based on a weekly average of OpenTable data.

Other measures of the economy have mostly reflected a resilient economy. A survey of manufacturing purchasing managers found that factory output grew at a healthy pace in December, if slower than in previous months. Hiring also picked up. Auto dealers report that demand for new cars is still strong, with sales held back by semiconductor chip shortages that have hobbled auto production.

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hanimmal said:

The Republicans seem to love dumping a recession on the American economy.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/02/another-gop-president-another-recession/View attachment 4521334
President Trump did not create the coronavirus, but his failure to act swiftly and implement extensive testing and contact tracing left us with one option: extreme social distancing. And naturally, social distancing meant the economy ground to a halt. In that sense, the recession is a product of Trump’s mismanagement and willful ignorance. And that recession will be frightfully severe.

Full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic

The Post reports: “More than 6.6 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week — a record — as political and public health leaders put the economy in a deep freeze, keeping people at home and trying to slow the spread of the deadly coronavirus.” The magnitude of the job losses so far — and there will be more to come — is staggering. (“The past two weeks have erased nearly all the jobs created in the past five years, a sign of how rapid, deep and painful the economic shutdown has been on many American families who are struggling to pay rent and health insurance costs in the midst of a pandemic.”) The number of claims so far, more than 10 million, is likely understated “since a lot of newly unemployed Americans haven’t been able to fill out a claim yet.”

As businesses find they can no longer hold out, declare bankruptcy or shut their doors, more people will lose their jobs. Employees asked to take pay cuts one month will find that their employer in a month or two can no longer keep them on payroll at all.

In looking at the political implications of this horror show, one need only recall the 2008 Great Recession. The causes of that financial collapse — e.g., unregulated financial instruments, negligence from ratings companies, lender deception, the Federal Reserve’s failure to act — were complicated. Nevertheless, the politicians who resisted warnings (from then-Harvard professor Elizabeth Warren, among other people) and favored a Wild West deregulated financial industry have unique culpability. And the party in charge at the time — the Republicans — bore the brunt of the voters wrath at the polls. Do we imagine this domestic debacle will play out differently?

Trump and his Republicans are vulnerable on three counts: failure to act to head off the pandemic, failure to respond adequately to the crisis and corruption in the response (in an administration already infamous for corruption and self-dealing).

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), among Trump’s most fervent enablers, picked a poor time to declare that the federal government should stop helping. The Post’s Robert Costa reports that McConnell delivered a “sweeping dismissal” of the call from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for a fourth stimulus package:

In her initial written response, Pelosi said, “The victims of the coronavirus pandemic cannot wait. It is moving faster than the leader may have suspected, and even he has said that some things should wait for the next bill.”

At her weekly news conference, she was even more emphatic, both on continuing to fund the recovery and on clamping down on corruption. She urged more money for equipment for health-care responders and other “front-line workers,” funds for states to manage unemployment insurance claims and a major effort on infrastructure (including water, broadband and community health-care centers). Reacting to the unemployment claims, she asked, “Does that just not take your breath away?” As for McConnell, she said bluntly, “We’ll have our bill.”

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Perhaps most important, Pelosi will set up a House select committee to oversee the entire coronavirus effort, much like then-Sen. Harry Truman did for World War II funding, to crack down on waste, fraud and abuse.

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GreauxFast said:

sort and sweet genius….how is this a Republican problem when all three branches of government are controlled by Democrats?

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GreauxFast said:

sort and sweet genius….how is this a Republican problem when all three branches of government are controlled by Democrats?

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CatHedral said:

Have we progressed to the really stupid questions?

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GreauxFast said:

sort and sweet genius….how is this a Republican problem when all three branches of government are controlled by Democrats?

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Inflation jumped in December at its fastest year-over-year pace in nearly four decades, surging 7% and raising costs for consumers, offsetting recent wage gains and heightening pressure on President Joe Biden and the Federal Reserve to address what is increasingly Americans’ central economic concern.

Prices have spiked during the recovery from the pandemic recession as Americans have ramped up spending on goods such as cars, furniture and appliances. Those increased purchases have clogged ports and warehouses and exacerbated supply shortages of semiconductors and other parts. Gas prices, while declining a bit from November to December, have surged in the past year, in part because Americans have driven more in recent months after having cut back on travel and commuting earlier in the pandemic.

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The Labor Department reported Wednesday that excluding volatile food and gas prices, so-called core prices surged 0.6% from November to December, slightly more than the 0.5% increase from October to November. Measured year over year, core prices jumped 5.5% in December, the fastest such increase since 1991.

Rising prices have wiped out the healthy pay increases that many Americans have been receiving, making it harder for households, especially lower-income families, to afford basic expenses. Poll show that inflation has started displacing even the coronavirus as a public concern, making clear the political threat it poses to President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats.

A significant portion of consumer inflation is still being driven by pandemic-driven mismatches between demand and supply. Used car costs rose 3.5% from November to December and have soared more than 37% compared with a year ago. With new car production restrained by shortages of semiconductors, consumers have snapped up used cars, forcing up their costs.

Shortages at U.S. grocery stores have also grown more acute in recent weeks as new problems, like the omicron variant and severe weather, have compounded the supply chain struggles and labor shortages that have plagued retailers since the coronavirus pandemic erupted.

On Tuesday, Chair Jerome Powell told Congress that the Federal Reserve is prepared to accelerate the interest rate hikes it plans to begin this year if it deems it necessary to curb high inflation. Fed officials have estimated that they will raise their benchmark short-term rate, now pegged near zero, three times this year. Many economists envision as many as four Fed rate hikes in 2022.

Those rate increases would likely increase borrowing costs for home and auto purchases as well as for business loans, potentially slowing the economy. The rate hikes also mark a sharp reversal in policy by Fed policymakers, who as recently as September had been split over whether to raise rates even once this year. The Fed is also rapidly ending its monthly bond purchases, which were intended to lower longer-term interest rates to encourage borrowing and spending.

Yet the Fed’s quick pivot hasn’t quelled questions from many former Fed officials, economists and some senators about whether the Fed has acted too slowly to end its ultra-low-interest rate policies in the face of accelerating inflation -- and put the economy at risk as a result.

In his testimony to Congress on Tuesday, Powell said the Fed mistakenly believed that supply chain bottlenecks that have helped drive up the prices of goods wouldn’t last nearly as long as they have. Once the supply chains were unsnarled, he said, prices would come back down.

Yet for now, the supply problems have persisted, and though there are signs that they are loosening in some industries, Powell acknowledged that progress has been limited. He noted that many cargo ships remain docked outside the port of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the nation’s largest, waiting to unload.

With the Biden administration facing public discontent over the rise in inflation, President Joe Biden has said his administration’s investments in ports, roads, bridges and other infrastructure would help ease inflation by loosening some snarled supply chains.

In the meantime, many restaurants have been passing some of their higher labor and food costs on to their customers in the form of higher prices. So far, many consumers seem willing to pay more. Gene Lee, CEO of Darden Restaurants, which owns Olive Garden and other brands, told investors recently that this is “the toughest inflationary environment we’ve seen in years.”

The company said its food and beverage costs jumped 9% during the quarter, and its hourly wage costs rose nearly 9% as it raised pay to attract workers. Darden said it raised its prices, in turn, by 2% during the quarter and expects to raise them by 4% over the next two quarters to help compensate. Rick Cardenas, the company’s president and chief operating officer, said those higher prices have yet to reduce consumer demand.

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The Biden administration on Friday announced policy changes to attract international students specializing in science, technology, engineering and math — part of the broader effort to make the U.S. economy more competitive.

The State Department will let eligible visiting students in those fields, known as STEM, complete up to 36 months of academic training, according to senior administration officials. There will also be a new initiative to connect these students with U.S. businesses. The officials insisted on anonymity to discuss the changes before their official announcement.

Homeland Security will add 22 new fields of study — including cloud computing, data visualization and data science — to a program that allows international graduates from U.S. universities to spend up to three additional years training with domestic employers. The program generated about 58,000 applications in fiscal 2020.

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The programs are designed to ensure that the U.S. is a magnet for talent from around the world, attracting scientists and researchers whose breakthroughs will enable the economy to grow. Government data shows that international students are increasingly the lifeblood of academic research.

The government’s National Science Board reported this week that international students on temporary visas account for more than half of U.S. doctoral degrees in economics, computer sciences, engineering and mathematics and statistics. But in the sciences and engineering, China is fast closing the gap in doctoral degrees by generating nearly as many graduates as the U.S. did in 2018.

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High school graduation rates dipped in at least 20 states after the first full school year disrupted by the pandemic, suggesting the coronavirus may have ended nearly two decades of nationwide progress toward getting more students diplomas, an analysis shows.

The drops came despite at least some states and educators loosening standards to help struggling students.

The results, according to data obtained from 26 states and analyzed by Chalkbeat, are the latest concerning trend in American education, which has been rocked by a pandemic that left many students learning remotely last year and continues to complicate teaching and learning. Some fear that the next several graduating classes could be even more affected.

“It does concern me,” said Chris Reykdal, the schools superintendent in Washington state, where the graduation rate fell by about half a point. “I don’t ever want to see a decline. We’ve made such steady progress.”

In 2020, when schools shuttered for the final months of the school year, most states waived outstanding graduation requirements and saw graduation rates tick up. But the picture was different for the class of 2021. In 20 of 26 states that have released their data, graduation rates fell. Comprehensive national data will likely not be available until 2023.

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Those declines were less than a percentage point in some states, like Colorado, Georgia and Kansas. Elsewhere, they were larger. Illinois, Oregon, and North Dakota saw graduation rates drop 2 points, and Indiana, Maine, Nevada, South Dakota, and West Virginia saw declines of at least 1 point.

Where rates increased, growth was modest. Florida had seen graduation rates jump by more than 2 points every year for a decade but gained just a tenth of a point in 2021, even as state officials waived certain diploma requirements.

“We do have to be concerned that grad rates are down and that some number of kids that earned a diploma, they’ve learned less than prior years,” said Robert Balfanz, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Education and director of a research center focused on high school graduation. “What we’re going to have to learn in the future is, how great is the concern?”

Last year’s senior class saw school disrupted in distinct ways. In Nevada’s Washoe County schools, for example, the graduation rate tumbled by 2.6 points as many teens worked longer hours or spent more time caring for siblings.

Carly Lott, a counselor at Hug High School in Reno, grew concerned last year as the hours on her students’ pay stubs, which the school collects to offer elective credits, rose from 20 to 30 a week to 40 to 50. Some students worked during remote school days, while others took late-night shifts that left them too tired to concentrate on schoolwork.

Lott made sure students knew about the district’s food bank and grew used to asking, “Do you absolutely need to work, or can you cut back?” As course failures stacked up, a trend schools reported nationwide, counselors nudged seniors to come to school in person to make up missed credits.

“If they were at home, they weren’t engaged — they were doing other things,” Lott said.

One of last year’s graduates, 19-year-old De’karius Graham, had an up-close view of how 12th graders struggled.

There was no prom to look forward to, and all his senior classes at Florida’s Polk County schools were online, an experience he describes as “low social interaction, low teacher interaction.” He often turned to YouTube to figure out confusing assignments.

“It was a lot of self-teaching and self-motivation,” he said. “I was just really alone with it all.”

At the same time, Graham was running his own landscaping business to make money and helping seven school-age siblings with their homework. He also spent time working with a close friend who struggled with online assignments without reliable internet.

Other students got derailed. Eighteen-year-old Lailani Greaves had been behind before the pandemic but was aiming to graduate with the class of 2021. Without in-person connections, her motivation plummeted.

“I didn’t have a clear head where I was focused and able to go every day and catch up on some work and log in to the computer,” she said. “Just talking to a computer — it didn’t feel real.”

The New York City student contemplated dropping out and getting her GED but ultimately transferred to a smaller high school and is hopeful she’ll graduate this year.

“I realized that I could go farther with my high school diploma,” said Greaves, who wants to pursue a career in medicine.

Despite those challenges, statewide graduation rates are still typically higher now than they were a few years ago. But the modest declines are striking departures from recent trends.

In 2001, an estimated 71% of U.S. students who started ninth grade at a public high school graduated four years later. By 2019, that number had jumped to 86%, although the nation’s way of calculating that has changed slightly.

On its face, that increase is one of the biggest recent success stories in American education. A recent Brookings Institution study concluded that the gains were a result of new federal pressure on states and schools and found little evidence that the long-term improvements were due to lower standards.

The causes are much debated, though. A 2015 NPR investigation found that many students graduated with the help of hasty, low-quality credit recovery courses. Some of the states with the nation’s top graduation rates, like Alabama and West Virginia, also have very low test scores.

Some fear that cumulative effects of the pandemic stand to hit future graduating classes hardest. In both Oregon and Nevada, the share of high school freshmen who finished last school year on track to graduate was about 10 percentage points lower than before the pandemic. This school year, attendance has also been unusually low.

Lott worries many seniors won’t graduate on time this year, either.

“We have a significant group of kids on our campus who failed an entire year of high school,” she said. Those students get extra check-ins with Lott, who says it will be hard but not impossible to make up those classes through online credit recovery.

“I tell them, there will be a time that you’re going to want to give up,” she said. “That’s when we need to talk with you, because we can help you through that motivational slump.”

Schools have received large sums of federal aid that could be used to help students to graduate, but Washington’s Reykdal said schools have recently been focused on staffing and safety.

“If I had talked to my districts a year ago, they all would have said graduation and recovery, and right now they’re saying more PPE, finding substitutes,” he said.

Still, some educators are hopeful last year’s dip represents an anomaly. In Peoria, Illinois, where the graduation rate fell 4 points after climbing steadily for years, Superintendent Sharon Desmoulin-Kherat thinks the district’s expanded “safety net” for struggling students will help.

Every week, a team of educators identifies students with failing grades for extra support. The district has also added ways for working students to earn credits in the evenings or on weekends, and has hired three “navigators” to help students who are in the juvenile justice system to finish school.

“It is not easy,” Desmoulin-Kherat said. “It’s definitely a marathon, not a sprint.”

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy grew last year at the fastest pace since Ronald Reagan’s presidency, bouncing back with resilience from 2020′s brief but devastating coronavirus recession.

The nation’s gross domestic product — its total output of goods and services — expanded 5.7% in 2021. It was the strongest calendar-year growth since a 7.2% surge in 1984 after a previous recession. The economy ended the year by growing at an unexpectedly brisk 6.9% annual pace from October through December as businesses replenished their inventories, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.

“It just goes to show that the U.S. economy has learned to adapt to the new variants and continues to produce,″ said Beth Ann Bovino, chief economist at Standard & Poor’s Global Ratings.

Squeezed by inflation and still gripped by COVID-19 caseloads, the economy is expected to slow this year. Many economists have been downgrading their forecasts for the current January-March quarter, reflecting the impact of the omicron variant. And for all of 2022, the International Monetary Fund has forecast that the the nation’s GDP growth will slow to 4%.

Many U.S. businesses, especially restaurants, bars, hotels and entertainment venues, remain under pressure from the omicron variant, which has kept millions of people hunkered down at home to avoid crowds. Consumer spending, the primary driver of the economy, may be further held back this year by the loss of government aid to households, which nurtured activity in 2020 and 2021 but has mainly expired.

What’s more, the Federal Reserve made clear Wednesday that it plans to raise interest rates multiple times this year to battle the hottest inflation in nearly four decades. Those rate increases will make borrowing more expensive and perhaps slow the economy this year.

Growth last year was driven up by a 7.9% surge in consumer spending and a 9.5% increase in private investment.

For the final three months of 2021, consumer spending rose at a more muted 3.3% annual pace. But private investment rocketed 32% higher, boosted by a surge in business inventories as companies stocked up to meet higher customer demand. Rising inventories, in fact, accounted for 71% of the fourth-quarter growth.

“The upside surprise came largely from a surge in inventories, and the details aren’t as strong as the headline would suggest,″ Kathy Bostjancic, Oxford Economics’ chief U.S. financial economist, said in a research note.

In a statement, President Joe Biden said, “We are finally building an American economy for the 21st century, with the fastest economic growth in nearly four decades, along with the greatest year of job growth in American history.”

Arising from the 2020 pandemic recession, a healthy rebound had been expected for 2021. GDP had shrunk 3.4% in 2020, the steepest full-year drop since an 11.6% plunge in 1946, when the nation was demobilizing after World War II. The eruption of COVID in March 2020 had led authorities to order lockdowns and businesses to abruptly shut down or reduce hours. Employers slashed a staggering 22 million jobs. The economy sank into a deep recession.

But super-low interest rates, huge infusions of government aid — including $1,400 checks to most households — and, eventually, the widespread rollout of vaccines revived the economy. Many consumers regained the confidence and financial wherewithal to go out and spend again.

The resurgence in demand was so robust, in fact, that it caught businesses off guard. Many struggled to acquire enough supplies and workers to meet a swift increase in customer orders. With many people now working remotely, shortages became especially acute for goods ordered for homes, from appliances to sporting goods to electronic equipment. And with computer chips in especially short supply, auto dealers were left desperately short of vehicles.

Factories, ports and freight yards were overwhelmed, and supply chains became ensnarled. Inflation began to accelerate. Over the past 12 months, consumer prices soared 7% — the fastest year-over-year inflation since 1982. Food, energy and autos were among the items whose prices soared the most.

Late last year, the economy began to show signs of fatigue. Retail sales, for instance, fell 1.9% in December. And manufacturing slowed in December to its lowest level in 11 months, according to the Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing index.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden urged U.S. governors on Monday to ramp up their construction plans as his administration rolled out a guidebook for accessing the nearly $1 trillion made available by the bipartisan infrastructure deal.

Biden welcomed governors to the White House on Monday as part of the winter meeting of the National Governors Association, and he cajoled them on the importance of infrastructure.

“You know how to build roads and bridges,” the Democratic president told them. “Well, we got a hell of a lot to build.”

After the meeting, a pair of governors described infrastructure as a place for bipartisan cooperation and stressed that it was important for states to be able to spend money as they see fit.

“In terms of the infrastructure, the magic word from the governors is give us flexibility, hold us accountable, but we know how to invest in infrastructure and, trust us, and we want to partner with the administration,” Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican and chairman of the National Governors Association.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat and the association’s vice chairman, said infrastructure was “probably the topic that came up the most, was discussed the most, and where we found an enormous amount of enthusiasm.” Murphy added that he would “underscore” the significance of “flexibility ... in terms of how the monies can be spent. ”

Mitch Landrieu, a senior White House adviser who is supervising the infrastructure spending, said the goal of the 461-page book is to ensure that all communities have the details on how to qualify for funding, no matter their size or politics.

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“It’s an absolute road map,” said Landrieu, a former mayor of New Orleans.

The book is meant to level the playing field by making it easier for smaller cities, tribal leaders, nonprofits and faith-based groups to compete for money that usually only lobbyists know how to access. The infrastructure deal is unique in its scope as it goes beyond roads and bridges to include such initiatives as broadband internet, replacement of lead water pipes and resilience against climate change.

Administration officials assembled the guidebook quickly as the infrastructure package became law on Nov. 15. Copies are available online at build.gov, though the administration is working with associations and direct contacts to make sure it reaches government officials in communities of all sizes. Landrieu said he has already spoken with 43 governors and more than 250 mayors as part of the push.

The infrastructure package includes 375 distinct programs, of which 125 are new. And while the guidebook is more than twice the size of the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel “The Great Gatsby,” it’s considerably shorter and easier to navigate than the infrastructure law, which stretched for more than 1,000 pages.

About 60% of the funds are available through formula and 40% through competitive applications. Not all the infrastructure money is able to go out as the federal government is operating on a continuing resolution that runs through Feb. 18, instead of an annual budget. Still, not all of the money will go out immediately as the programs are generally operating on a five- to seven-year timeline.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. employers added a burst of 467,000 jobs in January despite a wave of omicron inflections that sickened millions of workers, kept many consumers at home and left businesses from restaurants to manufacturers short-staffed.

The Labor Department’s report Friday also showed the unemployment rate ticked up from 3.9% to 4%. Estimated job growth for December was also revised much higher, from 199,000 to 510,000.

The strong hiring gain, which was unexpected, demonstrates the eagerness of many employers to hire even as the pandemic maintains its grip on the economy. Businesses appear to have seen the omicron wave as having, at most, a temporary impact on the economy and remain confident about longer-term growth.

The still-high number of people who have remained on the sidelines of the workforce has exacerbated a labor shortage and led employers to raise pay to try to draw them back in.

The overall outlook for the job market remains bright, with openings near a record high, the pace of layoffs down and the unemployment rate having already reached a healthy level. The nation gained more jobs last year, adjusted for the size of the workforce, than in any year since 1978. The unemployment rate fell by nearly 3 percentage points — from 6.7% to 3.9% — the sharpest yearly decline on records. Much of that improvement represented a rebound from record job losses in 2020 that were driven by the pandemic recession.

Even so, the economy’s strong growth and hiring gains last year were accompanied by the highest inflation in four decades, magnified by brisk consumer spending on furniture, electronics, appliances and other goods and vast infusions of federal aid that has now largely expired.

Snarled supply chains hampered the availability of many goods, especially new and used vehicles, forcing prices up sharply. Prices of food, energy and housing soared, too. High inflation has wiped out many Americans’ pay gains.

Omicron infections are likely slowing the economy in the January-March quarter, particularly compared with the rapid expansion in the final three months of 2021, when it grew at a robust 6.9% annual rate. Some analysts have forecast that growth will weaken to an annual rate as low as 1% in the first three months of this year.

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One reason for the slowdown: Americans cut their spending in January as the spread of the coronavirus discouraged some people from eating out, traveling and going to movies and other entertainment venues.

Yet as omicron fades, there are signs that consumers are poised to spend again. Auto sales jumped in January after several months of declines. Carmakers have managed to slowly ramp up production. And Americans’ incomes rose at a solid pace last month, providing fuel for future spending.

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Experts predicted a bad jobs report but Americans were very pleasantly surprised when the Bureau of Labor Statistics Friday reported 467,000 jobs were created in January – tripling estimates – and increased the two previous months' jobs numbers as well.

HOLY COW Revisions added 700,000 jobs to the last two months YUGE
— Stephanie Ruhle (@SRuhle) February 4, 2022

Most Americans, that is.

Take a look at how Fox News was "giddy with anticipation of massive job loss," as Media Matters' Senior Research Fellow Craig Harrington noted, posting this video compilation:

Up until just *seconds* before the release of the January jobs report, Fox News was giddy with anticipation of massive job loss... pic.twitter.com/kH5dZOQYF4
— Craig Harrington (@Craigipedia) February 4, 2022

"Fox News, rooting against America," decried Never-Trumper Bill Kristol.

"Real patriots don’t root for failure. But that’s exactly what Fox News does," wrote veteran journalist Jim Roberts in response to the video.

CNN Contributor, World affairs columnist Frida Ghitis: "How embarrassing, Fox rooting for bad news for the country."

John Haltiwanger, a Senior Politics Reporter at BusinessInsider said Fox News was "Rooting for America to fail to own the libs."

And Lincoln Project member and veteran GOP campaign strategist Stuart Stevens wrote this response to the video:

"Most appealing aspect of Reagan era was optimism. To be born an American was to win life's lottery. Now Rs are all fear & pessimism. Grievance. Books are terrifying, America's great cities are terrifying. Immigrants are terrifying. The future is terrifying. A party of the fearful"

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