Another Republican President, Another Recession.

STURTEVANT, Wis. (AP) — President Joe Biden on Wednesday laced into Donald Trump over a failed project in the previous administration that was supposed to bring thousands of new jobs into southeastern Wisconsin and trumpeted new economic investments under his watch that are coming to the same spot.

That location in the battleground state will now be the site of a new data center from Microsoft, whose president credited the Biden administration’s economic policies for paving the way for the new investments. For Biden, it offered another point of contrast between him and Trump, who had promised a $10 billion investment by the Taiwan-based electronics giant Foxconn that never came.

“In fact, he came here with your senator, Ron Johnson, literally holding a golden shovel, promising to build the eighth wonder of the world. You kidding me?” Biden told the crowd of about 300 people, who clapped and cheered loudly as he spoke. “Look what happened. They dug a hole with those golden shovels, and then they fell into it.”

Noting that 100 homes were destroyed to make way for the project, which wasted hundreds of millions of dollars, Biden added a jab: “Foxconn turned out to be just that — a con. Go figure.”

Biden was in Sturtevant, in Racine County, to promote the $3.3 billion Microsoft data center, which the Democratic president said will employ about 2,300 union construction workers to build it and then 2,000 permanent employees to staff it.

Microsoft President Brad Smith said in an interview with The Associated Press that Microsoft had a “steadfast commitment to under-promising and over-delivering” and praised the Biden administration and the state’s Democratic governor, Tony Evers, for economic policies that set the stage for the developments announced Wednesday.

But Biden was eager to take the credit and use the opportunity to repeatedly take swings at Trump, arguing that his presumptive Republican challenger embraced the same type of “trickle-down economics” that Biden abhors and failed to revive domestic manufacturing during his four years in the White House.

“Folks, during the previous administration, my predecessor made promises, which he broke more than kept, left a lot of people behind in communities like Racine,” Biden said. “On my watch, we make promises, and we keep promises.”

Trump’s campaign didn’t address Foxconn, but the Republican former president often says the economy was in a much better position when he was in office and will be again should he win in 2024. Republican National Committee chairman Michael Whatley said Biden’s trip was an attempt to “save face in Racine County as Wisconsinites feel the pain of Bidenomics.”

“Manufacturing has stalled, family farms are shuttering, and costs are up for everything from electricity and gas to food and housing,” Whatley said. “It’s no wonder why Biden is losing in Wisconsin and battleground states across the country: his policies have failed and people want President Trump back in office.”

Foxconn, meanwhile, said its current Wisconsin operation “greatly contributes” to the company, which has invested roughly $1 billion in the state and now employs more than 1,000 people at Foxconn Wisconsin.

Wisconsin Republican U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, who represents the district where Biden was visiting Wednesday, said the Microsoft announcement was good for workers. But Steil said Biden is using it to hide his record on failing to control rising inflation and said Biden was taking credit for private-sector work in the region that began a decade ago, much of it for the Foxconn project.

As for Trump, he was back in Florida on his day off from his New York hush money trial on Wednesday, meeting at his Mar-a-Lago club with people who, as part of a promotion, bought digital trading card NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to publicly discuss it. The “MugShot Edition” NFTs featured images of Trump as a cowboy, with lightning coming out of his hands, walking by the U.S. Capitol and taking the place of Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial.

Later, Biden met with about 50 Black supporters and volunteers at a community center in nearby Racine, noting that he first got into politics “because of the African-American community.”

He also briefly laid out the stakes for the election, warning of the potential risk to democracy and Trump’s threats to “get rid of all the stuff that we’ve done.”

Racine County is a critical location. All but five of the past 33 winning presidential candidates carried it. Trump is one of the five. He won Racine County but lost the election. Biden was the first Democrat since 1976 to win Wisconsin without carrying Racine County.

The race is expected to be close in Wisconsin, where four of the past six presidential elections have been decided by less than a percentage point. Biden won by just under 21,000 votes in 2020. A recent Marquette University poll showed that Republican voters in Wisconsin are somewhat more enthusiastic about the election than Democrats.

Biden also went to Chicago on Wednesday for a fundraiser, telling his donors that he doesn’t think the polls showing poor approval ratings for him are accurate. But he used the event to further attack Trump in a sign that he sees November’s election as hinging on how people feel about his predecessor, not necessarily Biden’s own track record.

Biden’s trip to Wisconsin — his fourth of the year and 11th as president — came as his reelection also sharpened its outreach to minority voters on the airwaves. It announced the launch of a new, $14 million digital and television blitz that follows the $30 million effort that began after his State of the Union address in early March.

One of the new ads in the latest ad campaign focuses on Trump’s failed yet determined push to repeal the Affordable Care Act. A significant portion of the $14 million campaign starting Wednesday will go into Black and Hispanic media, as well as Asian American print and radio, according to the campaign.

By the end of May, Biden’s reelection effort will have more than 200 offices and roughly 500 staff members in place, according to Dan Kanninen, the campaign’s battleground director. Those figures include offices in areas that traditionally haven’t seen investments by Democrats in pockets of Michigan, Arizona and North Carolina.

While Microsoft has been ramping up artificial intelligence-driven data center construction around the world, “this one is more important than many because there is more land and ultimately access to power available,” said Smith, who as a child lived in the area where the center is being built.

Once in operation, however, even the most powerful data centers typically employ a relatively small group of full-time employees to oversee them. Microsoft will have about 500, pulling from highly skilled workers in the corridor between Milwaukee and Chicago, Smith said.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Consumer inflation in the United States cooled slightly last month after three elevated readings, likely offering a tentative sigh of relief for officials at the Federal Reserve as well as President Joe Biden’s re-election team.

Prices rose 0.3% from March to April, the Labor Department said Wednesday, down slightly from 0.4% the previous month. Measured year-over-year, inflation ticked down from 3.5% to 3.4%. And a measure of underlying inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy costs, also eased in April.

Inflation had been unexpectedly high in the first three months of this year after having steadily dropped in the second half of 2023. The elevated readings had dimmed hopes that the worst bout of inflation in four decades was being rapidly tamed.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell responded by dropping his previous suggestions that interest rate cuts were likely this year. Instead, he stressed that the Fed’s policymakers need “greater confidence” that inflation is falling to their 2% target level before they would reduce borrowing rates from high levels.

Whether inflation continues its decline could have a significant effect on the presidential race. Republican critics of Biden have sought to pin the blame for high prices on the president and use it to try to derail his re-election bid. While hiring remains robust and wage growth, on average, healthy, prices remain generally well above their pre-pandemic levels.

On Tuesday, Powell reiterated that he still expects inflation to ultimately reach the central bank’s 2% target. But in remarks during a panel discussion in Amsterdam, Powell acknowledged that his confidence in that forecast has weakened after three straight months of elevated price readings. Inflation has fallen sharply from 9.1% in the summer of 2022 but is higher now than in June 2023, when it first touched 3%.

The Fed’s policymakers have raised their key interest rate to a 23-year high of 5.3% in an effort to quell rising prices. Powell underscored Tuesday that the Fed will keep its rate at that level for as long as needed to fully conquer inflation, a signal that rate cuts won’t begin as soon as many people had hoped.

Economists are divided over whether the high inflation figures in recent months reflect a re-acceleration in price growth or are merely echoes of pandemic-related price distortions. While auto insurance has soared 22% from a year ago, for example, that surge may reflect factors specific to the auto industry: New car prices jumped during the pandemic, and insurance companies are now seeking to offset the higher repair and replacement costs by raising premiums.

Stubbornly elevated apartment rents are another key factor behind persistent inflation. Rents soared during the pandemic as more Americans chose to live alone or sought more living space. Though rents for new leases are rising much more slowly, consistent with pre-pandemic patterns, the earlier increases are still elevating the government’s price data.

Some economists point to steady consumer spending on restaurant meals, travel and entertainment, categories where in some cases price increases have been elevated, likely reflecting strong demand.

Powell, in his remarks Tuesday, also highlighted rising rents as a key factor keeping inflation high. He called that “a bit of a puzzle” because measures of new apartment leases show new rents barely increasing. Such weaker data has apparently yet to flow into the government’s measures, which cover all rents, including for tenants who renew their leases and are facing bigger increases. Powell said the government’s measures should eventually show rent growth easing.

The Fed chair also acknowledged that the economy “is different this time” because so many Americans refinanced their mortgages at very low rates before the Fed began raising borrowing costs in March 2022. Many large businesses also locked in low rates at that time.

“It may be,” he said, that the Fed’s rate policy “is hitting the economy not quite as strongly as it would have if those two things were not the case.”

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WASHINGTON (AP) — It was a time of fear and chaos four years ago.

The death count was mounting as COVID-19 spread. Financial markets were panicked. Oil prices briefly went negative. The Federal Reserve slashed its benchmark interest rates to combat the sudden recession. And the U.S. government went on a historic borrowing spree — adding trillions to the national debt — to keep families and businesses afloat.

But as Donald Trump recalled that moment at a recent rally, the former president exuded pride.

“We had the greatest economy in history,” the Republican told his Wisconsin audience. “The 30-year mortgage rate was at a record low, the lowest ever recorded ... 2.65%, that’s what your mortgage rates were.”

The question of who can best steer the U.S. economy could be a deciding factor in who wins November’s presidential election. While an April Gallup poll found that Americans were most likely to say that immigration is the country’s top problem, the economy in general and inflation were also high on the list.

Trump may have an edge over President Joe Biden on key economic concerns, according to an April poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs. The survey found that Americans were more likely to say that as president, Trump helped the country with job creation and cost of living. Nearly 6 in 10 Americans said that Biden’s presidency hurt the country on the cost of living.

But the economic numbers expose a far more complicated reality during Trump’s time in the White House. His tax cuts never delivered the promised growth. His budget deficits surged and then stayed relatively high under Biden. His tariffs and trade deals never brought back all of the lost factory jobs.

And there was the pandemic, an event that caused historic job losses for which Trump accepts no responsibility as well as low inflation — for which Trump takes full credit.

If anything, the economy during Trump’s presidency never lived up to his own hype.

DECENT (NOT EXCEPTIONAL) GROWTH
Trump assured the public in 2017 that the U.S. economy with his tax cuts would grow at “3%,” but he added, “I think it could go to 4, 5, and maybe even 6%, ultimately.”

If the 2020 pandemic is excluded, growth after inflation averaged 2.67% under Trump, according to figures from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Include the pandemic-induced recession and that average drops to an anemic 1.45%.

By contrast, growth during the second term of then-President Barack Obama averaged 2.33%. So far under Biden, annual growth is averaging 3.4%.

MORE GOVERNMENT DEBT
Trump also assured the public that his tax cuts would pay for themselves because of stronger growth. The cuts were broad but disproportionately favored corporations and those with extreme wealth.

The tax cuts signed into law in 2017 never fulfilled Trump’s promises on deficit reduction.

According to the Office of Management and Budget, the deficit worsened to $779 billion in 2018. The Congressional Budget Office had forecasted a deficit of $563 billion before the tax cuts, meaning the tax cuts increased borrowing by $216 billion that first year. In 2019, the deficit rose to $984 billion, nearly $300 billion more than what the CBO had forecast.

Then the pandemic happened and with a flurry of government aid, the resulting deficit topped $3.1 trillion. That borrowing enabled the government to make direct payments to individuals and small businesses as the economy was in lockdown, often increasing bank accounts and making many feel better off even though the economy was in a recession.

Deficits have also run high under Biden, as he signed into law a third round of pandemic aid and other initiatives to address climate change, build infrastructure and invest in U.S. manufacturing. His budget deficits: $2.8 trillion (2021), $1.38 trillion (2022) and $1.7 trillion (2023).

The CBO estimated in a report issued Wednesday that the extension of parts of Trump’s tax cuts set to expire after 2025 would add another $4.6 trillion to the national debt through the year 2034.

LOW INFLATION (BUT NOT ALWAYS FOR GOOD REASONS)
Inflation was much lower under Trump, never topping an annual rate of 2.4%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The annual rate reached as high as 8% in 2022 under Biden and is currently at 3.4%.

There were three big reasons why inflation was low during Trump’s presidency: the legacy of the 2008 financial crisis, Federal Reserve actions and the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump entered the White House with inflation already low, largely because of the slow recovery from the Great Recession, when financial markets collapsed and millions of people lost their homes to foreclosure.

The inflation rate barely averaged more than 1% during Obama’s second term as the Fed struggled to push up growth. Still, the economy was expanding without overheating.

But in the first three years of Trump’s presidency, inflation averaged 2.1%, roughly close to the Fed’s target. Still, the Fed began to hike its own benchmark rate to keep inflation low at the central bank’s own 2% target. Trump repeatedly criticized the Fed because he wanted to juice growth despite the risks of higher prices.

Then the pandemic hit.

Inflation sank and the Fed slashed rates to sustain the economy during lockdowns.

When Trump celebrates historically low mortgage rates, he’s doing so because the economy was weakened by the pandemic. Similarly, gasoline prices fell below an average of $2 a gallon because no one was driving in April 2020 as the pandemic spread.

FEWER JOBS
The United States lost 2.7 million jobs during Trump’s presidency, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. If the pandemic months are excluded, he added 6.7 million jobs.

By contrast, 15.4 million jobs were added during Biden’s presidency. That’s 5.1 million more jobs than what the CBO forecasted he would add before his coronavirus relief and other policies became law — a sign of how much he boosted the labor market.

Both candidates have repeatedly promised to bring back factory jobs. Between 2017 and the middle of 2019, Trump added 461,000 manufacturing jobs. But the gains began to stall and then turned into layoffs during the pandemic, with the Republican posting a loss of 178,000 jobs.

So far, the U.S. economy has added 773,000 manufacturing jobs during Biden’s presidency.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation’s economy accelerated last quarter at a strong 2.8% annual pace, with consumers and businesses helping drive growth despite the pressure of continually high interest rates.

Thursday’s report from the Commerce Department said the gross domestic product — the economy’s total output of goods and services — picked up in the April-June quarter after growing at a 1.4% pace in the January-March period. Economists had expected a weaker 1.9% annual pace of growth.

The GDP report also showed that inflation continues to ease, while still remaining above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. The central bank’s favored inflation gauge rose at a 2.6% annual rate last quarter, down from 3.4% in the first quarter of the year. Excluding volatile food and energy prices, so-called core PCE inflation increased at a 2.9% pace. That was down from 3.7% from January through March.

The latest figures should reinforce confidence that the U.S. economy is on the verge of achieving a rare “soft landing,” whereby high interest rates, engineered by the Fed, tame inflation without tipping the economy into a recession.

Helping boost last quarter’s expansion was consumer spending, the heart of the U.S. economy. It rose at a 2.3% annual rate in the April-June quarter, up from a 1.5% pace in the January-March period. Spending on goods, such as cars and appliances, increased at a 2.5% rate after falling at a 2.3% pace in the first three months of the year.

Business investment was up last quarter, led by a 11.6% annual increase in equipment investment. Growth also picked up because businesses increased their inventories. On the other hand, a surge in imports, which are subtracted from GDP, shaved about 0.9 percentage point from the April-June growth.

Fed officials have made clear that with inflation edging toward their 2% target level, they’re prepared to start cutting interest rates soon, something they’re widely expected to do in September.

“The Fed will be reassured’’ by Thursday’s GDP report, said Bill Adams, chief economist at Comerica Bank. “With inflation trending lower ... the Fed thinks that it’s getting close to the time to cut interest rates.’’

Rate reductions by the Fed would, over time, reduce consumers’ borrowing costs for things like mortgages, auto loans and credit cards.

The state of the economy has seized Americans’ attention as the presidential campaign has intensified. Though inflation has slowed sharply, to 3% from 9.1% in 2022, prices remain well above their pre-pandemic levels.

This year’s economic slowdown reflects, in large part, the much higher borrowing rates for home and auto loans, credit cards and many business loans resulting from the Fed’s aggressive series of interest rate hikes.

The Fed’s rate hikes — 11 of them in 2022 and 2023 — were a response to the flare-up in inflation that began in the spring of 2021 as the economy rebounded with unexpected speed from the COVID-19 recession, causing severe supply shortages. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 made things worse by inflating prices for the energy and grains the world depends on. Prices spiked across the country and the world.

Economists had long predicted that the higher borrowing costs would tip the United States into recession. Yet the economy kept chugging along. Consumers, whose spending accounts for roughly 70% of GDP, kept buying things, emboldened by a strong job market and savings they had built up during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

The slowdown at the start of this year was caused largely by two factors, each of which can vary sharply from quarter to quarter: A surge in imports and a drop in business inventories. Neither trend revealed much about the economy’s underlying health.

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Shortly after President Joe Biden left the race a week ago, Harris began to craft her own narrative around the economy by putting an emphasis on ending child poverty, promoting labor unions, reducing the costs of health and child care and protecting “dignity” in retirement.

Not once in speeches in Wisconsin, Indiana or Texas did she mention the word “inflation” — the overwhelming economic challenge that has dogged Biden’s administration and forced him in remarks to consistently acknowledge voters’ pain as they cope with higher grocery, gasoline, housing and auto expenses.

Harris is putting a bigger priority on what she says could be ahead.

“In our vision of the future, we see a place where every person has the opportunity not just to get by but to get ahead — a future where no child has to grow up in poverty, where every senior can retire with dignity and where every worker has the freedom to join a union,” Harris told the American Federation of Teachers on Thursday.

But Republicans have moved quickly to try to blame Harris for the inflation that until recently they pinned on Biden. They are emphasizing the cumulative impact of high prices under the Democratic administration.

Labor Department data show that consumer prices are up 19.2% since Biden took office, while average hourly earnings have risen 16.9%.

GOP leaders are openly saying Harris contributed to the inflation without specifying how she managed to do so other than by being vice president.

“Vice President Harris owns this administration’s record,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. “Her fingerprints are all over the past four years of failure.”

Past and current officials who worked with Harris said in interviews that there is an expectation that criticism on inflation will not stick to her because for many voters she represents a fresh voice after nearly eight years with either Republican Donald Trump or Biden in the Oval Office.

Now it’s time for Harris to spell out her own policy positions on economic matters.

Some of those officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss political matters, said Harris is likely to stay in line with Biden’s 2025 budget proposal and its plan to increase the corporate tax rate to 28% from the 21% set by Trump’s 2017 tax overhaul.

Her emergence as the Democratic nominee has overlapped with positive economic news.

The Commerce Department said Thursday that the economy grew at an annual pace of 2.8% in the second quarter. On Friday, it reported that the personal consumption expenditures measure of inflation eased to an annual 2.5%, with financial markets now expecting a Federal Reserve interest rate cut in September.

Those who have known Harris for years said her work as a prosecutor in California caused a sense of fairness to be at the core of her economic policy ideas.

“She’s a capitalist at heart — she wants businesses to do well,” said Yasmin Nelson, a former senior adviser to Harris. “But she recognizes that the scales have been tipped toward them during the Trump administration. In her view, she wants to even the playing field.”

Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, are focused on portraying Harris as more liberal than Biden, suggesting that the former California senator would further restrict the use of fossil fuels in favor of solar, wind and other renewable energy sources.

Trump, at a rally in North Carolina on Wednesday, called Harris “the most incompetent and far left vice president in American history.”

Vance went after her policies in a Friday interview on Megyn Kelly’s SiriusXM program.

“We cannot let people who are going to destroy the American manufacturing and energy economy take over the reins of power,” Vance said. “It’s going to be a lot worse when you get somebody who’s even more liberal than Biden in there.”

The Trump campaign has quickly revived Harris’ statements from her short-lived run for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. She said on CNN at the time that she favored banning plastic straws, offshore oil drilling and the use of fracking for oil and natural gas, a controversial stance in the swing state of Pennsylvania.

Republican lawmakers also say that Harris would raise taxes, which is only what Biden’s 2025 budget plan would do for wealthier households and corporations.

The Harris campaign said that she does not support a fracking ban. During the 2020 vice presidential debate, she stressed multiple times that Biden would not end fracking.

The Energy Information Administration shows that both natural gas and oil production have increased to record levels during Biden’s presidency after a pandemic driven dip. But the Biden administration’s policies are more restrictive than what the GOP wants.

The bigger risk for Harris might be how the persistence of inflation shapes voters’ views of the economy. Many economic models used by financial firms to analyze the election are based on the incumbent’s party, not the candidate herself in this case.

The consultancy Oxford Economics said in an analysis Monday that the odds favored Trump. The forecast is based on models that use economic data. It does not necessarily account for social issues such as abortion and gun control that Democrats say will help them in the election.

The analysis stressed there is a high degree of uncertainty and noted that a lot could happen in the months ahead, though it is fairly straightforward in concluding that inflation is still a drag for the vice president.

“I doubt that Harris will significantly change how swing voters think of the economy,” said Bernard Yaros, an economist at Oxford Economics. “She still carries that same baggage of presiding over the high inflation of 2021 and 2022. Like Biden, her approval took a hit during that inflation surge.”

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WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. hiring decelerated sharply last month in the face of high interest rates as employers added an unexpectedly weak 114,000 jobs.

Friday’s Labor Department report showed a drop from the 179,000 jobs created in June. Forecasters had expected to see 175,000 jobs in July. The unemployment rate rose to 4.3%, highest since October 2021, as the number of jobless Americans rose by 352,000.

The economy had proven unexpectedly sturdy in the face of the Federal Reserve’s campaign to tame inflation with high interest rates. The Fed raised its benchmark rate 11 times in 2022 and 2023, taking it to a 23-year high. But the higher borrowing costs appear to be taking a toll.

The unemployment rate has risen for four consecutive months. It’s jump to 4.3% in July crossed a tripwire that historically has signaled that the United States is in recession — though economists say the gauge probably is not reliable in the topsy-turvy post-pandemic economy.

In another sign that the labor market is cooling, average hourly wages rose just 3.6% from July 2023, smallest year-over-year gain since May 2021 and a development likely to ease inflationary pressure in the economy.

The economy is weighing heavily on voters’ minds as they prepare for the presidential election in November. Many are unimpressed with the strong job gains of the past three years, exasperated instead by high prices. Two years ago, inflation hit a four-decade high. The price increases eased, but consumers are still paying 19% more for goods and services overall than they were before inflation first heated up in spring 2021.

This is the so-called Sahm Rule, named for the former Fed economist who came up with it: Claudia Sahm. She found that a recession is almost always already underway if the unemployment rate (based on a three-month moving average) rises by half a percentage point from its low of the past year. It’s been triggered in every U.S. recession since 1970. And it’s had only two false positives since 1959; in both of those cases — in 1959 and 1969 — it was just premature, going off a few months before a downturn began.

Still, Sahm, now chief economist at the investment firm New Century Advisors, said that this time “a recession is not imminent’’ even if unemployment crosses the Sahm Rule threshold.

Many economists believe that today’s rising unemployment rates reveal an influx of new workers into the American labor force who sometimes need time to find work, rather than a worrisome increase in job losses.

“Labor demand is slowing,’’ said Matthew Martin, U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, “but companies are not laying off workers in large numbers, which reduces the odds of a negative feedback loop of rising unemployment leading to income loss, reduction in spending, and more layoffs.’’

Indeed, new Labor Department data this week showed that layoffs dropped in June to the lowest level in more than a year and a half.

America’s jobs numbers have been unsettled by an unexpected surge in immigration — much of it illegal — over the past couple of years. The new arrivals have poured into the American labor force and helped ease labor shortages across the economy — but not all of them have found jobs right away, pushing up the jobless rate. Moreover, people who have entered the country illegally are less inclined to respond to the Labor Department’s jobs survey, meaning they can go uncounted as employed, notes Oxford’s Martin.

Nonetheless, Sahm remains concerned about the hiring slowdown, noting that a deteriorating job market can feed on itself.

“Once you have a certain momentum going to the downside, it often can get going,’’ Sahm said. The Sahm rule, she says, is “not working like it usually does, but it shouldn’t be ignored.’’

Sahm urged Fed policymakers to preemptively cut their benchmark interest rate at their meeting this week, but they chose to leave it unchanged at the highest level in 23 years.

The Fed raised the rate 11 times in 2022 and 2023 to battle rising prices. Inflation has duly fallen — to 3% in June from 9.1% two years earlier. But it remains above the Fed’s 2% target and policymakers want to see more evidence it’s continuing to come down before they start cutting rates. Still, they are widely expected to make the first cut at their next meeting in September.

Friday’s job report could give them some encouraging news. According to FactSet, forecasters expect last month’s average hourly wages to come in 3.7% above July 2023 levels. That would be the smallest gain since May 2021 and would mark progress toward the 3.5% that many economists see as consistent with the Fed’s inflation goal.

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Crystal Ripolio had tears in her eyes as she walked the produce line at the Good News Outreach food bank in Tallahassee. It was the bags of ripe peaches that did her in.

“We don’t have anything in our fridge,” Ripolio said.

Ripolio and her 8-year-old daughter, Isabella, walked away with paper bags filled with those peaches, other produce, bread and canned goods — grateful for the help she said they desperately need.

Millions of American children are going without extra food this summer, after 13 states declined to participate in a federal program that helps families in need buy groceries.

Thirty-seven states, four U.S. territories and five Native American tribes are benefitting from the program, according to the Department of Agriculture. Qualifying families with children who rely on school meals to get enough to eat are getting an extra $120 per child this summer to help feed their kids.

Ripolio, who has two school-aged daughters, could have received an extra $240 deposited directly onto an electronic benefits transfer or EBT card, but Republican-led Florida isn’t taking part.

She said she has been helping Isabella deal with some challenging medical issues lately and hasn’t been able to work. The extra money would have really helped by allowing her to buy more basics such as bread, milk and cereal, Ripolio said.

“Are you kidding? I’ve been holding onto $17 for three months,” she said, referring to her dwindling finances.

The federal program known as Summer EBT or SUN Bucks gives money to qualifying families who can then use it to shop at grocery stores and farmers markets. The initiative is designed to help feed children who receive free or reduced-priced meals at school, but who often go hungry during the summer.

According to an analysis by the advocacy group Food Research and Action Center, for every 100 children who received a free or reduced-price meal during the 2021-2022 school year, only 11 got a summer lunch in July 2022.

Layla Santiago, a single mom from Jacksonville, said she’s been piling her five kids — all between the ages of 2 months and 10 years — into an Uber to get to local food pantries this summer, because she lacks consistent access to transportation.

“I know there’s other mothers like me that don’t have transportation, that may need the food but just can’t get to it,” Santiago said.

The states that declined to participate in the program cited reasons such as problems with aging state computer systems, philosophical opposition to welfare programs, and a belief that existing free meal programs are sufficient. All 13 are led by Republican governors.

Under the terms of the Summer EBT program, the federal government covers the cost of the benefits for families, but states must split the administrative costs 50/50.

An estimated 2 million Florida children could have benefited from more than $258 million in aid this summer if state officials hadn’t turned it down. Nationwide, roughly 21 million kids are being fed by the program this year.

Asked whether the state would participate next summer, a spokesperson for Gov. Ron DeSantis directed inquiries to the Florida Department of Children and Families, which did not respond. A spokesperson for the DCF previously told the Orlando Sentinel that the state’s current programs are sufficient.

“We anticipate that our state’s full approach to serving children will continue to be successful this year without any additional federal programs that inherently always come with some federal strings attached,” spokesperson Mallory McManus said.

Ropolio, standing outside the food bank just a short walk from the governor’s mansion in Florida’s capital, said she didn’t understand why the state passed up federal money that could have made a difference to her family.

“If other states are able to do it, why can’t we?” she asked. “That doesn’t make sense.”

Service providers have applauded the work of a state-administered summer meal program that operates out of schools, public libraries and community centers. But such programs only reach a fraction of the children who are eligible.

“There’s a huge gap that we’re not meeting,” said Paco Vélez, the president of the food bank Feeding South Florida. “The easiest way to meet that gap is to fill the EBT card with dollars.”

A recent report by the United Way found that nearly half of Florida families are struggling to make ends meet. Food bank operators say that although demand has stabilized since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the need still exceeds pre-pandemic levels, as families grapple with inflation.

Advocates are urging state officials to apply to participate in the program next summer. States face an initial deadline of Aug. 15 to notify the federal government of their intent to participate, with a subsequent deadline of Feb. 15.

In the meantime, Santiago said she’s trying to take her kids to a summer meal program at the local library when she can and stretching what she has left in the pantry each month.

“I have to try to find a way with my kids,” Santiago said. “I’m trying my best. But … it’s still not enough.”

___ Kate Payne is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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hanimmal said:

Republican governors hurting millions of children in their states. I really hope that people can wake up from the decades of hate radio and Right wing propagandist media catfishing them as 'news', and vote in Democrats and then rebuild the Republican Party into something that represents the best interests of all their needs so we can all thrive.

https://apnews.com/article/summer-ebt-children-food-meals-b2ad1e63aec7944dbda7ef43de76f8da
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hanimmal said:

Republican governors hurting millions of children in their states. I really hope that people can wake up from the decades of hate radio and Right wing propagandist media catfishing them as 'news', and vote in Democrats and then rebuild the Republican Party into something that represents the best interests of all their needs so we can all thrive.

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OldMedUser said:

WTF is wrong with these people? I just can't wrap my head around the thought processes that lead to people in power treating their constituents with cruelty all the time.

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OldMedUser said:

Supposedly Christian people that seem to act in direct opposition to the teachings of the man they claim is the son of the god they claim to believe in. This whole scam has been running for at least 2000 years and other, similar scans, for at least a couple thousand years before that.

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“My bill would allow that, yes,” Tran said in response. She later told The Washington Post that she “misspoke” and that she should have said “clearly, no, because infanticide is not allowed in Virginia, and what would have happened in that moment would be a live birth.”

In his full answer on WTOP, Northam explains that third trimester abortions are “done in cases where there may be severe deformities, there may be a fetus that’s nonviable.” He then gives the hypothetical example about a mother in labor.

Ofirah Yheskel, a then-spokesperson for Northam, said at the time that he was only trying to describe the “tragic or difficult circumstances” often involved in late-term abortion.

“Attempts to extrapolate these comments otherwise is in bad faith and underscores exactly why the governor believes physicians and women, not legislators, should make these difficult and deeply personal medical decisions,” she said.

Abortions later in pregnancy are incredibly rare. In 2021, approximately 93% of abortions in the U.S. occurred at or before 13 weeks’ gestation, while only 0.9% occurred at 21 weeks or later, according to the latest available data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly 45% were at or before six weeks gestation.

Experts told the AP that it is not physically possible to perform an abortion later in pregnancy if a woman has already gone into labor naturally.

“Patients who are laboring at term are never having an abortion,” said Sarah Prager, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Washington. “They are having a delivery.”

Parents whose babies are born with a low probability of survival then make decisions about whether to provide palliative care or to take extraordinary measures to save them.

Only six states — Oregon, Colorado, New Mexico, New Jersey, Vermont and Maine — have no restrictions on when abortion can occur during a pregnancy.

Experts say that there is technically no legal mechanism in these states to stop physicians from performing an abortion on a healthy, full-term pregnancy. However, they explained that because it is difficult to craft policies that cover every situation in which a woman might need an abortion, this flexibility allows physicians and patients to make decisions on a case-by-case basis.

There are many reasons patients might seek an abortion later in pregnancy, including a catastrophic fetal diagnosis and risks to their own health.

Amy Nelson, an OB-GYN in Virginia, said that it is unlikely any ethical doctor would agree to perform an abortion simply because a woman changed her mind about an entirely healthy pregnancy late in the game, even if it is legally permissible.

“Ethics would get involved more than anything else,” she explained.

Even in states with few to no restrictions on abortions, there are other mechanisms to ensure appropriate decisions are made.

“The truth is that all physicians in the United States are bound by medical ethics and standards, state law, federal law, and the bylaws of their professional medical associations,” said Jamila Perritt, an OB-GYN in Washington, D.C. and the president and CEO of the advocacy organization Physicians for Reproductive Health.

Kristyn Brandi, an OB-GYN in New Jersey who provides abortions later in pregnancy, said that she “not worried about not having a limit because I know that I trust my patients to make decisions that are best for them.” She added that she has never met anyone “who just kind of woke up one day and decided that they didn’t want to be pregnant.”

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OldMedUser said:

This whole scam has been running for at least 2000 years and other, similar scans, for at least a couple thousand years before that.

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OldMedUser said:

It's even harder to wrap my head around why these same oppressed people will still vote them back into power to continue the mistreatment. The poor outnumber the rich by a huge margin yet the party of the rich keeps coming back like a bad case of herpes.

Forcing women and even children to have babies they don't want and/or can't afford to feed then basically saying Fuck you, you damn moochers, you're on your own taking care of that unwanted child. Just. Fucking. Evil!

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hanimmal said:

Decades of brainwashing from their male elders and looking at the problem from the other side of the freeway is my best guess.

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