June saw another record jump in employment, which is good news. But it is good news the same way that opening a dam lets the water take its natural course. The increase is a result of the government getting out of the way and the economy doing what it has wanted to do for months.
Related: Economy Adds 2.5 Million Jobs in May – Unemployment Drops to 13.3%
Millions of Americans have felt the costs of the economic shutdown due to COVID-19, and while the speed of this recovery has far exceeded expectations, jobs have still not recovered the ground lost since the economic shutdown began. From February to April, nearly 22.2 million total jobs were lost. Over the past two months, 7.5 million (33.8 percent) of those jobs have returned. Figure 1 shows that while the leisure and hospitality industry saw the largest gains over the past two months, the industry still has 4.8 million jobs to make up to reach its pre-COVID level.
On the whole, a decent start, but there is not much that can happen at the Federal level when most of this damage was done by governors, not all of whom are fans of the President. With the mismanagement of New York City (comrade de Blasio) and New York State (Comrade Cuomo) accounting for a significant chunk of the infections and deaths they also have to recover a good number of jobs.
Not everyone feels ready to let that happen.
So, the economy is struggling back against all this wave 2.0 business, where the ICU beds narrative and death narrative has now flipped to the number of “cases.” And why not? It is a much easier number to increase – just do more testing until you get a number you like. Then ignore the fact that most people never even have symptoms while you reprise the chicken-little role to keep sheeple herded so the economy cannot fully recover.
I’d like to think the water in the economy will find a way around these dams. There are just so many stories of business owners and workers who are fighting the system for the right to earn a living.
It’s just surreal to me. Do people really not understand that when businesses are not allowed to conduct business they will go out of business?
Here in New Hampshire, we are mostly reopened, but that’s less of a concern than the force used to close it down. We’re still in a state of emergency. The current Democrat majority legislature is in love with the power the State has assumed and our Republican governor has exercised. A scarier number is that around 70% in recent polls approve of this abuse of power.
They must not understand what the threat it represents to them.
We can be assured that any future Democrat governor (God help us) will use and abuse it. In the absence of a Republican majority legislature as a check on that power, many will find the State too inhospitable.
Add to that Democrat desires to punish job creators with higher taxes and more regulations and a burning desire for broad-based taxes to pay for more government, the Advantage New Hampshire has would quickly vanish.
It is no small matter, and voters need to understand the human cost. They must grasp what this threat represents to the people of the Granite State and its future. Are we something other than another blue New England state that suppresses rights and robs its citizens to feed the ravenous hunger of big government? Or are we the Live Free or Die State?
I choose the latter, and in November, I intend to vote to protect that.
| WH.gov
