August 7, 2020: Unemployment Highest since 1983

 

8/7/20: The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced today that 1,783,000 jobs were “added” to the U.S. economy in July. That marked the third month in a row, jobs “added” since the pandemic caused the economy to implode. 

In Trumpian circles this was cause for joyous celebration – followed by presidential bragging. A deeper dive, however, would put an end to self-congratulation. The unemployment rate remains at 10.2%. The last time the rate was higher was March 1983, when it stood at 10.3%.

 

 

Despite those “added” jobs, the Labor Participation Rate ticked down, from 61.5 percent in June to 61.4 percent in July. When an individual stops searching for work the Bureau of Labor Statistics drops them from the ranks of the unemployed. A lower percentage of Americans are working now than on the day Trump took office. 

That didn’t stop the president from heading for his private golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey for the weekend. Safe among his superrich pals, there would be no need to worry about ordinary folk out of work.

 

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TRUMP ALSO FOUND TIME to gather several dozen rich buds at his resort, and invite them to a hastily-arranged press conference. There they had an opportunity to boo members of the free press for asking questions. Both Trump’s friends and the long-suffering reporters who follow him were treated to another one of the president’s rambling discourses, though he did manage to say that he was all for social distancing, mask-wearing, and regular washing of one’s hands. 

The problem, as reporters noted, was that Trump’s pals, including children, were clustered together like grapes on the vine. 

Not till the free press started tweeting out photos did Trump aides decide to pass out masks, and only then did a few of Trump’s fat cat friends put them on. 

Meanwhile, the president said again that the coronavirus “would disappear” and don’t you worry!

 

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THE CDC REPORTED that while the president played golf and his friends booed practitioners of the First Amendment, the nation piled up another

 

62,042 cases of COVID-19.