Contrary to what you may have been seeing in the media, here are the latest official numbers on the economy:
- Labor Department, December 31: “The week ending December 26, seasonally adjusted initial unemployment claims was 787,000, a decrease of 19,000 from the previous week’s revised level.” Did you hear that? A decrease in claims, despite the best efforts by Democratic governors to close down everything that moves or makes a profit. This was way below expectations.
- More from DOL: “The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment [the total number of people getting UI benefits] during the week ending December 19 was 5,219,000, a decrease of 103,000 from the previous week’s revised level.” A decrease.
- Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta: The latest forecast December 23 for the fourth quarter of 2020 is 10.1 percent. That is one of the highest quarterly growth rates in American history!
- Department of Commerce: The third-quarter estimate for economic growth was revised upward to 33.3 percent, which was, of course, the highest rate of growth in American history — double the old record set in the early 1950s.
- Bureau of Labor Statistics: The number of open jobs in the United States stands at 6.5 million. That is very close to an all-time high.
The word to describe the American economy and American business owners is resilient.
All of this has happened in the face of a second wave of the pandemic. All of this has happened without a penny more of this insane anti-stimulus spending from Washington.
Are there people hurting and whose jobs have been destroyed? Yes. Are there people in long food lines? Yes. But this is because Democratic governors — Cuomo, Pritzker, Newsom — are hurting their own businesses and workers.
Washington: Stop spending money. Stop helping. You are making things worse.