Nonfarm payroll employment rises by 638,000 in October; unemployment rate declines to 6.9%
Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 638,000 in October and has increased for 6 consecutive months. In October, nonfarm employment was below its February level by 10.1 million, or 6.6 percent. (…)
The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for August was revised up by 4,000 from +1,489,000 to +1,493,000, and the change for September was revised up by 11,000 from +661,000 to +672,000. With these revisions, employment in August and September combined was 15,000 higher than previously reported. (…)
In October, the unemployment rate declined by 1.0 percentage point to 6.9 percent, and the number of unemployed persons fell by 1.5 million to 11.1 million. Both measures have declined for 6 consecutive months but are nearly twice their February levels (3.5 percent and 5.8 million, respectively). (…)
The labor force participation rate increased by 0.3 percentage point to 61.7 percent in October; this is 1.7 percentage points below the February level. The employment-population ratio increased by 0.8 percentage point to 57.4 percent in October but is 3.7 percentage points lower than in February. (…)
In October, 15.1 million persons reported that they had been unable to work because their employer closed or lost business due to the pandemic—that is, they did not work at all or worked fewer hours at some point in the last 4 weeks due to the pandemic. This measure is down from 19.4 million in September. Among those who reported in October that they were unable to work because of pandemic related closures or lost business, 11.7 percent received at least some pay from their employer for the hours not worked, up from 10.3 percent in September.
The above employment report reaches mid-October. Here are the more recent trends:
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U.S. Unemployment Claims Held Nearly Steady Last Week The number of people applying for jobless benefits has trended down in recent weeks, suggesting the pace of layoffs eased despite a resurgence in new coronavirus cases and the return of some economic restrictions.
Weekly initial claims for jobless benefits fell by 7,000 to a seasonally adjusted 751,000 in the week ended Oct. 31, the Labor Department said Thursday. That was the lowest level since mid-March, but was well above the 217,000 claims filed in late February, before economic shutdowns to control the spread of the new coronavirus began.
The previous week’s data were revised up by 7,000 to 758,000. (…)
Haver Analytics plots trends in each of the three unemployment programs:
Axios stacks them up to show the changing split among the 22 million recipients:
Data: U.S. Department of Labor; Chart: Andrew Witherspoon/Axios
(…) data from the Labor Department showed more than 1 million people filed for first-time jobless benefits for the 33rd week in a row. More than 738,000 people applied for first-time traditional unemployment benefits last week and nearly 363,000 applied for benefits through the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program. The rate of unemployment filings has been remarkably high for a remarkable amount of time. (…) unemployment benefits are starting to run out for more people and will expire for all of the nearly 14 million Americans on pandemic programs at the end of the year.
- Morning Consult survey data in October shows that a persistently high share of American adults lost pay or income over the course of the month. This finding is consistent with the high volume of weekly initial unemployment insurance claims over the past five weeks.
The share of Americans living in households with annual incomes over $100,000 who reported losing pay or income rose from 11.5 percent to 14.2 percent from Oct. 3-Oct. 31, reversing the downward trend over the prior 23 weeks.
Fed Says Virus Poses Considerable Risks, Keeps Low-Rate Vow The Federal Reserve said the coronavirus pandemic poses considerable risks for the U.S. economy despite recent gains, and officials made no changes to their commitment to provide sustained stimulus.
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said they were monitoring two prominent risks to the recent rebound in economic activity: one from rising infection rates and another from households exhausting savings after earlier fiscal relief measures had dissipated.
“Economic activity has continued to recover” but “the pace of improvement has moderated,” Mr. Powell said at a news conference. (…)
Mr. Powell said the recent upswing in virus cases was “particularly concerning” and said steps such as wearing masks in public would help the economy. Still, he indicated policy makers have been surprised through the late summer and early fall by the degree to which economic activity held up despite higher infection counts. (…)
Officials also discussed whether to provide additional support by adjusting the composition of those purchases to target longer-term Treasury yields, as they did in their 2012-14 asset-buying program.
But several Fed officials have said the low level of long-term Treasury yields makes this unnecessary. And Mr. Powell said the current program, due to its larger size, was pushing down longer-dated yields even without explicitly targeting them. (…)
U.S. Cases Top 120,000 in a Day The number of people dying of Covid-19 is increasing again as well. More than 1,200 deaths were reported on Thursday, according to Johns Hopkins data, a figure not seen since mid-September.
Thursday’s 121,888 newly reported infections, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, bring the U.S. total to more than 9.6 million. The tally is 18.5% higher than the previous record high, Wednesday’s count of 102,831. It is the third day in a week the U.S. has set a daily record. Last Friday’s tally was 99,321.
With 53,322 people hospitalized, a number not seen since early August, hospitals in the South and Midwest are scrambling to accommodate a surge of new patients. Face masks are once again in short supply in many parts of the country. (…)
THE ELECTIONS
- Polls were mostly very wrong. Or were they? The “10-point lead” may have incited many voters to split their ticket to avoid a sweep and a clearly leftist government for 4 years.
- Even Hispanics, wary of “socialists and communists”, helped Trump in two very key states, Florida and Texas.
- Pandemic management was not as critical as many thought. It’s the economy, stupid! In the last 10 days, Trump focused on the economy and “socialist dems”.
- Results: a weaker Democrat House, and a (potentially) adversarial Republican Senate. Biden, if elected, but particularly Sanders, Warren and AOC might not rock any boat.
- Bipartisan areas: infrastructure, China, Big Tech.
- In all, no clear winner but, perhaps, democracy. Wisdom, or luck?
But wait, wait!
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Control of U.S. Senate Hinges on Georgia Results Warnock-Loeffler race is already headed for runoff, while tight Perdue-Ossoff contest could be as well
The fight for control of the U.S. Senate now is centered on Georgia, where the state’s close election has pushed at least one, and possibly two, of its Senate races to Jan. 5 runoffs.
The outcome of those two races could shift the balance of power in the Senate, as Democrat Jon Ossoff tries to unseat Republican Sen. David Perdue, and Democrat Raphael Warnock faces off against Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler. (…)
Under Georgia law, if no candidate gets more than 50%, the two top vote getters, regardless of party, compete in a runoff to be held on Jan. 5.
The Warnock-Loeffler race already is headed for a runoff, as the Associated Press projected Tuesday. Mr. Perdue’s share of the vote was at 49.88% as of late Thursday, with about 16,105 outstanding ballots still to be counted, according to the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office. Mr. Ossoff was at 47.81%. Some provisional and military ballots are also yet to be counted.
Based on results so far nationwide, Republicans will control 48 seats next year, and they lead in two other states—North Carolina and Alaska. Democrats so far have locked down 48 seats, leaving the two Georgia races as their best hopes to reach 50.
If Democrat Joe Biden wins the White House, vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris would cast a tiebreaking vote when needed. (…)
It might be a sweep after all…
The War of the Norm
By: George Friedman
The primary reason about half the country voted for Joe Biden was that he wasn’t Donald Trump. Trump was seen by many as violating fundamental norms of the presidency and of personal dignity. Biden had not introduced any stunning policy initiatives, nor did his supporters necessarily want him to. What they wanted was a return to the norm, as represented by Barack Obama, George W. Bush and others. They wanted a return to what they saw as moral rectitude and propriety, a country united rather than divided.
On the other hand, just under half the country voted for Trump because they saw the norm as unbearable. On the surface, it seemed to represent civility. Underneath, for them, it was a ruthless attempt to enhance the power of the elite and assault the values of the country. Put differently, the norm was seen as a way to manipulate society for the benefit of the elite, who covered their actions with mock civility. In the view of Trump supporters, the norm divided the country deeply, against the Trump voters’ interests and values.
For Biden voters, supporting Trump was inconceivable, since he was in it for himself and stood for the lowest values possible. For Trump supporters, not voting for Trump was inconceivable, since he represented resistance against hypocrisy and the ruthlessness of the elite as they accumulated power. Trump’s supporters knew that he lied. They argued that all politicians lied, but that their lies were subtle and hidden. Trump’s were open. Given a choice between the two, they voted for Trump. Trump’s enemies thought this attitude abnormal, seeing open and self-serving lies as destructive and denying that the American norm had become systematic but subtle dishonesty.
At the time of writing, the election is a virtual tie: Biden has about 50 percent of the national vote, and Trump one to two points less. For Biden supporters, this is a disappointment, though not a fatal one. The polls showed Biden with a substantial lead over Trump. For Trump voters, these polls were not only in error but deliberately so, seeking to portray America as in revolt against the Trump presidency. For them, the polls were simply another lie of the norm. What for Biden voters was a statistical anomaly was for Trump voters another case in a long line of deception. And so too, according to them, was the voting system put in place because of the COVID-19 crisis.
Biden voters argue that these conspiracy theories are lies destroying national unity. Trump voters argue that they are simply a representation of what is going on in the country. The voting rules and polls were what would normally be expected under the circumstances. But Trump voters viewed these rules and polls as being justified by a norm that concocts rules that benefit the powers that be.
Obviously not all Biden and Trump voters approached the election this way. No single statement exhausts the complexity of the vote. But I think that, on the whole, what divided the country was the gap between the hunger for a return to what some considered the norm, and the demand that the old norm be overthrown and a new one forged. Thus what Biden voters see as normal processes are unbearable to Trump voters.
The issue is not who is right. The issue is that this country, judging by the vote, is divided down the middle. The tally is an important marker for who wins and loses, but in a broader sense the social split finds half the country on each side. The malice toward the other side varies. There is likely a spectrum of loathing, from merely disagreeing with each other to seeing the other side as the embodiment of evil. But the core distinction is that one side regards their antagonists as abnormal, while the other side views their antagonists as the normal purveyors of skillful oppression.
This can’t be understood by recourse to policies. The mutual loathing points to fundamental differences on existential questions, such as the nature of truth, the definition of freedom and the meaning of citizenship. And that in turn is rooted in the fundamental social and economic shifts of the past 50 years. As the transformation takes place, demonstrators sit outside the building in Georgia where ballots are counted, with the Biden supporters unable to grasp that the protesters genuinely believe the election, among other things, is being stolen. Meanwhile in Portland, the response to the election by the radical left is breaking windows and destroying ATMs. They also are disgusted by the election, as they too despise the norm. They are a small fraction of the left – but in these times the opponents of the norm are powerful.
The fact is that the old norm is gone. Its economic foundation is old and tired, and the companies founded in garages 50 years ago are the General Motors of our time. People who had had comfortable lives working at GM are now threatened with penury, while a new elite is as indifferent to their fate as new elites always are.
It is a time of pain that will not go away until a new normal is established. Franklin D. Roosevelt was considered a freak – a rich man championing the immigrant working class. So too was Ronald Reagan – an actor, disengaged and not too bright, cutting taxes for the rich. We are years before the Roosevelt or Reagan of our time emerges, but one will. In the meantime, the only choice we have is between laughter and tears at how history is tearing at our beloved country. But since we have been here before, I suggest a good chuckle. Since we are unable to change the course, we may as well enjoy it.
A few days after the 2016 election, I asked Bill, a small contractor working on my house, if he was happy with a Trump presidency. He said he was a life Democrat but he voted for Trump because he was desperate for changes. “I am making the same money as 20 years ago working twice as hard.” Taxes and regulations were killing him. His hopes that “conventional politicians” would eventually do something good for him had vanished. “They’re all the same. Let’s see what happens with Trump. We can always boot him out in 4 years.”
I can’t be sure but I suspect Bill voted Trump again.