A truly historic jobs report was released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). In today’s podcast, we take the time to read the report in its entirety. A few of the takeaways: the headline unemployment rate (U-3) was 14.7% and the broader measure of (U-6) was 22.8% for the month of April. For the full month of April 2020, some 20.5 million jobs were lost and spanned the spectrum of industries. The hardest hit was leisure and hospitality that lost some 7.7 million jobs. With respect to several data points, one would have to go back to the 1970’s, 1940’s, or 1930’s to find a comparable number while still others were the worst on record. Further broader measures of unemployment such as the labor force participation rate declined by 2.5 percentage points over the month to now sit at 60.2% – this is the lowest reading since January 1973. The employment-population ratio now rests at 51.3%, dropping some 8.7 percentage points over the month. This would constitute the lowest rate and largest month-to-month decline in the series’ history, dating back to January 1948.
The BLS also notes that had they accounted for those still on payroll but absent from work, then the headline unemployment rate would have been 5 percentage points higher. Nonetheless, BLS kept the number at 14.7%. Revisions were also made to the prior months of February and March and the BLS noted that those months were over-counted, thus an additional 214,000 jobs were lost and/or gains did not occur during those two months. Nonetheless, the major stock indexes could not care less as they rallied over 1% and the futures market is now pricing in a Fed Funds Rate in negative territory by January of 2021. The banana republic is here! Also, if we simply take into consideration just the $3T that the US Treasury will be issuing in Q2 of 2020 and dividing by 33.5 million (representing the jobs losses since COVID19 lock-down), we come to approx. $89,500/job! The vast majority of people who lost their job(s) did not make near this amount, yet this is what the government is spending to keep it all afloat. And this does not count all money spent, printed, and/or yet to be spent or printed in response. Now do you understand why we say that “Free Was Never So Expensive.” Stay diversified, stay vigilant, and stay with The Kapital News. #Economy #Jobs #Bailouts #Debt #Deficits #USA #Depression #Recession #BananaRepublic