Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the broadest measure of economic growth. The U.S. GDP grew 6.4% in the previous quarter. By any standards, that’s a remarkable growth rate. GDP for this quarter has dropped precipitously to a forecasted rate of 3.7%. At the start of the quarter, there were growth expectations of 6.5% from Oxford Economics and Morgan Stanley. Typically, a 3.7% growth rate would be considered exceptional. However, measuring a $21 trillion economy is complicated and includes some mathematical estimates. I won’t run us through the calculation, but here’s the gist of it: the demand had been so significant that…
Insights & Advice
Tag: unemployment benefits
Disappointing job gains in leisure and hospitality sectors
The most recent jobs report was disappointing. Only 235,000 jobs were created in August 2021, versus an expectation of 720,000. Leisure and hospitality jobs had led the way this year — until August. For the six months before August 2021, those industries had averaged 350,000 new jobs per month. Last month there were no job gains in the sectors. The drop-off in leisure and hospitality resulted in August’s jobs gains being the weakest monthly gain since January 2021. The weakness was attributed to rising COVID-19 cases. Consumer demand ticked down as the uncertainty regarding new infections went up. U.S. infection…
A labor shortage solution
The hiring boom that was expected in April 2021 fizzled. Last Friday’s nonfarm payrolls report came in at 266,000 jobs gained compared to over a million expected. It was the biggest miss in decades. Politicians and many corporations were quick to provide a ready scapegoat for that failure. They blamed it on the weekly payments of $300 in federal unemployment aid through September 2021, on top of the regular unemployment benefits paid out by the states. In short, the fault apparently lies with the Biden Administration’s stimulus package. If the president and the Democrats had not provided these overly generous…