The Daily Signal - Hilary Clinton Call Trump Supporters ‘Cult Members,’ Biden Tells GOP to Fund Government, ‘Devil Is in the Details’ in New Jobs Report | Oct. 6

Starting point is 00:00:02 I'm Virginia Allen, and this is the day, Lucille, Top News, for Friday, October 6th. Here are today's headlines. Government funding. That's the issue that was expected to dominate headlines this fall. But now, of course, the speaker race is front and center. And without a duly elected Speaker of the House, Congress can't move forward passing spending bills for the new year. The government is funded until November 17th. But a shutdown is possible. if Republicans and Democrats can't reach an agreement and pass spending bills before the deadline.

Starting point is 00:00:49 President Biden was critical of Republicans today telling them it's time to pass a budget. It's time to stop falling around. House Republicans is time for you to do your job, continue our progress, growing the economy, investing in America, investing the American people. So let's get to work for the American people. Congressman Kevin McCarthy was ousted as Speaker after bringing a bill to fund the government through November 17th to the floor of the House for a vote. Some Republicans have made it clear that they will not support any government spending bill that doesn't reduce federal spending and provide money to secure America's border. Meanwhile, many Democrats are advocating

Starting point is 00:01:30 for more aid money for Ukraine in a spending bill. Lawmakers have about 40 days to reach an agreement and pass the budget. Next week, the focus in the House is expected to largely remain on the House Speaker race. Both Congressman Steve Scalese and Jim Jordan have announced that they are running for the position and there will likely be a vote held next week to determine who the next speaker will be. But speaking of that speaker race, former President Donald Trump has endorsed Ohio Republican Representative Jim Jordan for the position. Trump had suggested Thursday that he might run for Speaker of the House but then ended up endorsing Jordan for the position on social media today. Trump wrote on true social that Jordan will be a great speaker of the

Starting point is 00:02:17 House and has my complete and total endorsement. He is strong on crime, borders, our military slash vets, and Second Amendment. As I mentioned a moment ago, Louisiana Congressman Steve Scalise, who currently serves as the majority leader in the House, has also announced that he's running for the position. CNBC describes Trump's endorsement of Jordan as a blow to Scalise, given that Trump is currently leading by a significant margin in the polls for the 2024 presidential election. It remains to be seen whether Jordan is able to gain support and backing from some of the party's more moderate GOP House members. Oklahoma Congressman Kevin Hearn is the chairman of the Republican Study Committee and has not officially announced that he's running for the position, but his name is being touted as a possible candidate, so stay tuned.

Starting point is 00:03:09 other news today, if you support former President Donald Trump, former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, says you are essentially a cult member. Clinton sat down with CNN for an exclusive interview and said the extreme MAGA Republicans need to stop being the tail that wags the dog of the Republican Party. And sadly, so many of those extremists, those MAGA extremists, take their marching orders from Donald Trump, who have... no credibility left by any measure. He's only in it for himself. He's now defending himself in civil actions and criminal actions. And when do they break with him? You know, because at some point, you know, maybe there needs to be a formal deprogramming of the cult members,

Starting point is 00:03:57 but something needs to happen. Clinton went on to say that she believes Trump will be the GOP nominee for president in the 2024 election and Democrats need to defeat him. A new jobs report was released today, and numbers were better than expected. About 336,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy last month. The stock market saw a jump today as a result of the news, and President Joe Biden touted the report during a press conference via News Nation. So what are these new jobs that were added in September? Who is taking those jobs?

Starting point is 00:04:36 And is the job growth sustainable? Here with us to answer those questions is the Heritage Foundation's Research Fellow and Public Finance Economist in the Center for the Federal Budget. E.J. Anthony E.J., thanks so much for being with us today. My pleasure. Thank you for having me. So you wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that the latest jobs report looks good with headline numbers blowing away expectations, but the devil is in the details. So let's talk about some of those devilish details here for a second. If we compare unemployment to pre-pandemic levels, how are we looking unemployment-wise right now? Well, at first things look good.

Starting point is 00:05:19 It looks like the unemployment rate is very low, but we have to remember that this is a rate. In other words, it's a fraction. It has a numerator. It has a denominator. And if you change either part of that, then you will change the actual rate. And because we have taken so many people out of the labor force, a lot of those people have left because of disability, which surge during 21 and 22. But essentially what it means is that five million workers are missing from the labor force. And when you take all of those people off the unemployment rules, it does wonders for your unemployment rate.

Starting point is 00:05:54 But in reality, once you account for that, you're looking at an unemployment rate between 6.3 and 6.8%, which to your point is much high. higher than you had before the pandemic. Do we know where those 5 million people went? It's a great question. A lot went on disability. And it's a bit of a puzzle right now as to why there's such a surge in

Starting point is 00:06:16 disability that coincided with both COVID and also the COVID vaccine. And I've seen some research that points the finger at each of those causes. But right now I haven't seen anything definitive that says for sure that one or the other is more responsible for this surge in disability.

Starting point is 00:06:34 Very fascinating. So tell us what we do know about the jobs added in September. What kind of jobs are these? Well, unfortunately, they were all part-time jobs. In fact, we actually saw a decline in full-time jobs. And if you want to look at not just the last month, but the last three months, I mean, full-time jobs are all but falling off a cliff at this point. We've lost hundreds of thousands, literally, in just.

Starting point is 00:07:01 the last three months. Meanwhile, the number of part-time jobs has zoomed up by 1.2 million. So every time someone goes out and gets a part-time job or another part-time job, that adds to the headline jobs number, which was over 300,000 in this last report. But we have to remember that all of these people are getting double-counted and that the things are just not nearly as good as they appear at first. What does a decline in full-time jobs mean for the economy? That is really surprising that we actually decreased. The number of full-time jobs actually decreased in September. And the jump that we saw was only, not even partially, but only in part-time work.

Starting point is 00:07:49 So where does this leave the economy if more and more people are either only working part-time, or like you say, maybe they have two or three part-time jobs? as opposed to a full-time job? Well, it's very distressing because as employers see the economy going south, even if they don't see the broader economy goes south, they just see their individual business conditions deteriorating. They will stop hiring full-time workers, and they begin hiring part-time workers.

Starting point is 00:08:16 And as full-time workers leave, they typically don't replace them, or if they do they'll replace them with part-time workers. So the transition from full-time to part-time hiring is usually an indicator that layoffs are coming, which is an indicator of a general recession. And there's a lot of other economic data that points us in that same direction that we're heading towards the recession. So this by no means is unique, but it's still not a good sign. Tell me what we know about who is filling the jobs. Are these folks who are unemployed for a while and who are stepping back into the job market? Are these recent college graduates? What do we know?

Starting point is 00:08:53 Well, you're really hitting the nail on the head with the recent college grads. But in terms of people coming back into the labor force, we actually saw more people leave the labor force in September than enter it, which is part of the reason why the unemployment rate stayed low. But going back to the college grads, you know, by virtually any metric you want to use, college grads are doing better today than they were before the pandemic. They're one of the few groups of people whose wages have actually kept pace with inflation over the last two and a half years. Their unemployment rate is only 2.1 percent, much lower than the national average. Their employment level is up to 63 million people.

Starting point is 00:09:34 Not only is that much higher than before the pandemic, but it's even in line with the pre-pandemic trend. In other words, this cohort has completely returned to not just the pre-pandemic level, but the trajectory as well. And it just is absolutely mind-blowing that this group, which is doing much better than the average, is the one that the president is targeting to try to give a student loan bailout to. Well, EJ, we really appreciate your expertise on this. If any folks listening want to read more of your work, they can do so at the Heritage Foundation website.

Starting point is 00:10:07 That's heritage.org. E.J., thanks for your expertise. Virginia, thank you for having me. Quick announcement before we go today, we will not have a show on Monday for the holiday, Columbus Day. If you have Columbus Day off, we hope you all enjoy some good quality time. with family and friends, but we will have a morning edition on Monday. I am so excited to be bringing you all an interview with a wonderful family on the topic of adoption. Aaron Boggs, Jeannie, and Jordan Hamilton are a family that have been knit together through adoption and are joining

Starting point is 00:10:44 the show Monday morning to share their beautiful and powerful story. I'm really excited to share this conversation with you all. If you have not done so already, make sure to take a moment today to leave us a five-star reading and review wherever you like to listen to podcast. It really means a lot when we see your feedback and your comments roll in. But we hope that you all have a wonderful weekend. And again, if you have Monday off, enjoy. We will be back with you Monday morning, but we'll not have a top news edition on Monday afternoon. All right.

Starting point is 00:11:14 Have a great weekend, everyone. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. Executive producers are Rob Lewy and Kate Trinko. Producers are Virginia Allen and Samantha Asheris. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geiney, and John Pop. To learn more, please visit DailySignal.com.

The Daily Signal - Hilary Clinton Call Trump Supporters ‘Cult Members,’ Biden Tells GOP to Fund Government, ‘Devil Is in the Details’ in New Jobs Report | Oct. 6

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