From the very start of Joe Biden’s presidency, there have been very real concerns about the Democratic leader’s ability to handle our economy, thanks in no small part to his utter reluctance to even run for office.
Now, a year-and-a-half into his first term, Biden has squandered a real opportunity to ride the COVID pandemic’s recovery into a new era of American prosperity, allowing inflation to decimate the economy.
The latest figures from the job market have suddenly revealed a whole new hurdle for the US fiscal outlook.
The number of job openings in the United States fell sharply in June as the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates, gas prices hit record highs, inflation soared, and growth in consumer spending slowed.
There were 10.7 million postings for job openings on the last business day in June, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said Tuesday, down from an upwardly revised 11.3 million a month earlier.
And that’s not all:
Openings declined sharply in both retail and construction, two areas that have showed signs of softening in recent months. Consumer spending rose 1.1 percent in June before adjusting for inflation, according to the Commerce Department’s tally of consumer expenditures released last week. Real expenditures, after adjusting for inflation, were just 0.4 percent higher—and much of that increase reflected higher prices of food and groceries. Spending on discretionary goods and services likely fell in inflation-adjusted terms.
Hiring rates fell at large businesses with more than one thousand employees, the government said. This suggests that businesses are preparing for an economic downturn by pulling back from bringing on new employees.
This proverbial “hedging” of the economic bet is a sure sign that market movers see trouble on the horizon, and there is little doubt that there will be some trickle-down timidity arriving soon.
