Evelyn Reynolds

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    On the Economy, Biden Struggles to Convince Voters of His Success

    Wages are up, inflation has slowed and the White House has a new slogan. Still, President Biden’s poor marks on the economy are making Democrats worried.When a chant slamming President Biden spread from a NASCAR race to T-shirts and bumper stickers across red America two years ago, the White House pulled off perhaps its savviest messaging feat to date. Biden aides and allies repackaged the “Let’s Go Brandon” insult and morphed it into “Dark Brandon,” a celebratory meme casting Mr. Biden as some sort of omnipotent mastermind.Now, the White House and the Biden campaign is several weeks into another appropriation play — but it isn’t going nearly as well. Aides in July announced that the president would run for re-election on the virtues of “Bidenomics,” proudly reclaiming the right’s derisive term for Mr. Biden’s economic policies.The gambit does not appear to be working yet. Even as Mr. Biden presides over what is by all indicators a strong economy — one on track to dodge the recession many had feared — he is still struggling to convince most of the country of the strength of his economic stewardship. Wages are up, inflation has slowed, but credit to the president remains in short supply.Polling last month from the Democratic organization Navigator found that 25 percent of Americans support Mr. Biden’s major actions, such as the Inflation Reduction Act, but still think the president is doing a poor job handling the economy. It’s a group that tends to be disproportionately younger than 40 and is more likely to be Black or Latino — voters critical to Democratic victories.“This is the thing that’s vexing all Democrats,” said Patrick Gaspard, the president of the Center for American Progress.Democratic economists, pollsters and officials have a variety of explanations for why voters don’t credit Mr. Biden for the economy. Inflation remains elevated, and interest rates have made home buying difficult. There is also evidence that voters’ views on the economy are shaped as much by their political views as by personal experiences.And then there is the regular refrain that people don’t know about Mr. Biden’s successes. Even Mr. Biden’s supporters say that he and his administration have been too reluctant to promote their record and ineffective when they do.“I’ve never seen this big of a disconnect between how the economy is actually doing and key polling results about what people think is going on,” said Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank in Washington.Mr. Biden on Friday attempted another victory lap in a White House speech celebrating the latest jobs report, which found no sign of an imminent recession and a slight increase in the unemployment rate as more people sought work. He credited the heart of his economic plan, including investment in infrastructure, semiconductor manufacturing and climate-related industries along with caps on the price of insulin medication.Bidenomics, Mr. Biden said, “is about investing in America and investing in Americans.”Mr. Biden said his economic plan was to credit for the latest jobs report, which found no sign of an imminent recession and a slight increase in the unemployment rate as more people sought work.Kent Nishimura for The New York TimesThe term Bidenomics emerged as a pejorative in conservative media and has been widely adopted by Mr. Biden’s rivals. “One of the most important issues of the campaign will be who can rescue our country from the burning wreckage of Bidenomics,” former President Donald J. Trump said in a recent video, “which shall henceforth be defined as inflation, taxation submission and failure.”Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida offered his definition at a recent campaign stop in Rock Rapids, Iowa. “Bidenomics is basically: You have a lower standard of living so he can pursue the left’s ideological agenda,” he said.Behind the rhetoric, there is some debate over whether the economy will be the driving force it has been in past presidential elections. Some Democrats argue that their party’s resilience in last year’s midterm elections showed that the fight over abortion rights and Mr. Trump’s influence over Republicans can trounce more kitchen-table concerns.The White House argues that Democrats’ strong showing last year is a sign the Mr. Biden’s electoral performance isn’t strictly tied to the economy.“By all metrics, his economic record has improved since then,” said Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman.Still, nearly all of Mr. Biden’s campaign advertising this year sells his economic record. The ads — which don’t use the term Bidenomics — cast the president’s policies as a work in progress. “All of the things that Biden fought to get passed helped the middle class,” a cement mason from Milwaukee says in an ad the campaign released last week.“It’s no secret that a lot of Americans are struggling with the cost of living, and that’s a reality that shapes their views about the economy more broadly,” said Geoff Garin, a pollster who conducts surveys for the Democratic National Committee.Explaining why Mr. Biden’s policies will help, Mr. Garin said, “is what campaigns are for.”This summer Mr. Biden has promoted “Bidenomics” at events around the country, often speaking in factories or with labor groups. Even some in friendly audiences of local Democratic leaders and supporters questioned whether his emphasis would resonate with the coalition that elected him in 2020.“Is Bidenomics the right thing to sell?” Mayor Katie Rosenberg of Wausau, Wis., said after seeing Mr. Biden speak in Milwaukee last month. “I just keep thinking, why aren’t they just doing Build Back Better still? That was a really good slogan. Bidenomics is just an effort to capitalize on the negativity around him.”Build Back Better, the mix of economic, climate and social policy that Mr. Biden ran on in 2020, was a bumper-sticker-length encapsulation of Mr. Biden’s ambitions as president. Significant elements became law, but the branding exercise failed, doomed in part by rising inflation.Mr. Biden’s “Build Back Better” slogan was a bumper-sticker-length encapsulation of his ambitions as president.Hannah Yoon for The New York TimesDemocrats rebranded their climate legislation as the Inflation Reduction Act, even though the bill had little to do with inflation. Even Mr. Biden recently said that he regretted the name, suggesting that it promised something the bill was not devised to deliver.Though the rate of inflation has slowed, it remains the chief drag on Mr. Biden’s economic approval ratings, said Joanne Hsu, the director of Surveys of Consumers at the University of Michigan.“We track people who have heard negative news about inflation,” Dr. Hsu said. “Over the past year, that number has been much higher than in the 1970s and ’80s, when inflation was so much worse.”One theme of Mr. Biden’s aides, advisers and allies is to plead for time. The economy will get better, more people will hear and understand what Bidenomics means and credit will accrue to the president, they say.“The public more and more is going to be seeing low unemployment and will continue to get more bullish on the economy,” said Representative Robert Garcia of California, a member of the Biden campaign’s national advisory board. “But I also understand it’s very hard for people now. We just can’t expect overnight for people to feel better about the economy.”For most Americans, their views on the economy are directly tied to their partisan leanings — a phenomenon that is particularly acute for Republicans. In 2016, before Mr. Trump took office, just 18 percent of Republicans rated the economy excellent or good, according to a Pew Research survey. By February 2020, just before the pandemic shut down public life in America, 81 percent of Republicans said the economy was excellent or good.An Associated Press/NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll last month found just 8 percent of Republicans, along with 65 percent of Democrats, approved of Mr. Biden’s handling of the economy.Mr. Biden’s sympathizers say part of his problem on the economy is an unwillingness to promote its bright spots out of fear of seeming insensitive to Americans struggling with higher prices. Mr. Trump had no such restraint, describing the economy as the best in history and the envy of the world. Using “Bidenomics” as a framework lets the president take ownership of the economy, but it doesn’t exactly tell voters that the economy is great.“Trump chose people who were probably less experienced in terms of making policy, but some of them are quite good about talking up the president,” said Ben Harris, a former top Treasury official in the Biden administration who played a leading role in outlining the Build Back Better agenda during the 2020 campaign. “Biden’s taken a more modest and humble approach, and there’s a chance that’s come back to haunt him.”Jason Furman, who served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Obama administration, said there was a regular debate in that White House about how much to sell the public on the idea that the economy was improving even if people didn’t feel in their own lives.Now he said it was difficult for the Biden administration to take victory laps over slowing inflation because wages haven’t kept pace, leaving a typical worker about $2,000 behind compared with before the pandemic.“The way to think about that is people were in an incredibly deep hole because of inflation and we’re still not all the way out of that hole,” Mr. Furman said. “The fact that you protected people in the bad times means the good times don’t feel as good.”Nicholas Nehamas More

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    Impact of Hollywood Strikes on Jobs Goes Beyond the Strikers

    Walkouts by screenwriters and actors have meant less work in fields that cater to the TV and film industry.One reason the August employment report wasn’t stronger: Television and movie production has largely halted since a deadlock in contract negotiations between major studios and unions that represent screenwriters and actors.The motion picture and sound recording industry subtracted 16,800 jobs in August. That’s not a huge share of its approximately 438,000-person work force, but it underestimates the total impact of the labor stoppages, given how much spending power the film industry creates in Los Angeles specifically.The shutdown started when 11,500 members of the Writers Guild of America went on strike in May. In the second quarter alone, according to Los Angeles’s film office, activity was down 28.8 percent from a year earlier.The stoppages spread when SAG-AFTRA, which represents more than 160,000 actors and broadcasters, struck in July after its contract with the largest film and television studios expired.Striking actors and writers, however, don’t translate one for one into payrolls. For one thing, many of SAG-AFTRA’s members work for television news stations and aren’t on strike. Those who do act in movies and TV shows usually sign contracts, sometimes for a day or a week, rather than entering into a continuing employment relationship.Between intermittent gigs, they’re used to taking second jobs, like waiting on tables or designing websites. During the strike, they’re also allowed to work in theater and commercials, as well as on a handful of independent projects that have agreed to abide by the union’s demands.Even with no work, most earn at least some money through residuals — although that revenue has shrunk with the rise of streaming, and will fade as the months drag on.“We’re used to being freelancers, and just being able to go along,” said Jodi Long, president of SAG-AFTRA’s Los Angeles local. “For now, what’s really going to affect the job market is the people on set — the hair and makeup people, the gaffers and the grips and the people in production.”Ms. Long is right: The support services required to make movies and shows have largely shut down. Some serve other industries as well, but many have grown up around the needs of film production. Even if the industry becomes very busy when the strike ends as studios restock their pipelines, months of income will be hard to replace.Take Limelight Catering. Its owner, Steve Michelson, mostly mothballed the business in May when the writers’ strike started, laying off 50 staff members, nearly all of them represented by the Teamsters. Since then, he has been repairing trucks and doing other maintenance at his facility in the northern reaches of the Los Angeles area.“We’re kind of the side effect,” Mr. Michelson said. “We depend on the film industry, but we get nothing out of this. The actors and the writers, hopefully they’ll get a nice raise, but we get nothing out of it.”Unlike striking workers in California, those who lose their jobs as collateral damage of labor disputes are eligible for unemployment insurance. (New York State does allow workers on strike to collect unemployment checks.)That’s what most of Mr. Michelson’s workers are doing. Many of those who were in more physical jobs, like carrying heavy cameras and lights around, are using the time to take care of occupational injuries by claiming disability benefits.Bill Bridges, a member of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, has worked as a grip for 25 years. Getting through the Covid-19 shutdown was hard enough, he said, and then he needed a year off for a total knee replacement. During that time, Mr. Bridges became licensed to drive a truck, and applied for jobs with the long-haul freight lines — but he said they paid only $650 a week for someone with no experience.After recovering from surgery, he was able to drive film trucks, and sometimes earned $1,600 a day. That stopped when the talent went on strike. This time, he’s back on disability to get bunion surgery.Mr. Bridges supports the strikers, but said he was way behind on bills, barely sustaining his wife and 11-year-old son. The union has started a mutual aid food pantry and a GoFundMe appeal for its members.“This is probably financially the lowest point in my life,” he said. He worries about his own union’s contract negotiations, coming up next year: “If there’s another strike, I don’t know what I’m going to do.” More

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    West Coast Dockworkers Ratify Contract

    The six-year agreement is expected to increase traffic at Pacific ports, which had sagged because of the prospect of a walkout.Dockworkers at ports along the West Coast have ratified a new contract, securing a sweeping agreement set to last six years and expected to ease tensions after cargo shipments were diverted to other regions.The contract between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association, which operates the terminals, covers 22,000 dockworkers at 29 ports from Los Angeles to Seattle.The contract was approved by 75 percent of members who voted, the union said late Thursday. Details of the agreement were not released publicly, and the union declined to comment. Unionized workers at the ports have average salaries in the low six figures.The maritime association did not respond to a request for comment.The two sides announced in June that they had reached a tentative agreement after a year of negotiations that prompted intervention from the Biden administration and coincided with a decline in the volume of cargo at several major ports along the West Coast.During the negotiation period, as workers staged a series of slowdowns, including at the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, some shipping companies diverted freight to ports along the Gulf and East Coasts and then never returned to their old routes.And the movement of goods continued to lag into the summer.At the Port of Los Angeles, the amount of cargo imported in July was down 25 percent from a year earlier. But at Port Houston, where some companies rerouted cargo, officials reported its best July on record in processing cargo.Geraldine Knatz, a former head of the Port of Los Angeles and now professor of the practice of policy and engineering at the University of Southern California, said she expected the contract’s ratification to give some shippers the level of comfort they needed to return to their old routes.“Everyone is expecting we will see an increase in volume,” she said of cargo handled on the West Coast.Matthew Shay, president of the National Retail Federation, said the West Coast ports played a critical role in the vitality of the business community nationwide.“Now that an agreement has been ratified by all parties, the millions of businesses and employees who rely on their operations can be assured that long-term stability will remain at the West Coast ports,” Mr. Shay said.Santul Nerkar More

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    Here’s where the jobs are for August 2023 — in one chart

    The August jobs report was another sign that the U.S. labor market is cooling off.
    The U.S. Department of Labor said Friday that the economy added 187,000 jobs in August.

    The August jobs report was another sign that the U.S. labor market is cooling off, though some of the sectors that have fueled the post-pandemic rebound remain strong.
    The U.S. Department of Labor said Friday that the economy added 187,000 jobs in August even as the unemployment rate ticked up to 3.8%. Payrolls growth was driven by health care and social assistance, which added more than 97,000 jobs. The category would have grown by more than 100,000 when including private education, as some economists do.

    Leisure and hospitality also added another 40,000 jobs.
    “Leisure and hospitality still remains well below pre-pandemic levels of employment, and well below pre-pandemic trends in employment. So we’re not that surprised by continued growth there. In health care, you’re getting back to and above pre-pandemic trends in employment, in part due to increased demand,” said Andrew Patterson, senior international economist at Vanguard.
    On the other side of the report, some of the categories with the biggest job losses came with important caveats.
    For example, the transportation and warehousing sector lost more than 34,000 jobs. That was driven by a drop of nearly 37,000 positions in trucking, which the Labor Department attributed to a business closure. This is likely a reference to Yellow filing for bankruptcy protection in August.
    Similarly, the 15,000 job losses in the information sector seemed to be driven mostly by the Hollywood strikes by writers and actors, which has largely shut down production in the U.S. The subcategory for motion picture and sound recording dropped close to 17,000 jobs, the Labor Department said.

    “I’d say these are probably one-offs. … We wouldn’t expect that to continue going forward. But even if you add those back in, you’re still in the low 200,000 jobs, which is a downshift from mid-200,000s which we were seeing for much of the year, and even higher than that earlier in the year,” Patterson said.
    “That said, even with these ‘weaker reports,’ you’re still talking about adding 180,000 jobs a month, which is well above the rate needed to account for new entrants into the labor market,” the economist added.
    The report also cited that temporary help services jobs declined about 19,000 and are now down 242,000 since March 2022.
    — CNBC’s Gabriel Cortes contributed reporting. More

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    Black unemployment rate declines in August, even as it rose across the board

    The overall unemployment rate climbed to 3.8%. The jobless rate came in ahead of the Dow Jones forecast of 3.5%.
    The unemployment rate for Black workers declined, however, falling to 5.3% from 5.8% in the previous month.
    Unemployment rates for Hispanic and Asian workers inched higher in August.

    Pixelseffect | E+ | Getty Images

    The unemployment rate for Black workers slipped in August, bucking the broader trend of a higher overall jobless rate.
    The overall unemployment rate ticked up to 3.8% last month, the highest since February 2022. It came as the labor force participation rate — a measure of the number of people who are employed or seeking employment — climbed to 62.8% for its highest level since February 2020.

    The jobless rate declined for Black workers, sliding to 5.3% in August, compared to 5.8% in July.
    When accounting for gender, the unemployment rate for Black men age 20 and older came down to 5%, a decline from the 5.3% rate in July. Black women saw their jobless rate fall to 4.7%, compared to 5.2% the prior month.
    “I am relieved that the Black unemployment rate is coming down; it had been a little elevated a couple of months earlier,” said Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. “Hopefully that’s a positive trend.”
    Among Black workers, the labor force participation rate was little changed from the prior month. It came in at 62.6% in August, compared to 62.7% in July.

    The jobless rate moved higher for Asians and Hispanics, however.

    Among Asians, the unemployment rate increased to 3.1% in August from 2.3% in July. Hispanics saw their jobless rate rise to 4.9%, up from 4.4% a month earlier.
    Gould noted that the household data underlying the racial and ethnicity figures are based on smaller sample sizes, so there can be significant volatility from one month to the next.

    A potential area of concern emerged in the latest release, however: decline in jobs in the state and local government education space. Local government education payrolls fell by more than 10,000 in August, while state government education jobs dropped by nearly 5,000.
    “State and local education fell,” said Gould, adding that she’s watching that sector as it’s a notable employer of Black workers and women. “That sector is concerning, especially as students go back to school this month.”
    ­— CNBC’s Jeff Cox contributed to this story. More

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    Wages Rose Only 0.2% in August, Easing Inflation Fears

    American workers got smaller pay increases in August. That could be welcome news for policymakers at the Federal Reserve.Average hourly earnings rose 0.2 percent from July, the slowest pace of monthly growth since early last year. Pay was up 4.3 percent from a year earlier, versus a peak growth rate of nearly 6 percent in March 2022.The earnings data is preliminary and can be skewed by shifts in the industries that are hiring, among other factors. But the slowdown in wage gains is consistent with other evidence suggesting a gradual cooling in the labor market. Employers are posting fewer job openings — a sign of reduced demand for labor — and workers are changing jobs less frequently, a sign they are also becoming more cautious.For workers, the pain of slower wage growth is being offset, at least to some degree, by cooling inflation. Price increases outpaced pay gains for much of last year, but that trend has since reversed. Pay, adjusted for inflation, has risen in recent months; the Labor Department will release August price data later this month.For policymakers, a cooler pace of wage growth — if it is sustained — would be an encouraging sign that the labor market is coming off the boil. Fed officials have been worried that rapid wage gains, while not responsible for the recent increase in prices, could make it difficult for inflation to return to their long-term goal of 2 percent per year. The data released Friday suggests that the labor market is returning to balance — though hourly earnings are still rising faster than many economists consider sustainable in the long term.“While wage growth remains well above the Fed’s comfort zone, recent data points to a gentle moderation in labor cost pressures amid signs of labor market rebalancing,” Gregory Daco, chief economist for EY, wrote in a note to clients. More

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    Unemployment rate unexpectedly rose to 3.8% in August as payrolls increased by 187,000

    The unemployment rate rose sharply in August, as the summer of 2023 neared a close with a job market in slowdown mode.
    Nonfarm payrolls grew by a seasonally adjusted 187,000 for the month, above the Dow Jones estimate for 170,000, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.

    However, the unemployment rate was 3.8%, up significantly from July and the highest since February 2022, and estimates for previous months showed sharp downward revision. That increase in the jobless level came as the labor force participation rate rose to 62.8%, the highest since February 2020, just before the Covid pandemic declaration.
    A more encompassing unemployment measure that counts discouraged workers as well as those working part-time for economic reasons jumped to 7.1%, a 0.4 percentage point increase and the highest since May 2022.
    Average hourly earnings increased 0.2% for the month and 4.3% from a year ago. Both were below respective forecasts of 0.3% and 4.4% and another possible sign that inflation pressures are easing.

    Health care showed the biggest gain by sector, adding 71,000. Other leaders were leisure and hospitality (40,000), social assistance (26,000) and construction (22,000).
    Transportation and warehousing lost 34,000 and information declined by 15,000.

    While the nonfarm payrolls growth continued to defy expectations, previous months’ counts were revised considerably lower.
    The July estimate moved down by 30,000 to 157,000. June was revised lower by 80,000 to 105,000, making that the smallest month gain since December 2020.
    The unexpected increase in the jobless rate came as the rolls of the unemployed grew by 514,000. The household count of those employed increased by 222,000.
    When it comes to the closely watched jobs count, August is often one of the most volatile months of the year and can be subject to sharp revisions later. While the initial estimate and final counts in 2022 were little changed, the 2021 figure ended up more than doubled in the final count.
    August’s jobs reading comes at a pivotal time as Federal Reserve officials look to chart a course forward for monetary policy.
    Markets widely expect the Fed to skip a rate increase at its September 19-20 meeting. However, market pricing still points to about a 38% probability of a final hike at the Oct. 31-Nov. 1 meeting, according to CME Group data.
    Recent data has painted a mixed picture of where the economy is headed, with overall growth holding steady as consumers continue to spend, but the labor market beginning to loosen from historically tight conditions.
    Job openings, for instance, fell to 8.83 million in July. That’s still well above where they were prior to the Covid pandemic but is the lowest level since March 2021. That equated to 1.5 openings for every worker the BLS counts as unemployed.
    At the same time, inflation has shown signs of cooling even though it remains well above the level where Fed policymakers feel comfortable.
    The Commerce Department reported earlier this week that personal consumption expenditures prices, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, rose just 0.2% in July. That equated to a 3.3% 12-month gain, or 4.2% when excluding food and energy – the “core” level that the Fed thinks is a better measure of longer-term inflation.
    Consumer spending was strong during the month, rising 0.6% when adjusted for inflation even though real disposable personal income fell 0.2%. Households have been using credit cards and savings to compensate, as the personal savings rate fell to 3.5% in July, down sharply from the 4.3% level in June.
    The department also reported that gross domestic product increased at a 2.1% annualized rate for the second quarter, a level that is still above what the Fed considers trend growth for the U.S. economy but below the initial 2.4% estimate.
    However, the Atlanta Fed is tracking third-quarter GDP growth at a robust 5.6% pace. That counters long-running expectations that the economy is likely to hit at least a shallow recession following a series of aggressive Fed interest rate hikes.
    This is breaking news. Please check back here for updates. More