The Biden administration has missed yet another economic target.
This time it was new jobless claims.
As Breitbart News reported on Thursday, “New claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose last week, the first such setback for the labor market since April.”
The conservative website noted that total jobless claims under state programs totaled 402,352 for the week that ended on June 12.
That represented an increase of 37,174, or 10.2 percent, from the prior week.
Breitbart pointed out that another 118,025 initial claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance were filed that week, which lifted total new claims by 19 percent, to roughly 520,000.
Yet the Biden administration “had expected a fractional decline from the previous week,” according to Breitbart.
“Economists had expected a decline to 360,000 after the 376,000 initially reported a week earlier.”
Breitbart noted, “Many Americans are hanging back from working because, for a very large share of those unemployed, supplemental federal jobless benefits, on top of regular state unemployment aid, pay them more than their old jobs did.” Meanwhile, many Americans may have to deal with health and child care issues, while “some who have lost work during the pandemic have decided to retire while others have rethought their career choices after working from home or being out of work during the pandemic.”
The website also pointed to economic woes on other fronts:
“Fiscal stimulus and loose monetary policy, however, are fueling inflation. As well, the sudden lurches in the economy have caused bottlenecks in the supply chain, triggering shortages and skyrocketing prices for things like used cars, lumber, and grains. Those rising prices are taking their toll and squeezing households. Retail spending actually fell in May, homebuilding is stalling, gasoline is at multi-year highs, and inflation-adjusted incomes have been declining as wage gains get swamped by larger rises in the cost of living.”
President Joe Biden pledged to “build back better.” He should have told us it was 1970s style.
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