Free Republic

Although some panned any celebration of the 4.1 percent second quarter GDP growth, small business owners beg to disagree. At least in the small business sector of the economy, Main Street’s performance over the last 21 months is unprecedented based on reports for the past 45 years by hundreds of thousands of NFIB’s member firms. Owners have never been so optimistic for so long. This has translated to improved employment and investment spending that buoys GDP growth, even at the end of what will be the longest expansion in modern history. Consumer sentiment is at record high levels. Consumer...

Still, it appears the recovery is finally coming to less educated workers who have missed out on the economic boon that has been great for the wealthy and large corporations. The study found that much of the pickup in participation had come from Americans with some college education or less, as the labor market has tightened and employers have relaxed hiring requirements in order to find workers. Prime-age workers are a major driver of the economy, because they typically have high productivity rates and help push wages higher, spurring increased spending and development. However, the rise in workers for this...

President Donald Trump is making life better for black Americans everywhere you look while his predecessor fumbled. But, hey, say his critics, not everything is perfect yet, so don’t give in to his policies. It’s an unbudging, self-inflicted blindness that can hardly be called racism, itself, even though it is similarly destructive. The loudest Trump triumph of the moment has been dips to the lowest black unemployment in history, and get this: Jobs confer purpose, they provide pride, they build community, they set one up to help others, they enable social mobility, they lift the spirit. Welfare limps, jobs jog...

Don’t tell me this economy sucks. Sure, it’s far from perfect, but look at the statistics, look at Americans getting back to work, and tell me that we are doomed. Of course the party won’t last forever and the downturn will eventually come. That said, through the first year-and-a-half of the Trump economy, we are seeing and are poised for significant growth. The Trump administration’s America First economic policies are employing many Americans who have been out of work for some time. Second quarter’s GDP growth of 4.1 percent is the latest example of Trump’s deregulatory pro-jobs policies working wonders...

Over the last year and a half, there have been three things one could say about Donald Trump’s standing with the public, depending on which aspect you wished to emphasize: (1) Trump is not very popular. (2) Given his scandals and wildly unpresidential conduct in office, Trump is surprisingly popular. All three of these points are neatly brought together in a chart compiled by political scientist Patrick Egan, comparing presidential approval rating to consumer sentiment. The historically large divergence between the two illustrates just how badly Trump is underperforming given the buoyant assessment of the economy: But beneath all these...

So Much Winning: Before his election victory, POTUS Donald Trump was mocked by many on the Left and Right for claiming that he could turn the U.S. economy around and bring back jobs that his predecessor, Barack Obama, said were never coming back. During a town hall forum in Indianapolis, Obama made that pronouncement, essentially telling an American concerned about the future of employment in his city that some jobs just aren’t coming back.

U.S. stocks are rising again Tuesday as strong company earnings lift the market. The benchmark S&P 500 index is up for the fourth day in a row and fifth out of the last six. Technology companies and banks are making some of the largest gains. Overseas markets are also higher. The S&P 500 index jumped 10 points, or 0.4 percent, to 2,860 as of 10 a.m. Eastern time. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 146 points, or 0.6 percent, to 25,648. The Nasdaq composite rose 26 points, or 0.3 percent, to 7,886. The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks climbed...

U.S. employers posted slightly more openings in June than the previous month, resulting in more available jobs than unemployed people for the third straight month, signaling a solid economy. The Labor Department said Tuesday that job openings barely increased, rising 3,000 to 6.66 million. That’s more than the 6.56 million people who were searching for work in June. It’s also close to April’s figure of 6.8 million, a record high. Overall hiring slipped to 5.65 million from 5.75 million, and the number of people quitting their jobs declined slightly to 3.4 million from nearly 3.5 million in May. The figures...

Nearly one year ago, my father made a pledge that our economy would surge past 3 percent growth once his tax cuts were passed....He was ridiculed. Economists laughed....My father wasn’t laughing. The United States is no longer playing games. My father’s milestone of 4.1 percent GDP growth for the second quarter of 2018 puts him on track to become one of the greatest economic presidents of all time. The last time quarterly economic growth rose at a comparable rate was in 2014, and GDP growth for a full year hasn't crossed the 3 percent mark in 14 years. Every one...

Trump Economy: During his 2016 campaign, then-GOP candidate Donald Trump was mocked by Democrats (and some Republicans) for claiming that, under his leadership, Americans would get “tired of winning.” Well, there’s no sign most Americans have reached that point, but there is plenty of evidence that our country and our people are definitely winning under POTUS Trump’s economic leadership.

Our economy is strong, as nearly every new release of economic data indicates. Industrial production is up. The unemployment rate is as low as it has been in two decades. Employment rates are growing and the disability rolls are shrinking. Measures of business confidence are bullish. Stocks are up. The economy has been growing, hitting 3 percent in some quarters. Inflation, meanwhile, remains low.Usually such good economic news redounds to the benefit of the political party in power. This rule probably applies today. Even though President Trump and Republicans are less popular than politicians presiding over robust economic expansions usually...

It has become an article of faith among Republicans and some pundits: If only President Trump would stop with the racism and cruelty (as with family separations), the authoritarian assaults on the press and on the Mueller probe, and the panting embraces of Vladimir Putin, Republicans could bask in the glorious “Trump economy” and stave off big losses this fall. In this telling, if the election were about only the economy, Republicans would still face stiff headwinds but might at least weather them to the degree needed to hold the House. Friday morning, the monthly jobs report showed the unemployment...

President Donald Trump’s “hire American” economy has secured record low unemployment for the country’s most vulnerable workers: high school dropouts. In the month of July, high school dropouts 25-years-old and over enjoyed the lowest unemployment rate ever since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking the data in 1992. The unemployment rate in July for high school dropouts stood at 5.1 percent, the lowest on record, further depicting an economy where Americans are increasingly reintegrated into the workforce rather than businesses importing low-skilled foreign workers to take blue collar U.S. jobs. Trump’s economic model has been to depart from the...

Here is Stephen Moore on CNN today reacting to the July Jobs Report, which showed 157,000 new jobs being created. Moore called it “another blockbuster report,” that makes you “proud to be an American.” Moore said the Jobs Report would have been even better if there were more workers available! As Moore said – “There’s something radically right” about the Trump Economy! . . . .

Following last month’s strong employment report, the numbers released on Friday were even better in some respects. The Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics says a record 155,965,000 people were employed in July, the 11th record-breaker since President Trump took office 19 months ago. "Our economy is soaring. Our jobs are booming. Factories are pouring back into our country, they coming from all over the world. We are defending our workers," President Trump told a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Thursday. BLS said the economy added 157,000 jobs in July (compared with a revised 248,000 in June). The unemployment rate...

President Donald Trump’s pro-American policies on immigration are successfully pressuring U.S. companies to hire American business-school graduates instead of foreign graduates. Companies “have been hiring [foreign graduates] not because they are needed, but because it is easy and they could get away with paying them less,” said Jessica Vaughan, policy director at the Center for Immigration Studies. She added: As soon as there is resistance from the government, they find another way, they start actually recruiting Americans and legal immigrants instead of [foreign] guest workers … [because] they want a [legally] stable worker force as a well as a cheap...

Total nonfarm payrolls increased by 157,000 for the month, below the 190,000 expected in a Reuters survey of economists and the lowest gain since March. A 33,000 miss this month but 59,000 gain for the previous two months.

Payroll growth turned sluggish in July after two robust months, though the unemployment rate edged lower and the overall jobs picture continued to look solid, according to Labor Department numbers released Friday. Total nonfarm payrolls increased by 157,000 for the month, below the 190,000 expected in a survey of Reuters economists and the lowest gain since March. The unemployment rate fell one-tenth of a percentage point to 3.9 percent, as expected, and is around its lowest level in nearly 50 years. In the key wages category, average hourly earnings also met expectations, increasing 2.7 percent over the same period a...

President Trump won a victory for freer trade last week when he and the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, agreed to find ways to lower tariffs and other barriers to each other’s exports. The outlines of the deal are still sketchy, but it calls for the Europeans to buy more American petroleum, soybeans and manufactured goods and for Mr. Trump to reduce his auto and steel tariffs. We were particularly heartened that Mr. Trump and the Europeans now have a handshake agreement to aim for zero tariffs on both sides of the Atlantic. This was Mr. Trump’s idea....

The numbers: Companies in the private sector added 219,000 new employees to their payrolls in July, showing that firms are managing to fill a record number of job openings despite growing shortages of skilled labor. The increase in hiring was the strongest since February. Economists polled by Econoday had forecast a 173,000 increase, with estimates ranging from 150,000 to 220,000.