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The Fed Must Act Now – Before the Job Market Cracks
Real Clear Politics ^ | October 25, 2025 | Dan Varroney

Posted on 10/25/2025 11:38:19 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum

America’s labor market is flashing red, and the Federal Reserve is watching the light change instead of hitting the brakes. Job openings have fallen to 7.26 million, the lowest level in 4½ years. Private-sector hiring has turned negative, with September’s ADP data showing -32,000 jobs after August was revised down to -3,000. Employers’ plans to add workers have plunged 71% from last year, and year-to-date hiring announcements are the weakest since 2009. The Fed must move decisively by cutting rates 50 basis points in both the October and December meetings to prevent further deterioration in employment and restore confidence to the private economy.

For the first time since early 2021, there are more unemployed Americans than job vacancies. If the Fed waits until 2026 to cut rates meaningfully, it will be too late. Monetary policy works with long and variable lags. By the time a policy shift filters through credit markets and small-business balance sheets, another million jobs could be lost.

Large corporations have the cash buffers to ride out higher rates. Small businesses do not. The Main Street employers who generate two-thirds of all new private-sector jobs and nearly 44% of U.S. GDP require lower costs of capital and a continued regulatory unwind by the Trump administration.

In “Rethinking Economic Growth,” I chronicled the real-world effects of these pressures across twelve industries, from wooden pallets to specialized transportation, energy handling, and equipment manufacturing. Each case study revealed the same truth: When financing dries up, expansion stops, hiring freezes, and communities suffer.

At Hinton Lumber in Alabama, for example, owner Hinton Howell showed how automation and AI can lift productivity if companies can access affordable capital. But when borrowing costs soar, small manufacturers can’t invest in new machinery or training. Jeff Lewis of Atlanta Pallets told...

(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government
KEYWORDS: tariffs
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1 posted on 10/25/2025 11:38:19 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
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To: All

The Fed shouldn’t exist


2 posted on 10/25/2025 11:42:31 AM PDT by escapefromboston (Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

“America’s labor market is flashing red, and the Federal Reserve is watching the light change instead of hitting the brakes. Job openings have fallen to 7.26 million, the lowest level in 4½ years.”

The fed will not see this as a contracting economy, they will see it as full employment in an overheating economy and will want to raise rates or something else insane.


3 posted on 10/25/2025 11:50:38 AM PDT by DesertRhino (When men on the chessboard, get up and tell you where to go…)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

The Fed should not be considering unemployment at all. Inflation is still far too high, keep those rates up!!


4 posted on 10/25/2025 11:59:18 AM PDT by fluffy
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Fed can not create jobs. Lowering taxes creates jobs. But with fugly big deficits year after year, interest rates will stay high to sell bonds to cover deficits.


5 posted on 10/25/2025 12:01:50 PM PDT by Bobbyvotes (Work is worship! .... Bhagavad Geetanout )
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

I believe the Fed is supposed to preserve the value of the dollar. Which they have spectacularly failed to do. Instead, the Fed is trying to manipulate employment statistics so that politicians look either good or bad, depending on the party (Democrats are the “good guys”).

We ought to end the Fed.


6 posted on 10/25/2025 12:05:46 PM PDT by ClearCase_guy (Democrats seek power through cheating and assassination. They are sociopaths. They just want power.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

The market will pick up when all of the companies moving to the US get geared up.


7 posted on 10/25/2025 12:10:32 PM PDT by Revel
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To: Bobbyvotes

Since 1960 at least, untested rates are quite low now.

My father bought the house I grew up in, in 1963. His VA loan got him a 3% interest rate. From about 1968 until the them he sold the house in 1978 the mortgage company would ask at least twice a year for him to refinance. At 3% they said they were losing money on the loan.

Credit card rates, now, are insane. I had a card I used to pay a medical bill in 2004. I was 1 day late making a payment, and Wells Cargo raised my rate from 18% to 29%. That, IMHO, is criminal, even though it’s legal. I was not able to pay off that card until 2012.


8 posted on 10/25/2025 12:20:13 PM PDT by jimtorr
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To: Revel

Will be years if that happens at all, meanwhile the jobless go without and headed to bankruptcy nationally... But we are going to have a giant Ballroom so we have that...


9 posted on 10/25/2025 12:21:09 PM PDT by dpetty121263
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Stop all legal immigration and work visas.


10 posted on 10/25/2025 12:27:19 PM PDT by central_va ( I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn...)
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To: dpetty121263

The DU is calling you.


11 posted on 10/25/2025 12:28:42 PM PDT by central_va ( I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn...)
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To: dpetty121263

A ball room that taxpayers neither had to pay for nor the fed to finance thru deficit dollars. It was work that needed doing anyway, even had the East Wing been designed to stay within its previous specs...the facilities were deteriorating and needed fixing anyway. Trump is stuck cleaning up what Biden’s policies left Americans with!


12 posted on 10/25/2025 12:28:47 PM PDT by mdmathis6 (A horrible historic indictment: Biden Democrats plunging the world into war to hide their crimes!)
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To: mdmathis6

Understand that about the Ballroom, BUT most of the Public does not as the Optics is horrible when people are hurting....


13 posted on 10/25/2025 12:37:32 PM PDT by dpetty121263
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Surprising number of comments that don’t address the situation or don’t demonstrate understanding it.


14 posted on 10/25/2025 12:44:59 PM PDT by SaxxonWoods (Annnd....TRUMP IS RIGHT AGAIN.)
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To: ClearCase_guy

THE UNEMPLOYMENT NUMBERS HAVE BEEN GARBAGE FOR A VERY LONG TIME.

NOT A RELIABLE STATISTIC


15 posted on 10/25/2025 12:45:24 PM PDT by ridesthemiles (not giving up on TRUMP---EVER)
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To: dpetty121263

PRETTY SURE THE “GIANT BALLROOM’ ISN’T BEING BILLED TO US.

THE MEDICAL FOR ILLEGALS PLUS HOUSING PLUS FOOD PLUS CASH IS BEING BILLED TO US.


16 posted on 10/25/2025 12:48:01 PM PDT by ridesthemiles (not giving up on TRUMP---EVER)
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To: dpetty121263

... only if you swallow the leftist press lies! No one I know doesn’t think getting rid of the tents in the winter is a great idea, especially with no tax dollars... ymmv


17 posted on 10/25/2025 12:48:57 PM PDT by PalominoGuy ( )
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To: fluffy

“Inflation is still far too high, keep those rates up!!”

The Fed Target should be 0.2%.


18 posted on 10/25/2025 12:49:38 PM PDT by Paladin2 (YMMV)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

It’s AI, nobody is hiring new grads, they are running projects to replace entry level jobs with AI.


19 posted on 10/25/2025 1:13:11 PM PDT by reardensteel
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To: fluffy

No. Lower the rate another .5


20 posted on 10/25/2025 1:27:18 PM PDT by Fledermaus ("It turns out all we really needed was a new President!")
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