Free Republic

Ahead of President Trump taking office on Jan. 20, Bidenomics is still with us. Joe crowed about all the 16 million jobs he'd 'created' in his speech five days ago, patting himself on the back. Here's the White House public relations video: [video at link] It was stolen valor. Turns out his jobs numbers look like this: Post Stephen Moore @StephenMoore 🚨 Another half-million jobs reported under Biden turn out to be phantom! 🚨 The Philly Fed's recent findings reveal that Q2 job growth was actually negative, with all reported gains set for revision in 2025. This follows an alarming...

A group of Republican senators wants to know how President Biden’s Department of Labor severely overestimated the number of new jobs created over the past year — after the agency made its largest downward revision to US payroll figures since 2009. The revised figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), released last week, suggested that there were actually 818,000 fewer jobs during the 12 months ending in March than initially reported — an indication that the economy may be less robust than the White House is saying. That means that the actual job growth during that period was likely...

More than 50 million retired workers received a Social Security benefit in April 2024. Those monthly disbursements are often their largest source of income. Indeed, a recent survey from Gallup found that 88% of retirees depend on Social Security to some degree, and 60% said benefits were a “major source” of income. The Social Security program undergoes certain changes annually to keep benefits aligned with inflation and general wage level. Given the important role benefits play in retirement, it is imperative that beneficiaries (and soon-to-be beneficiaries) stay informed. But a recent survey from Nationwide Retirement Institute shows that many Americans...

U.S.—Service stations across the country have begun widening their signs in preparation for higher gas prices, sources confirmed Thursday. The wider signs allow for prices up to eight digits long, "an absolute necessity" for the Biden presidency, according to local fuel station franchise owners. "We're gonna need a bigger sign," gas station owner Amir Wallenfeld said in an interview with a local news station in Los Angeles. "This should get us through the first few years of the Biden presidency, though we're looking for a bigger one should he be reelected in 2024, should he live that long."

Happy by the headline establishment survey print of 133,245 which says that the US "added" 163,000 jobs in July from 133,082 last month? Consider this: the number was based on a non seasonally adjusted July number of 132,868. This was a 1.248 million drop from the June print. So how did the smoothing work out to make a real plunge into an "adjusted" rise? Simple: the BLS "added" 377K jobs for seasonal purposes. This was the largest seasonal addition in the past decade for a July NFP print in the past decade, possibly ever, as the first chart below shows....

HERMOSA BEACH, Calif. - Maria Sharapova loves to shop, gossip with girlfriends, write and pore over photos in glossy fashion magazines. But that's where similarities with other 17-year-olds end. She emerged this year as one of the world's best tennis players, winning Wimbledon and carefully cultivating a lucrative endorsement portfolio whose worth puts a typical teenager's allowance to shame. "One day I can be with my friend talking about the girliest, weird things and the next day I'm in a meeting talking about a deal or sponsorship or doing a photo shoot that are run by all adults that want...