Biden-Harris Admin Adds Nearly No Jobs in Last Report Before Election

Work meeting

The U.S. added 12,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in October as the unemployment rate remained unchanged, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data released Friday.

Economists expected 110,000 jobs to be added in October, far lower than the initially reported 254,000 job gain in September, and that the unemployment rate would hold steady at 4.1%. Previously reported job gains for August and September were revised down by 81,000 and 31,000, respectively, following a trend under the Biden-Harris administration of overestimating employment growth in initial estimates, with the cumulative number of new jobs reported in 2023 roughly 1.3 million less than previously thought.

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‘Cannot Continue’: Major Automaker Hits the Gas on Cost Cuts amid Tepid EV Demand, Increased Chinese Competition

Volkswagen

Volkswagen (VW) said Wednesday that it needs to cut costs amid slackening consumer demand for electric vehicles (EVs) and weaker car sales in China.

VW’s profits fell 64% in the third quarter of 2024, driving the company’s share price to its lowest level since October 2010. Now, the world’s largest automaker by sales is looking to lower its expenses, with VW’s top labor leader announcing earlier this week that the company was aiming to shut at least three of its German factories, slash wages 10% and lay off thousands of employees.

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U.S. Economic Growth Was Weaker than Expected in Third Quarter

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The U.S. economy grew at a rate of 2.8% in the third quarter of 2024, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) statistics released Wednesday.

The growth in the third quarter comes after a better-than-expected 3.0% growth rate in the second quarter of 2024, according to the BEA. Economists forecast that GDP would increase by about 3.0% in the third quarter, according to Forecast.com.

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VA Reports Housing Nearly 48,000 Homeless Vets in 2024

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs announced Thursday it housed 47,925 veterans experiencing homelessness in fiscal year 2024, besting an earlier goal.

That’s the largest number of veterans experiencing homelessness the federal agency has housed since fiscal year 2019 and 16.9% over its goal of 41,000.

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GOP Lawmakers Demand Answers from Biden-Harris Admin on ‘Botched’ Rollout of Huge Jobs Revision

Office Work

Republican lawmakers wrote to Department of Labor (DOL) Acting Secretary Julie Su on Friday, slamming the agency for ignoring an oversight request regarding its “botched release” of data that showed the Biden-Harris administration had wildly overestimated job creation.

The August Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) release  — which revealed the U.S. economy had created more than 800,000 fewer jobs in the twelve months through March than the administration had claimed — was posted roughly a half hour late, with a slew of Wall Street investment firms obtaining details about the report at least 15 minutes before the public. Republican Reps. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina and Bob Good of Virginia issued an oversight request following the incident, which the DOL then failed to respond to, prompting the lawmakers to re-up their inquiry into whether or not the BLS favored Wall Street insiders over the American public, according to the letter obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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North Carolina Government Estimates Hurricane Helene Caused at Least $53 Billion in Damage

Hurricane Helene Damage Clean up

The North Carolina government on Wednesday released an estimate that Hurricane Helene caused at least $53 billion in damage, particularly in the western part of the state.

The state budget office calculated the preliminary amount which also includes potential investments to avoid similar expensive damages during hurricanes in the future.

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Existing Home Sales Drop as Presidential Election Approaches

The upcoming presidential election might keep some would-be homebuyers on the sidelines, according to a real estate economist.

Existing-home sales declined 1% in September as prices continued to climb higher, according to figures released Wednesday by the National Association of Realtors.

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Commentary: Biden’s Climate Splurge Gives Billions to Nonprofit Newbies

Solar Panel Installation

Although there isn’t much public information available about the Justice Climate Fund, it appears to have been an overnight success.

After gaining nonprofit status in August 2023, the organization was awarded $940 million by the Biden administration just eight months later in connection with the White House’s $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which aims to provide financial assistance to reduce carbon emissions and reduce pollution.  

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‘There’s Going to Be Pain’: Restaurant Chains Are Falling Like Dominoes as Inflation Under Biden-Harris Takes Its Toll

Red Lobster

Restaurant chains and operators are slated to have their most bankruptcies in decades apart from 2020, a Wall Street Journal analysis of Chapter 11 filings found Monday.

The bankruptcies seen this year are rivaling those seen during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when restrictions and other pandemic-related disruptions caused the industry’s sales to fall $240 billion, according to the WSJ. The surge in bankruptcies comes as prices have increased over 20% since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, raising operational expenses for restaurants and making customers less inclined to eat out.

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Walz Granted Hundreds of Thousands to Meatpacker That Had Kids Cleaning Processing Plant

Meat Packing Plant

Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz awarded up to $126,000 in taxpayer funds to meat processor JBS after an investigation revealed some of the company’s processing plants were cleaned using child labor.

The U.S. Department of Labor found in February 2023 that at least 31 children were employed “in hazardous occupations to clean dangerous powered equipment during overnight shifts at JBS USA plants,” though they were employed by a third-party cleaning service rather than by JBS directly. Minnesota’s Office of Higher Education then announced a grant in June to fund job training for 28 staff members at the JBS plant in Worthington, Minnesota — a plant at which at least 22 children had been illegally employed to clean.

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