Wages & Prices

AP Pair: Sit Back and Accept the 'New Normal' Job Market: 'Smaller Workforce, Sluggish Pay'
By Tom Blumer | July 8, 2015 | 11:40 PM EDT

As seen in two previous posts at NewsBusters, once the Associated Press's Christopher Rugaber didn't get the job market "nearing full health" he expected and briefly thought he got in Thursday's jobs report, he quickly downgraded it to "painting a mixed picture," and took it further down to "a bleaker picture" about eight hours later.

That still left the problem, six years after the recession's official end, of explaining away yet another disappointing job-market reading in three quite visible areas. How did Rugaber and colleague Josh Boak "fix" the problem? They decided to say that "this may be what a nearly healthy U.S. job market now looks like." In other words, this is merely the end of the sixth year of the "new normal."

AP's Rugaber Changed Jobs Report Assessment Again on Thursday, From 'Mixed' to 'Bleaker Picture'
By Tom Blumer | July 8, 2015 | 12:07 PM EDT

The Associated Press's Christopher Rugaber had a very bad day on Thursday as he covered the government's June jobs report, but it was all self-inflicted.

I noted much of the problem in a NewsBusters post yesterday, citing how the AP economics writer got badly burned while engaging in the wire service's usual practice of analyzing expected and reported economic results instead of concentrating on relaying the facts. But there's more.

How Convenient: AP's Rugaber Changes Post-Jobs Report Assessment of Employment Market From 'Nearing Full Health' to 'Mixed'
By Tom Blumer | July 7, 2015 | 6:11 PM EDT

This post will document what transpired at the Associated Press on Thursday before and just after the release of the government's employment report. It should be a humiliating lesson to its business and economics writers. One would hope that they might learn to concentrate solely on discerning and accurately reporting the relevant facts, and to leave the analysis to others. (I know; fat chance.)

As will be seen after the jump, several hours before that jobs report, the AP's Christopher Rugaber was all ready to pronounce the job market as "nearing full health," basing his bizarre assessment largely on "a surge in people looking for work" (reports referenced at this post have been saved at my host for future reference, fair use and discussion purposes; bolds are mine throughout this post):

ABC Neglects to Mention Flat Wages, Record Low Labor Participation Rate in June Jobs Report
By Curtis Houck | July 2, 2015 | 10:20 PM EDT

All three major broadcast networks covered on their Thursday evening newscasts the June 2015 jobs report, but it was ABC’s World News Tonight that neglected provide any further details and/or context beyond the unemployment rate and number of jobs added and omitted how hourly wages remained flat and the labor force participation rate sunk to its lowest level in 38 years. While CBS and NBC chronicled the numerous pitfalls to varying degrees, neither chose to look at why the numbers remained sluggish or assign blame for the state of the economy.

CNN's Acosta Tosses Softball to Obama Over His 'Best Week Ever'
By Matthew Balan | June 30, 2015 | 4:15 PM EDT

On Tuesday, CNN's Jim Acosta asked President Obama about "what some people are calling 'your best week ever.'" Acosta played up that "you had two Supreme Court decisions supportive of the Affordable Care Act and of gay rights. You also delivered a speech down in Charleston that was pretty warmly received." The correspondent then underlined that 'it seems that you've built up some political capital for the remaining months of your presidency." He asked, "I'm curious, how you want to use it? What hard things do you want to tackle at this point?"

ABC, NBC Ignore Downside of Obama’s Wage ‘Boost’ Proposal
By Jeffrey Meyer | June 30, 2015 | 10:19 AM EDT

On Tuesday, the “Big Three” (ABC, CBS, and NBC) networks all highlighted President Obama’s plan to increase the income threshold for salaried workers who earn overtime pay but only CBS This Morning acknowledged the potential harm such a policy change could have on businesses. 

CNN Inserts Plan for Anti-Poverty Spending into Discussion of Charleston Massacre
By Brad Wilmouth | June 27, 2015 | 4:46 PM EDT

On Friday's New Day, during a discussion of the then-upcoming funeral for South Carolina State Senator Clementa Pinckney, CNN host Alisyn Camerota brought up issues of high poverty in South Carolina's black population and invited Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn to use the recent church massacre as a springboard to push for diverting more federal money into high-poverty areas.

CNN Touts Another Panel of Voters Who Slant Heavily Liberal
By Brad Wilmouth | June 25, 2015 | 9:46 PM EDT

A week after CNN's New Day aired a pair of pre-recorded segments focusing on an allegedly balanced group of New Hampshire voters who ended up displaying political views stacked heavily in the liberal direction, this week's batch of voters -- this time from Charleston, South Carolina -- appear even more slanted to the left in spite of suggestions of a balanced sample with equal numbers of Republicans, Democrats and independents.

Gap Inc. Will Close 140 U.S. Stores This Year — Just As Its Obama-Praised $10 Minimum Wage Takes Effect
By Tom Blumer | June 16, 2015 | 12:10 PM EDT

In February of last year, Gap Inc., which operates Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic and Athleta stores, announced that it would raise its minimum hourly rate of pay for all U.S. employees to $9 in June 2014 and $10 in June 2015. As a result, it won "praise from President Obama who is pushing to raise the nation's minimum wage by a similar amount." The company said that the move would affect 65,000 employees who were making less.

The linked CNN Money report quoted an apparently confident Lynn Albright, a vice president at Old Navy, as follows: "We're coming from place where we can afford to make this investment." Maybe the company could afford it then, but based on today's store closure announcement, that's not so much the case now:

NYT Blares Emotionally Pro-Union, Anti-Scott Walker Piece As Magazine Cover Story
By Clay Waters | June 14, 2015 | 7:33 AM EDT

The New York Times magazine launched another emotional attack on Wisconsin's Republican (and presidential hopeful) Gov. Scott Walker, whom the paper cannot forgive for successfully taming his state's public unions and then surviving an expensive, union-funded recall election. Contributor Dan Kaufman's romanticized, pro-union 5,700-word cover story was advertised as "Labor's Last Stand -- Scott Walker and the dismantling of American unions." A pull quote from a union official captures the tone: "Wisconsin has become a kind of laboratory for oligarchs to implement their political and economic agenda."

New York Times Pushes 'Income Inequaity' Obsession in Polls, on Front Page
By Clay Waters | June 4, 2015 | 10:34 PM EDT

Another day, another batch of poll results from the New York Times pushing a liberal issue. Yesterday it was campaign finance. Thursday's front page brought the paper's latest installment of the paper's ongoing obsession with "income inequality," "Inequality Troubles Americans Across Party Lines, a Poll Finds," with special pressure on what it would mean for the Republicans in 2016.

LA Unions Lobby for Exemption From $15/Hr. Minimum Wage Law They Pushed
By Tom Blumer | May 27, 2015 | 11:07 PM EDT

This has to be the month's top entry in the "Just when you think you've seen it all" category — and it will be more than a little interesting to see how the nation's press handles it.

As the Associated Press reported a week ago, the City Council in Los Angeles, by a vote of 14-1, ordered the drafting of a law mandating a citywide minimum wage of $15 per hour by 2020, noting that "the support of Mayor Eric Garcetti virtually guarantee its eventual adoption." Now that it's almost a done deal, labor unions whose members earn less want to be exempt from the law. Seriously. And it's not that the unions were caught off guard, because the person who is most visibly arguing for the exemption "helps lead the Raise the Wage coalition"! Apparently caught completely flat-footed, three Los Angeles Times reporters, in a rare break from the paper's non-stop leftist bias, filed a fair and balanced report on the truly offensive situation.