Wages & Prices
The December jobs report crushed expectations on Jan. 4, with 312,000 jobs added, a strong participation rate, wage gains and two months of upward revisions. That was 136,000 jobs more than expected.
WASHINGTON -- Homelessness is up for the second year in a row. That is no surprise to me. I spent the last few days in New York City, where it seems the homeless are as numerous as the tourists. They are everywhere. Not that they are not numerous in our nation's capital, too. I returned to Washington by the train, and there are areas of Union Station that are as populated with homeless people as the nearby shelter. The scenes are appalling. What can be done for these poor wretches?
National Public Radio is out begging for donations this week, with major stations like Washington’s WAMU offering gifts like those silly reusable grocery bags touting the “The Power of Truth.” But the truth can be pretty embarrassing. Apparently, NPR exploits cheap labor. Washington Post media reporter Paul Farhi has revealed that 20 to 22 percent of NPR’s 483 union-covered newsroom workforce, or one in five employees, are temps...and they’ve been doing this for decades.
The CW once again kickstarts its big DC Comics crossover event with The Flash, Arrow, and Supergirl. December 9 started the three-night “Elseworlds” event with “Elseworlds Part 1” on The Flash. While The Flash is not nearly as unbearably one-sided as a certain other comic-book series whose time slot it took this Sunday, that didn’t stop the show from dropping a discredited wage gap reference, of all things.
At the nation’s top two Hispanic television networks, the annual “Day of the Dead” celebrations were more important than tens of thousands of Latinos in the U.S. getting jobs, and driving unemployment among Latinos to yet another record low.
As voters head to the polls this Election Day, one thing on many of their minds is the U.S. economy. They just haven’t seen much of it on the network news.
The liberal media know the economy is one of the top issues for voters, yet broadcast network evening shows provided scant coverage of it the week before the elections in spite of an 18-year-high for consumer confidence and a 250,000 jobs report.
With one week to the midterm elections, the Conference Board released its latest survey of consumers showing their confidence soared to an 18-year high and also found high expectations for early 2019. This might well surprise many news consumers given how little effort the media have spent reporting on the good economy.
Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos is now the world’s wealthiest man, and the liberal media love denouncing him for it.
They’ve also started telling him what to do with his money and power now that he’s begun giving some of it away. Bezos is estimated to be worth $162 billion, and he and his wife announced on Sept. 13, they would give $2 billion to address homelessness and preschool education.
Besides gay rights, Shameless, Showtime’s hit liberal show, has yet another social justice cause to champion. This time it's equal pay.
On Monday, the White House sparked controversy after the American flag atop the building was raised from half-staff before the remains of Senator John McCain were even in the Capitol. Also on Monday, the White House struck a brand new trade deal with Mexico that would end yet another theater in the administration’s trade wars and is said to help American businesses and consumers. The former was part of a long-running political feud while the latter affected the lives of millions of Americans. Both ABC and CBS actually spent more time during their evening broadcasts on the feud than the end of a trade war.
As Vermont Democratic gubernatorial nominee Christine Hallquist appeared as a guest on MSNBC Live with Ali Velshi, the MSNBC host went along with his liberal guest's premise that liberal policies should not be labeled as "progressive" as the liberal host referred to his Canadian roots and suggested that liberalism just be called "normal." Notably, a bit later in the segment, the graphics team made a faux pas as an image of Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker appeared on screen while they were discussing the approval rating of Vermont Republican Governor Phil Scott.
The Trump administration’s winning record on Hispanic unemployment finally received a long overdue nod of recognition from top national Spanish-language media outlets Univision and CNN en Español. As unemployment among the nation’s largest minority group fell for the second consecutive, record-setting month, both Univision and CNN en Español trumpeted the news in their principal national evening news programs.