Dem
50
GOP
50
Normally, this would not be big enough news for us to write a weekend item. However, we had an item yesterday noting that people with advance information were saying the newest jobs report would be so-so. Maybe these people were working from a phony version of the report, like the phony forecast of orange juice futures in the movie Trading Places. In any event, the actual report was fantastic.
How was it fantastic? In pretty much every way possible. The U.S. economy was expected to add about 140,000 jobs in September, and it looks to have added something more like 254,000. Further, the July and August numbers were revised upward, by 72,000 jobs. Unemployment is thus lower than expected, at 4.1%, which is effectively full employment. And the stock market surged yesterday in response to all of this.
It is possible this will put a little wind in the sails of Kamala Harris. At very least, if the October jobs report is not so good, then it should be a wash. We tend to think that anyone who says, "Sure, the September report was great, but the October one wasn't, so I just can't vote for Kamala Harris" was never going to vote for her anyhow. (Z)