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Weak jobs report spurs new arguments over big fed spending

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libertybele:
Weak jobs report spurs new arguments over big fed spending

 President Joe Biden insists an unexpected slowdown in companies’ hiring is clear new proof the U.S. needs the multitrillion-dollar federal boost he’s pushing. But his sales effort is challenged by critics who say Friday’s jobless figures show his earlier aid legislation — successfully rushed through Congress — is actually doing more harm than good.

Biden’s promised economic comeback hardly stalled on Friday. But it seemed to sputter a bit with a report that found merely modest April job gains of 266,000 and complicated his new $4 trillion push for infrastructure, education and children.

The employment report failed to show that the U.S. economy was accelerating so much as stutter-stepping along as the unemployment rate ticked up to 6.1%. Economists had projected roughly one million added jobs last month, and the modest hiring indicated that the earlier $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package has provided an uneven boost so far.

The figures present Biden with a fresh challenge at a critical moment in his presidency. He is betting that an open embrace of massive government spending will help resolve the nation’s public health and financial turmoil — and lift the political prospects for Democrats heading into next year’s elections. But the disappointing jobs numbers could also embolden his critics and stiffen the Republican resistance to the infrastructure package Biden is trying to push through Congress.

Addressing the report, Biden sought to ease concerns.

“We knew this wouldn’t be a sprint—it’d be a marathon,” he said. The pandemic relief package “was designed to help us over the course of a year, not 60 days. A year. We never thought that after the first 50 or 60 days everything would be fine. Today, there’s more evidence our economy is moving in the right direction. But it’s clear we have a long way to go.”

Biden’s opponents say the legislation actually worsened problems in at least one way, with expanded unemployment benefits that gave the jobless a reason to stay at home instead of seeking work............

https://apnews.com/article/health-coronavirus-pandemic-business-96576792492a11187cb05097c4894acc

Hoodat:
Nothing 'new about it.  Keynes has been proven wrong for almost a century.  His policies extended the Great Depression over a decade.

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