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Bidenomics is already starting to slam the US economy

By Post Editorial Board May 7, 2021 | 6:17pm | Updated

Economists expected the country to add 1 million jobs in April. It added just 266,000 — a sign that Bidenomics is kicking in and already becoming a dangerous drag on the economy.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics also revealed Friday that the unemployment rate rose slightly, from March’s 6 percent to 6.1 percent. Its jobs report was a stunning blow after March saw 770,000 jobs added.

But it shouldn’t come as a complete shock: President Joe Biden’s determination to grow government on the backs of business, and thus consumers, was going to hit growth at some point.

Without question, part of the problem is the $300 weekly federal supplement to unemployment benefits, which Biden’s nearly $2 trillion COVID “relief” package extended all the way until Sept. 6. A University of Chicago study found that 42 percent of those receiving unemployment checks are making more from the government than they did at the jobs they lost, without even including health-insurance aid for the unemployed.

But the prez refuses to take any responsibility — and even threatens to send more “help.”

“Do you believe enhanced unemployment benefits had any effect on diminishing a return to work in some categories?” a reporter asked Friday; Biden responded, “No, nothing measurable.” His Treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, agreed, saying it wasn’t a “major factor.” Both admitted, though, that businesses are having trouble filling jobs.

Of course they are. How many people would jump at a 40-hour workweek when they can get the same or more sitting on the couch? Gotham restaurants have struggled to fill positions, and they say it’s thanks to the extended benefits. “The stimulus plan is being completely undermined by the unemployment program,” Philippe Massoud, CEO of Manhattan’s Lebanese eatery Ilili, told The Post.

Not that Biden’s stimulus helped matters: The US future inflation gauge is at a three-decade high, and consumers are already seeing higher prices in everything from baby products to groceries to cars. That’s what happens when you throw money into the economy willy-nilly, as Biden has done (and plans to do much more). The M2, a key measure of the money supply, is up by 25 percent over last year.

Biden’s clueless reaction to the bad jobs news shows he hasn’t learned his lesson. Instead of ending the unemployment extension and encouraging the country’s schools to reopen so parents can get back to work, he said the job numbers show “more help is needed” — that is, his two plans to spend another $5 trillion to fund Democratic interests and vastly increase the ranks of dues-paying members of lefty-supporting labor unions and to vastly hike taxes on investment and business.

Bidenomics will never get America back to the 50-year-low unemployment rate of 3.5 percent we saw in February 2020, just before the pandemic hit. Indeed, if the president gets his way, the United States is headed at best for economic stagnation, if not 1970s-style “stagflation.”

https://nypost.com/2021/05/07/bidenomics-is-already-starting-to-slam-the-us-economy/