America Loses 112,000 Jobs in May

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OK, technically that headline isn’t true. In fact, ADP estimates that employment grew by 38,000 jobs last month. But the American economy needs to generate about 150,000 new jobs each month just to keep up with the number of new workers entering the economy thanks to population growth. So just as you should adjust price levels for inflation, you should adjust new jobs for population growth. And on that scale, we lost about 112,000 jobs last month.

But quick! Medicare might start having funding problems in 2025 and Social Security might go into the red in 2040. Those are obviously the problems we should be dealing with right this second. And we should deal with them by cutting spending on a bunch of other programs because, um, um, um……

I forget. But I know there’s a reason. My TV keeps telling me there is. Something about the rest of the world forcing us to screw the poor and destroy our economy today in order to save it tomorrow. So let’s get on with the destruction.

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PLEASE—BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please do your part and help us reach our $150,000 membership goal by May 31.

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