123. This Week's Economy Ep. 3: TRUTH About New U.S. Jobs Report, Banking CRISIS Effects, & State Actions
In "This Week's Economy" Ep. 3, I note the weaker labor market in the latest U.S. jobs report, the continued banking crisis issues, and state actions in Texas and Louisiana.
Hello Friends,
Thank you for listening to the third episode of "This Week's Economy,” where I briefly share my insights every Friday morning on key economic news at the U.S. and state levels.
Today, I cover:
Jobs Report: The U.S. jobs report for March 2023 and the continued weakness in the labor market when considering the prime-age (25-54 year old) labor force participation rate and employment-population rate compared with the early 2000s along with the 24th consecutive month of declining year-over-year inflation-adjusted average weekly earnings.
Banking Crisis: The banking crisis continues to cause some reasons for concern as the federal government continues to bail out depositors and ultimately big banks thereby creating more risk and costlier busts while the Fed adds more fuel to the fire, as I noted in recent interviews on Fox Business and NTD News below; and
State Actions: The Texas Senate passed SB 8 which provides many families in Texas with $8,000 in an education savings account, but after multiple states have already provided universal ESAs there is room for much improvement in the Texas bills during the session so parents, teachers, and students in Texas aren’t left behind. Also, the Texas House passed a $303 billion budget for the next two years (2024-25) which is above the rate of population growth plus inflation when you exclude tax relief efforts and is a massive increase in appropriations of 21.5% above prior appropriations thereby leaving too little of $12 billion in new property tax relief of the $33 billion available surplus. And finally, Louisiana may have the third most dependency on the federal government with 44% of its budget from federal funds, the path forward is to support increased prosperity by getting the government out of the way (see Pelican Institute’s Comeback Agenda) so more people can get a well-paid job rather than just surviving on safety nets, which can be done in their session that starts on April 10, 2023.
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