As a complementary commentary to my print article in the previous post, the following recent hourly Alternative Visions radio show addresses the hype in mainstream media that emerging inflation is caused by ‘too much money’ provided to households by the various fiscal spending programs, passed and pending by the Biden administration. As in the preceding print article, the argument here is inflation is a Supply side problem, not the result of excess demand due to middle and working class household spending fueled by stimulus checks and over-generous unemployment benefits.
TO LISTEN TO THE SHOW GO TO:
https://alternativevisions.podbean.com/e/alternative-visions-inflation-myths-april-jobs-report/
SHOW ANNOUNCEMENT:
Dr. Rasmus addresses the rising chorus from conservative politicians, media, and ‘paid for’ economists that the Fiscal stimulus bills being proposed ($1.8T American Rescue Plan, $2.2T American (Infrastructure) Jobs Plan, and $1T American Families Plan) will soon overheat the US economy and cause rapid rise in inflation. What are the actual forces driving/not driving prices today in 2021? What’s wrong with the way the US government estimates inflation? Why does it underestimate it in order to overestimate real GDP growth? Why are the government’s methodology for estimating inflation kept a ‘secret’ from the public? Dr. Rasmus also comments on today’s Labor Dept. Jobs Report that missed forecasts of jobs created in April by more than 1 million. What’s going on? And what about that phony argument that workers are getting too much unemployment benefits, causing them to refuse to return to work at poverty level minimum wages ($7.25/hr. or $2.13/hr. for restaurant workers). Check out Dr. Rasmus’s latest print publication, “US 1st Quarter GDP: Recovery or Just Another Rebound’, at http://jackrasmus.com.
Dr. Jack Rasmus @drjackrasmus
Jack Rasmus 
I enjoyed the weekly podcast, employment and inflation, one hour, easy listening. Yesterday, 5.28.21, I went looking for the unemployment rate. The NJFAC.org puts it at 12.9%. Then I remembered the Census’ Household Pulse Survey, and I left this long comment at the National Jobs for All Coalition site. It’s relevant here, though it’s long. The very last item is weekly unemployment claims for April 2021, high at 15,379,000. My long comment:
I just looked today, May 28, 2021, at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities update (dated 5.28.21) on the U.S. Census’ Household Pulse Survey, (sometimes referred to as “weekly”) ending May 10, 2021. Grim, as I expected.
A quote stands out: “Some 25 million people either met the official definition of “unemployed” (meaning they actively looked for work in the last four weeks or were on temporary layoff) or lived with an unemployed family member in March. This figure includes over 6 million children.” I assume only one person per household is responding to the survey, and taking out the retired 65-and-over households, 25 million (households) is about 22% of households (or 19% if senior households are included).
And “When family members are considered, some 35 million people in March, including close to 9 million children, lived in a family where at least one adult did not have paid work in the last week because of unemployment or the pandemic, we estimate.” Excluding retired population, that would be 12.5% of population. But 35 million is also 22% of the work force.
And, the last, “Some 62 million adults — 27 percent of all adults in the country — reported it was somewhat or very difficult for their household to cover usual expenses in the past seven days, according to data collected April 28–May 10.”
As there are around 130 million households, that 62 million adult figure could represent 47% of all households. The ALICE report from United Way charity reports (On Uneven Ground, Dec. 2020) they expect around 50% of U.S. households to be classified as experiencing material hardship, unable to pay for seven basic expenses. This “27% percent of adults” is an improvement from the January report from CBPP, reporting on an October 2020 Pulse Survey, when it was 31%.
The portion who worry excessively is still over 50% of those who responded (the survey on Food, Table 4).
The report also states that 56% of the job loss occurred to workers in low-income jobs, about a third of all “jobs” (but I didn’t find the criteria for low-income). 22 million jobs were lost in March-April 2020, and 12.6 million restored yet 9.4 million are still lost in April 2021 (BLS data). Most of job recovery, ⅔ of restored employment happened May thru August, only about ⅓ from September to April.
The actual-most-last: “15,379,000” number receiving jobless claims in U.S., that would be about 9% of work force.
All from Center for Budget and Policy Priorities,
https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/tracking-the-covid-19-recessions-effects-on-food-housing-and
One small mistake, it should read: “But 35 million (minus 9 million children = 26 million adults) represents 20% of all U.S. households.”
Just one addendum to your excellent comment and contribution to discussion: Added to the 15.3m still on unemployment benefits, and obviously unemployed, should be another at least 4m who dropped out of the workforce and are also jobless, although many have given up looking for work. Then there’s the likely 2m or so who have been incorrectly categorized by the labor dept. as ‘not working but expect to be recalled’ and thus not jobless per the labor dept. The labor dept. has acknowledged this error, begun back in March 2020, but has refused to do any adjustment to the unemployed figures despite it. We’re still over 20m without work.