The Biden-Harris administration got the jobs report it asked for on the eve of the election after the Federal Reserve broke longstanding tradition and cut interest rates by 50 basis points to juice the economy.
More than 250,000 jobs were created in September, and the unemployment rate fell to 4.1%.
But can Americans trust the numbers? The government has downwardly revised its job numbers so often that onlookers should take this pre-election report from the Harris administration with a heavy dose of salt.
Even still, the jobs report is not all rosy. More than 40% of new jobs created were in the government or quasi-government healthcare and social services sectors. Manufacturing jobs declined.
Five hundred thousand more Americans are unemployed versus this time last year. And the number of multiple jobholders reached a new high as Americans struggle with the cost-of-living crisis.
For a better reflection of the labor market and economy, talk to ordinary small business owners, who are shedding jobs, not creating them. Small businesses are facing a severe cash flow shortage as consumers are tapped out, with credit card debt at a record high.
“Main Street is struggling,” says Adam Morris, the owner of Your Brother’s Bookstore in Evansville, Indiana.
“People just don’t have money to spend on wants,” said Evansville comic-book store owner, Jeff Osborne, in a representative comment I hear from small businesses daily. “They don’t even have money to spend on what they need from day to day right now.”
“For the middle class, it’s terrible,” Osborne continues. “People are going to stay at home more. They’re gonna eat at home more. There’s going to be a lot of mom-and-pop restaurants folding in the coming months.”
A Kamala Harris presidency would be a final blow for small business owners barely hanging on. Consider this week’s port strike as a coming attraction of the labor strife that would define her presidency.
The longshoremen and the shippers came to a temporary deal Thursday night following immense pressure by the Harris administration concerned about the strike hurting her polling.
The shutdown of ports from Boston to Houston would have done severe damage to the economy, including the rebuilding from Hurricane Helene, where one million remain without power, and downstream small businesses in warehousing, trucking, and across Main Street.
Major strikes like this one would become commonplace under a Harris administration. Harris supports radical labor legislation known as the Pro Act, which will forcibly unionize countless small businesses and empower unions to strike continuously, paralyzing the economy.
For years, Democrats have based their economic agenda around stronger unions (and even some on the new right have parroted this message). It sounds good in theory, but the port strike gave the American people a front-row seat of what extortionate union demands look like in practice. This episode should be a wake-up call for policymakers and commentators supporting unions over small businesses.
More broadly, Harris supports inflationary spending, tax hikes, and business regulations that make it harder for entrepreneurs to hire, raise wages, and expand. She wants to raise taxes by a record $5 trillion and let the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expire. She wants to take away Americans’ gas-powered vehicles, including small businesses’ work trucks and delivery vans.
No wonder JCN’s latest national poll finds small business owners support former President Donald Trump over Harris by 30%.
All Americans should join small businesses and focus on Harris and Trump’s records while in office, not their rhetoric on the campaign trail — or the government’s election-eve jobs numbers.
Alfredo Ortiz is CEO of Job Creators Network, author of “The Real Race Revolutionaries,” and co-host of the Main Street Matters podcast.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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