The Patriot Post® · A Good Economy Is Bad for Democrats

Fresh off the socialist May Day protests, Hillary Clinton’s hilariously bad socialist/capitalist blame game and a day ahead of Karl Marx’s 200th birthday, there’s some positive news for our lower-taxed, less-regulated, free-market economy.

April saw another 164,000 jobs created, which isn’t fantastic but it’s progress, and the headline unemployment rate dropped to just 3.9%, an 18-year low. The fuller measure of unemployment fell to 7.8%, a 17-year low. Black unemployment hit a new record low of 6.6% — doubly interesting in the midst of the Kanye West controversy. March’s jobs numbers were revised up from 103,000 to 135,000. Government payrolls declined by 4,000. People applying for unemployment benefits for the first time is now at the lowest level since 1973. Wages grew at an unimpressive 2.6% annualized rate, which bewilders experts, but according to the Employment Cost Index, first-quarter wages grew at the fastest pace in 11 years. That would be prior to the Democrat-caused financial collapse of 2008 for those keeping score.

The lone dark cloud was that unemployment dropped in part because more people aren’t even looking for work. As Reuters reports, “236,000 people dropped out of the labor force. The labor force participation rate, or the proportion of working-age Americans who have a job or are looking for one, fell to 62.8 percent from 62.9 percent in March.” That said, job growth can’t help but slow when the labor market is at essentially full employment.

Meanwhile, the Commerce Department recently announced its estimate for first-quarter GDP growth of 2.3%, which is better than expected. Of course, Americans who rely on nightly newscasts didn’t hear about that good news. Other news organizations spun it in a negative light for President Donald Trump.

And that right there is the key. A lot of the Leftmedia churn undermines consumer confidence, and the economy is all about confidence. To the extent Democrats — with the help of their Leftmedia allies — can erode confidence in the administration, the more they undermine the economy. The trick is for Republicans to hammer home the message of tax cuts, deregulation and a growing economy.