The Patriot Post® · Democrats Win, Economy Loses Jobs

Well, that didn’t take long. The first month after a contentious election gave us what eventually became total Democrat control of Washington, the economy lost jobs for the first time since April. Employers cut 140,000 positions, while the headline unemployment rate stayed put at 6.7%.

“Friday’s figures from the Labor Department depict a sharply uneven job market, with losses concentrated among restaurants, bars, hotels and entertainment venues, many of them affecting low-income employees, while most other sectors are still adding workers,” reports the Associated Press. “Restaurants, bars, hotels, casinos, movie theaters and other entertainment venues shed nearly 500,000 jobs.” All told, the economy has recovered only a little more than half of the jobs lost, and “the nation has nearly 10 million fewer jobs than it did before the pandemic sent it into a deep recession.”

Fixating on “the pandemic” is an innocuous way of avoiding putting the blame squarely where it belongs — primarily Democrat governors, mayors, and county executives who have shut down or severely restricted many businesses for months. We can’t recall 15 days ever lasting so long. And a nation weighed down for 10 months by lockdowns, mask mandates, and limits to gathering sizes is still seeing record cases and deaths.

Democrats are hurting low-income workers, all while filling the pockets of “big box” retailers like Amazon and Walmart. (Centibillionaire socialist Amazon owner Jeff Bezos thanks you for your business.) Nevertheless, according to the AP, it is Democrats who will save us: “The incoming Biden administration, along with a now fully Democratic-led House and Senate, is also expected to push more rescue aid and spending measures that could accelerate growth.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told us who will primarily benefit from that spending: Democrat union constituencies. She said, “We will finally pass the robust relief that our state and local heroes — our healthcare workers; first responders; transit, sanitation and food workers; and our teachers, our teachers, our teachers — need to keep our communities healthy, safe, and working.”

And Joe Biden said identity politics will be determinative: “Our priority will be Black, Latino, Asian, and Native American owned small businesses, women-owned businesses, and finally having equal access to resources needed to reopen and rebuild.”

One notable takeaway from the last 10 months is that the economy may be fundamentally and permanently changed. Will some of the lost jobs ever return? Unlikely, because consumer habits are so altered. On the other hand, with online commerce becoming even more a part of people’s lives, hundreds of thousands of new jobs catering to that reality may be here to stay.

In any case, assuming Democrats relent and don’t do too much further damage (that’s a BIG assumption), many economic forecasts that factor in a COVID vaccine becoming more widely distributed and used say 2021 will see jobs created in numbers not seen since the post-World War II boom. Just in time for President Joe Biden to take all the credit.