Tag: economic recovery

Minnesota Senators Pass Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund Bill

The Center Square
Eric Pratt of Minnesota

A bill to repay Minnesota’s federal Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund passed the Senate Monday and it will now travel to the House for consideration.

The bill, SF 2677, appropriates $2.3 billion from the state fiscal recovery federal fund and $408.5 million from the fiscal year 2022 general fund to the commissioner of employment and economic development. 

The commissioner would repay the federal government outstanding loans and accrued interest within 10 days of the bill’s enactment. For the 2022 and 2023 calendar years, the base tax rate would be one-tenth of one percent.

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Biden’s Approval Rating Tanks Again in Latest Poll

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Joe Biden

President Joe Biden’s approval rating has declined to 50%, its lowest level since he took office, the latest Associated Press-NORC poll showed.

While 50% of Americans approved of Biden’s job performance, 49% disapproved, according to the AP poll released Friday. The survey — conducted between Sept. 23-27 — showed the president’s approval rating declining to 85% among Democrats, 38% among Independents and 11% among Republicans, each category’s lowest level of Biden’s presidency.

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Gov. Whitmer to Spend $15.6 Million on Economic Recovery

The Center Square
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity (LEO) announced grants totaling more than $15.6 million to help get Michigan back to work. 

The government awarded Michigan Learning and Education Advancement Program (MiLEAP) grants to 10 groups who will help support individuals who are dislocated, underemployed, essential workers, living in distressed rural and urban communities, or economically disadvantaged.

“My administration is committed to uplifting Michiganders whose economic security has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic,” Whitmer said in a statement. “By providing grants to help people make the move from education or training programs to good-paying, high-skill jobs, we can ensure all Michiganders thrive as we continue our economic jumpstart. The Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity and their Regional Consortia partners will help people get back on their feet and take the next step on their path to financial security.”

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Job Creators Network President Alfredo Ortiz Slams Biden for Taking Credit for Economic Recovery

Cooper Moran

After the monthly jobs report was released on Friday, President Joe Biden attempted to take a victory lap, claiming to be the cause of the increase in available positions.

However, many individuals such as the Job Creators Network President and CEO Alfredo Ortiz criticized Biden for claiming credit for the economic recovery and highlighted that the unemployment rate increased despite the added jobs.

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Michigan Business Leaders Expect Robust Economic Recovery, Return to Partial In-Person Work

The Center Square
Man in business suit walking on crosswalk in city

Michigan’s business leaders anticipate robust growth in the state’s economy within the next year.

They also plan a return to in-person office work in the 3rd and 4th quarters of 2021, according to a quarterly economic survey completed by Business Leaders for Michigan.

Approximately 92% of survey respondents say the state’s economy will likely remain strong and growing during the next six to 12 months.

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Commentary: Joe Biden, Economy Killer

RealClearWire
President Joe Biden

Along with a working vaccine, Joe Biden inherited a V-shaped economic recovery, but he is now planting the seeds of its destruction. Inflation, federal deficits, high taxes, incentives for workers to stay home, and incentives to avoid investment – they’re all coming back. Together, these elements create the perfect brew for a Lyndon Johnson-style stagflation. If Biden and the Democrats so quickly wreck the good economic path they were given, it will be one of the worst examples of government malpractice in U.S. economic history. 

In the first, dark days of the COVID-19 national economic shutdown last spring, there was a clear need for major stimulus. Both parties united to pass an effective and much-needed response. 

The U.S. gross domestic product saw a 33.4% surge in the July-September third quarter of 2020, after plunging 31.4% in the April-June second quarter. The economy continued to grow at a 4% rate in the fourth quarter, and the stock market (despite COVID) ended 2020 with the S&P 500 index up 16% for the year as a whole. 

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Trump Touts Economic Recovery After Vaccine and Law and Order at Lansing Rally

The Center Square

Seven days before the 2020 election, President Donald Trump visited Lansing — the capital of a major battleground state and the home turf of Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Hundreds of Michiganders lined up at the Capital Region International Airport starting about 8 a.m. Tuesday waiting in 32-degree weather and rain for seven hours until Trump started talking about 3 p.m.

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Recovery Continues, Economy Should be Back to Peak in Fourth Quarter

Admin

The rapid recovery from the lockdown continues. Economic reports from September indicate the economy has rebounded to 97 percent of its peak reached this past February. The surge in new orders for both manufacturing and service companies points to further gains in the months ahead.

These gains should bring the economy’s output and spending (GDP) back to its prior peak during the fourth quarter of the year.

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Commentary: Economic Recovery Continues as 3.7 Million Jobs Added in August

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The U.S. economy added another 3.7 million jobs in the month of August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ household survey of Americans reporting they have jobs, bringing the total up to 13.8 million jobs that have been recovered since labor markets bottomed in April, something almost nobody but President Donald Trump was predicting.

At the worst of the coronavirus recession, as many as 25 million jobs were lost by April, and now more than half of those jobs have been regained, as a V-shaped recovery has clearly formed.

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Think Tank Calls for Ohio Government to Take Common-Sense Measures to Fight Coronavirus and Aid in Economic Recovery

Jason M. Reynolds

A new policy brief lays out actions that Ohio policymakers can immediately implement so Ohio can fight and yet recover from the coronavirus pandemic, and it doesn’t involve unilaterally moving primaries or shutting down businesses.

The Buckeye Institute released the brief on Monday.

The brief, Policy Solutions for the Pandemic: How Ohio Can Fight the Impact of Coronavirus, is available here.

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Great Economic News Bedevils Trump Detractors

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by Rick Manning   The incredibly positive economic data that keeps coming out from both private and public sector sources leads to one overriding question: Will the Trump economic detractors ever get tired of being wrong? Over the course of the past six months, we have heard how tariffs against the Chinese would be passed along to the consumers in higher prices — yet the just released inflation data from the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that last month the Consumer Price Index increased a seasonally adjusted 0.2 percent for all items with the past six months showing a paltry 0.8 percent increase for all items. The Federal Reserve target for inflation growth is 2 percent per annum and the past six months are tracking twenty percent below that target. This is great news for the U.S. economy. Particularly when paired with BLS wage data which shows that wages have risen faster than inflation over the past year.  Here is what the BLS report says: “Real average hourly earnings increased 0.2 percent, seasonally adjusted, from August 2017 to August 2018. The change in real average hourly earnings combined with the 0.3-percent increase in the average workweek resulted in a 0.5-percent increase in real…

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