A soft landing or curate’s egg? – Michael Roberts
“The world economy is now stuck in what the IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva called the ‘tepid twenties’. The World Bank economists reckon that the global economy is on track for ‘its worst half-decade of growth in 30 years.”…
“Much is made of the low unemployment rate and net growth in jobs in the US. Officially, the US economy added 272K jobs in May 2024, the most in five months. But the unemployment rate rose to 4% in May. And all the net rise in jobs comes from part-time work. Part-time jobs rose 286k in May, but full-time jobs fell 625k. Indeed, in the last 12 months, full-time jobs have shrunk by 1.1m while part-time jobs rose 1.5m. After taking into account inflation, real weekly earnings are still some 7% below where they were four years ago and have been flat in the last year. As a result, the number of Americans doing multiple jobs hit 8.4m in May, rise of 3m since 2020. It needs two jobs to make ends meet. So the US economy is not shooting along as the mainstream pundits claim. The acceleration in growth in 2023 seems to be over…
“Mainstream economists continue to claim that the major economies have achieved a ‘soft landing’ and things are now on an even keel. But a recent survey found that 56% of Americans thought the US was in a recession and 72% thought inflation was rising. Economists like Paul Krugman reckon European and American households seem to be ‘out of touch’. But who is really out of touch? American households or the expert economists?”
Why Trump’s Tariff Proposals Would Harm Working Americans – Peterson Institute