The financial punditry class are befuddled, confused and perplexed. The Bureau of Labor and Statistics released the November jobs report [data here] showing a six figure miss from expectations.  Economists were expecting around 535,000 additional jobs; however, the U.S. added only 210,000 jobs according to the new data.

The situation itself is not that difficult to understand when you look at Main Street.  However, so many of the professional punditry class are confused because they only focus on the Wall Street economy, their only prism of reference for the last several decades.

Americans are preparing, cutting back and hunkering down from the Hurricane that is Joe Biden’s inflation.

Inside the jobs numbers, you will note the areas where consumer spending contraction first hits: retail, luxury, leisure and hospitality, is the area where November employment was flat or jobs were lost.   DUH!

The ‘retail sectorlost 20,000 jobs in November.  Think about that.  What usually happens in November?  People are hired to handle holiday seasonal shopping…. but they weren’t… why not?  The professional economic punditry cannot figure it out, so they avoid those questions entirely.  Those questions hold the key to unlocking the understanding.  Does the “pretending not to know things” ring familiar?

The damn jobs report is simply reflecting how Main Street USA workers, consumers, spenders and survivors live when gasoline, energy and food costs necessarily skyrocket.  The November employment results are a reflection of the blue collar prepper mindset.  This is not hard to figure out.   As long as inflation continues to hit items that cannot be avoided, at a level that is two to five times the rate of wage growth, decisions are made that are based on checkbook economics.

The cognitive dissonance is quite remarkable look:

(Via MSM) –  The employment situation last month wasn’t what experts expected.   There were only 210,000 nonfarm payroll jobs added in November, coming in below the median estimate of 550,000 from economists surveyed by Bloomberg. This comes after October’s gain of over half a million, at 546,000.

Employment in leisure and hospitality was struck hard by the pandemic, and has been slowly making its way back. The industry still has a lot of ground to make up; it’s 1.3 million below pre-pandemic employment, as hiring dramatically slowed last month.

After two months of job gains of over 100,000, leisure and hospitality saw a gain of just 23,000. Instead, leading the way in November’s gains was the professional and business services industry, with 90,000 jobs. 

The pandemic may continue to play a role in hiring in the leisure and hospitality industry, according to Daniel Zhao, a senior economist at Glassdoor.

“I think what’s going on here is that the Delta wave is lingering. Even though there has been improvement in the public health situation, cases are still elevated — if not rebounding,” Zhao said. “That has a disproportionate impact on COVID-sensitive industries like leisure and hospitality and retail.”   But it could also be that people don’t want to work in such a low-wage industry. (read more)

They’re still blaming COVID, as if the virus is the explanation to justify all of Joe Biden’s massively failing policies.

Inflation is being fueled by legislative spending, monetary policy, fiscal policy, economic policy and Build Back Better.  Inflation is the unavoidable Hurricane bearing down upon us…..

The American middle class worker is prepping, boarding up the windows, bringing in their family, preparing to survive this storm and hunkering down.  It really is that simple.

I hope that metaphor helps explain the November jobs report.

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